[Review] Kendare Blake - Anna Dressed in Blood

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood (Goodreads)
Series: Anna #1
Author: Kendare Blake
Publisher: Tor Teen
Published: October 2011
ISBN: 0765328658
Pages: 320
Rating: 5/5 stars
Format: ebook
Start: 7 November 2015
Finish: 20 November 2015

Synopsis:
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

Review: 
Ever since October I had the desire to read something creepy. So I picked A Tale Dark & Grimm at that month. Then I wanted to read a dualogy. So I picked this book up and I loved it!

"Having no choice doesn't seem fair," she says, seeming to read my mind. "But having all of them isn't really easier. When I was alive, I could never decide what I wanted to do, what I wanted to become. I loved to take pictures; I wanted to take pictures for a newspaper. I loved to cook; I wanted to move to Vancouver and open a restaurant. I had a million different dreams but none of them was stronger than the rest. In the end they probably would have paralyzed me. I would have ended up here, running the boarding house."

I can't really remember the last time I read a horror story. It's either Bram Stoker's Dracula or The Ring back when I was in high school. I still remembered my experience at that time, though. Being afraid to turn off the light when I'm about to sleep but excited every time I get back to read the story. That's exactly what I felt when I was reading this book.

I've seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth, the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can't forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.

I can't say much about the details of this book because I started to forget them. This is what I remembered:

1. The story line is great. I like how the story started and I really really loved the ending of this book. It broke my heart in a good way.
2. So many twists in this book. So many things happened that I didn't see coming. I still love those aspects of this book, though.
3. Cas and his friends are such great people. I really like watching their characters grow in this book.

I can't pick the next book in the series right away because I'm still a little bit overwhelmed with the story in this book. One thing for sure: I love this book and I enjoy Kendare Blake's writing style, too :)