Book Review: Anna Dressed in Blood

Book: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author: Kendare Blake

Recommend: It was a good ghost story, except for the language and witchcraft…

I enjoy a good ghost story. I don’t believe in ghosts but a good ghost story is always sends a fun chill down my spine. I picked this up expecting exactly that. While the ghost story was great, Anna was chilling and compelling, I got distracted by the foul language and witchcraft that showed up in this story.

Cas is a ghost hunter for lack of a better term just like his father before him. When he hears about Anna dressed in blood who violently kills anyone who crosses the threshold to her childhood home, he decides that she is going to be his next target. What he didn’t expect was that Anna didn’t want to kill him.

This book uses a lot of witchcraft and I’m not talking the fantasy kind. It really just got in the way of the story for me. I really don’t like to read books that include real Wicca or Wiccan practices. I’m also not a big fan of reading about Voodoo. This book has both.

The language in this book is far to frequent and severe for a book aimed at younger audience. Personally when I encounter this much swearing in a book, it makes me doubt the author’s ability in a way because they can’t seem to come up with an effective way to communicate emotion without resorting to the vulgar.

While the ghost was amazing, the rest of the story made it a drag.

Final Rating:

TRASH IT!!

Book Review: Not exactly a Zombie book.

Book: Zombie

Author: J.R. Angelella

The idea behind the book was very compelling. It reminded me of the song, “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent. How exactly do you measure your time in a year. what are your milestones? For the main character of this book, his milestones are Zombie movies. It was a great concept. Each section was divided by different movies and the experience of watching each one was discussed in the chapter. Great concept and it had great potential. So I decided to pick up the advanced copy through net galley. I started reading and almost immediately regretted my choice. However, since this was an ARC, I had to complete the book and write a review on it since I am so new at this process.

I didn’t enjoy this book because it was just a bit too honest for my tastes. The language was horrible and almost constant. I don’t freak out about a few swear words but this was excessive and complete distracting. The author did not edit the mind of this high school Freshmen either. The reader had to experience every single inappropriate thought he had and it never seemed to let up.The last thing I want to think about is the mind of a teenage boy with no filter. I find material like this obnoxious. Most readers are intelligent. They know that the thought life of most teenage boys is not exactly clean, however knowing and having to read every thought is two very different things. In addition to the crude material and excessive language, the family was completely messed up, which got you feeling bad for the character for a second, until his thoughts made you repulsed by him again. The massive hypocrisy of the Catholic school experience was incredibly distasteful and just plain disrespectful. In addition, the ending of this book was extremely shocking and rather grotesque. This reminded me of a cheaper, more crude version of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye without any redeeming qualities except for the interesting structure.

This book will be released June 5, 2012. This is not a book I would recommend to anyone. If it hadn’t been an ARC, I wouldn’t have even written a review for this one.

Final Rating:

BURN IT!!!!