Book Review Tuesday: Anna Dress in Blood

Summary according to Goodreads.com

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

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping 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.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life


Review:
 I'm not a HUGE fan of ghost romances, it seems to be destined to end badly,  although The Ghost and the Goth is one of my all time favorite series.   That being said, this book was awesome.  I didn't want to stop reading this book.  Cas was a completely likeable character, well developed too.  But it's the secondary characters where the book really shines. Carmel and Thomas prove to be glue that binds the whole book. 


The writing is stunning, my only complaint would be that I don't know how believable it is that a teenage boy thinks THAT beautifully. 


I already put the sequel on my goodreads list.  I can't WAIT UNTIL AUGUST 7 for Girl of Nightmares.


10 out of 10

Book review Tuesday: The Fault in Our Stars

Book Review Tuesday:

The Fault in Our Stars

Summary from Goodreads.com 

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.
 

At this point, everyone who is going to read this book has already been told to read this book.
It’s on the New York Times Bestseller List.  It’s been on like every blog.  It’s got billions of 5 star reviews.  In a word it’s perfect.

So here’s the thing, The Fault in Our Stars was my reward for finishing my revisions on Penny and Hank.  I spent three weeks avoiding all spoilers.  I knew four people IRL who read the book and asked me “Did you read it yet?” and every day I had to say, ‘no.’

I finished it in two days.

It was everything everyone had promised.

But I had a totally different reading experience than everyone else.  

My cousin had the same form of cancer as Gus Waters does in the book.

For a girl who spent the last three weeks of her life avoiding spoilers... my own life was a spoiler.

I cried.  

Not just for the characters and the pain they suffered but for my cousin who I didn’t know as well as these fictional teenagers.  

And when the book concluded it got me thinking, what makes a good book?

Is it the plot?  (admittedly Fault in Our Stars, doesn’t shine as much as Paper Towns)
Is it the characters?
or is the the emotional impact on the reader?  

And I’m still at a loss.  

Obviously the book is wonderful and I give it 9.6 out of 10.

Book review Tuesday: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

From Goodreads:

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?


My reaction:
I have to say it was a slow start for me.  Maybe because I was at my daughter's dance class when I started reading it.  But the only reason I stuck it out was because it was one EVERYONE's BEST OF 2011 list. 

SO GLAD I DID!


WOW.  The language was stunning.  The story was perfectly crafted.  I did figure out the the plot twist pretty early on, but I didn't mind at ALL.   It didn't take away from the story or the reading experience.   


Karou was a fully formed and fascinating character.   Akiva was yummy with the emo angst that makes him so appealing.  


There were a few minor plot points that weren't fully fleshed out, but the book was the first in a series and maybe those ideas will appear later on. 


I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. 
9.5 out of 10. 


Have you read Daughter of Smoke and Bone?  What did you think of it?



On a personal note: today is my daughter's 4 birthday.  Happy Birthday kiddo.