Cas Lowood, armed with his late father’s athame knife, kills ghosts. In Thunder Bay, Anna, forever 16, drips blood on her white dress from throat slit in 1958, and rips apart anyone who enters her house – except Cas. He makes new friends – high school queen Carmel, jock Will, admiring nerd Thomas and Tom’s voodoo grandpa Morfran – to fight this demon.
First I want to say that I really liked this book. It had great horror, the ghosts were awesome, and there’s a hint that the world has an even darker image than what Cas Lowood had thought. What I really wanted more of this book though was Anna. I love the death Goddess side of her and I wish there was more to it, though I love how painful and secretive her death was.
I love how Cas, the “Let’s use people for the better good” kind of character, finds his humanity in the midst of Anna’s mystery. Carmel is awesome. Thomas is adorable. The characters are well written and I wouldn’t want that changed.
What I would want changed is the speed of the book. The book is basically separated in two mysteries and though it’s a cool way of doing it, I would have loved more conflict with Cas and Anna as a separate book and maybe the second half as a second book. I also feel that Cas’s father’s mysterious death seems a bit too simple. I really wish Kendare Blake wrote more on that. Granted, there is a second book so maybe I’m just getting ahead of myself.
The book is dark and has teenagers talking like teenagers. I understand why most YA books don’t have cuss words, but when I was in high school, the F-bomb was a common occurance. Granted, it usually came out of my mouth, but it was still used. This book feels like a teenager. And I love that.
I plan on reading the second book soon. I hope there’s more revealed.
Casia's Corner 