crime, small town shook by crime wave, and a VAMPIRE all combine to make this a unique and fascinating read, After a string of bizarre murders, a young girl is caught literally redhanded at the scene of the latest killing, but her story is very strange, and she will only tell it to the sheriff's son.
Mysterious without being overly coy, full of details without telling you every single button on everyone's shirt, this is more Anna Dressed in Blood than Three Dark Queens, and I am HERE for it! "Tell the truth and shame the devil.
I always thought that would be easy, But what do you do when the truth that you're faced with also happens to be impossible"
sitelinkAll These Bodies has been one of my most anticipatedreleases since it was first announced.
The fact that it blends a historical aspect with the mystery/horror subject piqued my curiosity, and the first/of the book had me riveted, I think the middle chunk was what really bogged the story down, as it became less about the murders and more about the relationship between Marie and Michael, Once things ramp back up toward the end, there's a brusque "conclusion" that didn't really give me the insight I wanted into what was going on all along, This book might suffer from the "trying to fit too many things into one story and not making any of them great" conundrum, and without a satisfying ending, I couldn't give it more thanstars.
Not exactly sure who to recommend this one to, but I know the right reader is out there, Maybe those who like more of a textbook feel to their serial killer thrillers
Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy, “IN THE VEIN OF ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD” !!! March,: A teen girl accused of a string of horrifying murders confesses her crimes to the sheriff's son Well, I'm here to confess my absolute interest in this book, thank you.
I'm always a sucker for books that challenge the reader to fill in the blanks and, more bravely, challenge the reader to leave some blanks unfilled, to sit with the uncertainty and to figure out if we want the truth or if we want answers that help us make sense of things.
while the latter can seem requisite for a story, stories too can sometimes confuse and serve only the teller as we see so clearly in marie's case, then, we have to ask ourselves if we want answers, really, or if we just want the stories to satisfy some itch, but perhaps the thing that I love most about true crime is that the acts and motives sometimes don't make sense, and the stories shouldn't necessarily be things that feel good or satisfying going down.
in other words, the stories aren't for US, and kendare blake honors that truth perfectly WHAT, A. WASTE. OF. TIME.
Partially, being this disappointed is my own faultI read the blurb once, while adding this book to my toread shelf, which was months ago, Then I proceeded to excitedly expect its publication day, completely forgetting this book:
A, has a male narrator for some reason I rarely enjoy books told from a guy's perspective
B, is set in's I prefer books set in present time
But for the rest I blame the author,
There were whole pageswhole chapters!leading nowhere, I kept reading, hoping to finally get some answers, but I got nothing, Not ONE clear answer to what the heck happened, I couldn't even tell if the story included paranormal elements or not,
So, all in all, the unsatisfying cough lazy cough ending brought down the book I wasnt enjoying all that much to begin with.
stars.
Imagine Leave it to Beaver, but with murder,
Really. Envision this wholesome town on TV, Everything is in black and white, Except the blood and Maries red lips,
Kendare Blake effortlessly captured thissmall town vibe, with all of its pure goodness, barring that one rotten apple stinking it all up,
A string of murders in the Midwest that leaves the victims drained of blood comes to an
unsettling end when a family is killed and a teenage girl, Marie, is found at the scene, covered in the blood from their drained bodies.
She is taken into custody, but refuses to tell her story to anyone other than the local sheriffs son, Michael, But is she telling him the truth No one seems to think so, After all, vampires arent real,
Brimming with thoughtfulness and emotion, All These Bodies is a story of good and bad and that fuzzy line in between, While its largely character driven, with its focus zooming in on the relationship between Michael and Marie, there are plenty of eerie things happening in the background, There is a deliberate ambiguity throughout that allows the reader to consider how a villain is made and what, exactly, it means to be a monster, The graphic descriptions are minimal, as the terror really lies within what people cannot see, understand, or control,
And that ending! I could not have asked for a better one!!
While Ive read Kendare Blakes story contributions to Violent Ends and His Hideous Heart, this was my first experience with one of her novels.
Its been a long time since I was ready to check under the bed, pushing the dust bunnies aside, in search of change to buy an authors entire backlist, but thats what All These Bodies did to me.
Ive already gotten price quotes from my local indie bookstore on many of Blakes older books and Ive preordered her Buffy continuation thats coming out in January, I know its a bold declaration after just one book, but Kendare Blake is absolutely a new favorite author for me! All These Bodies was brilliant and I need more stories like this in my life.
stars.
It's a bit hard to describe how I feel about All These Bodies because my opinions vary from either being disappointed to slightly entertained, And I'm not the only one who feels this way based on the other reviews, If I did have to give my overall thoughts, I would say that I sort of liked it but I wouldn't say it was great, I expected more and sadly I didn't,
All These Bodies is about a teen named Michael living in a town in Minessota where the bordering states have been plagued by mysterious murders where the victims are found with their entire bodies drained of blood.
No suspect has been apprehended until a family in Michael's town is killed and a girl is found at the scene of the crime covered in blood, Michael, who is also an aspiring journalist, is then pulled into helping solve the murders and to see if the girl, Marie Catherine Hale, is the true culprit behind all the murders.
What initially drew me in was that the story takes place in thes and there's a 'vampire' going around killing people, When you think of thes you don't think much about paranormal stuff going on so it was a surprise to see a story with that kind of premise.
The problem is, is that the story doesn't really know what it wants to be sometimes, One minute it's a character analysis and another is about this socalled vampire, Plus its mystery, if you could call it that, left a lot of questions and little to no answers,
I will say that Kendare Blake really put a lot of emphasis on the idea that a girl or any woman isn't capable of committing horrible crimes.
Since it takes place in thes, a lot of people hold onto the belief that a softlooking girl couldn't have killed so many people, And Blake does push back on that idea by saying that women are more than just that, That anyone is capable of doing horrible things,
The mystery of the murders and learning more about Marie was interesting and somewhat enjoyable because of Marie herself, She's very unreliable. You don't know if she's telling the truth or not, or if she's just saying a bunch of white lies, Her ambiguity will be a hit or miss with a lot of people but in my case, I liked it because it made the mystery all the more interesting.
Now, with that being said, the mystery and the vampire aspect of the story, does fall in certain parts, This is a short story, just underpages and it has pacing issues where the mystery is sometimes all over the place, What you'll notice from other reviews is the ending just stops abruptly with no answers and I can say that they're right, It is more of an openended ending but like I said, there are more questions than answers and it will leave you disappointed in you expected something, That's how I felt.
And if I'm being honest, Marie is the only interesting character to stand out amongst everyone else, I never got a clear view of who Michael is I don't even know if the book describes him because I for the life of my cannot imagine what he looks like.
His motives are clear but his lack of characterization makes him feel almost like an empty vessel with only one thing going for him, The same can be said with the other side characters,
At the end of the day, All These Bodies was an OK read that should've had more stuff explained, At best, if you're looking for a short read, then I guess it would be a good book to pick up, But other than that, the experience was just OK, .