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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  WilowRaven | Nov 10, 2009 |  Kaye, is an aimless high school dropout whose possibly alcoholic mother moves from place to place with whatever band she happens to be in at the moment. When her mom's boyfriend attacks her mom, they move back to New Jersey to live with her grandmother, where she grew up. While reconnecting with grade school friends, she misses her other friends, the faeries who were her playmates as a little girl. It isn't long before strange things start to happen to her, and she begins to find out the strange history of the world of Faerie and her own story. Kaye is a likeable enough heroine, and there were aspects of this story that were interesting. It didn't have a lot of substance to it, and was not especially ground-breaking or well-written. After being underwhelmed by the Spiderwick Chronicles, I probably should not have expected more from this, but I did hope, after all the rave reviews, that it would be something special. Finally, as something of a side note, I am not someone who believes YA should be totally sanitized, and everybody likes a bad girl, right? However, I thought this novel unnecessarily glamorized smoking/excessive drinking/blase attitude to sex/dropping out of school. I'm not moralistically uncomfortable with it, it just seemed to be trying a little too hard to be edgy, without the realism that would have made everything a bit more compelling. (  ) heidialice | Oct 26, 2009 | meh (  ) rampaginglibrarian | Oct 10, 2009 | Holly Black stabs at the dark heart of faerie and delivers a realm to readers that is both enticing, addictive, and macabre. "Tithe" is a black carnival of treats where the crimson candy apple you're sucking on has a razor sweet surprise hidden in its very core. Black's unvarnished portrayal of misfit Kaye Fierch as today's disaffected youth is successful and realistic. Finding herself in the middle of a chaotic faerie turf war and questioning her own murky origins, she embarks on an otherworldly quest that straddles light and dark. At her side, a bloodthirsty knight named Roiben sworn to serve the Unseelie, and Corny her best friend, must brave the obstacles that pit them against the dark Unseelie queen Nicnevin and the Seelie queen Silarial. Without the "Tithe" to keep the solitary fey in check, Kaye and her conspirators tip a ruthless power struggle into the real world. This gloaming realm of viscous pixies, satyrs, dwarves and the like is compellingly tasty down to the very last red drop.Copyright(c)Nicola Mattos (  ) nickeemattos | Oct 4, 2009 | This was a very interesting book. After seeing Pan's Labyrinth this book totally fave me a new thought of fairies. AIa had read blurbs from books with evil fairies, but this is really cool. Then this had also made me think of a part in The Labyrinth that had David Bowie in it, the part where the fairy bites the girl and says she thought they were supposed to be nice. GREAT BOOK! LOVED IT! (  ) -AlyssaE- | Sep 21, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0689867042, Paperback)Sixteen-year-old Kaye Fierch is not human, but she doesn't know it. Sure, she knows she's interacted with faeries since she was little--but she never imagined she was one of them, her blond Asian human appearance only a magically crafted cover-up for her true, green-skinned pixie self. First-time author Holly Black explores Kaye's self-discovery and dual worlds in her riveting, suspenseful novel Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale. The book has its faults: it slips into shock-value mode; the descriptions are often overwritten (sunset on the water looks like the sun slit his wrists in a bathtub); the language is overly, unnecessarily explicit; and the writing often unpolished. Still, the story's pull is undeniable, and readers under its spell will be hard-pressed to put the book down.The novel begins in a bar in Philly, where Kaye's alcoholic rock-singer mother's boyfriend tries to kill her. For their own safety, mother and daughter quickly move back to grandma's on the New Jersey shore where Kaye grew up. This ugly turn of events was all rigged by the Faerie world, as it turns out, a world Black describes in deliciously vivid, if rather overblown, detail. Kaye, a drinking, smoking, foul-mouthed high school dropout in the land of mortals, soon finds herself embroiled--as a human sacrifice, no less--in a battle between Faerieland's Seelie and more malevolent Unseelie courts. The beautiful, mysterious knight Roiben, torn between worlds himself, falls in love with Kaye--the brave, clever changeling--against his better judgment. Throughout the electrifying journey to the horrific underworld of this modern faerie fantasy, teen readers will relate to a hard-luck tough girl who feels alienated, discovers her best qualities in the worst of circumstances, and finally finds a place between worlds where she can feel at home. (Ages 13 and older) --Karin Snelson (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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I really enjoyed the variety of characters - Kaye's crazy mother and overbearing grandmother - Cory, her best friend's gay brother who turns out to be a unlikely friend, of course there is beautiful and dangerous Roiben and The Thiselwitch who I found fascinating.
The first in a series, I'm curious to see where it goes. I have to say, I think I liked Tithe just a bit more then Wicked Lovely. The world of faerie that Black created just appeals to me more. Theirs is a world that exists besides ours but could exist on it's own. I always felt like Marr's fairy world was too dependent on reality - if that makes any sense at all :)
I would recommend this one to anyone who likes a good fairy fantasy story. (