Customer Reviews

Tithe: A Modern Faeire Tale

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"After all, when you were already in a slippery place, reality-wise, you couldn't afford to assume that things would be straightforward from here on in." - from Tithe, page 124

Sixteen year old Kaye has always known she was a little different from everyone else. When other little girls were playing with Barbies, she was playing with faeries in her backyard, creatures she insisted were real but which no one else could see. After a strange incident at one of her mom's gigs, Kaye returns to the home where she spent much of her childhood. And the faeries are back. Kaye finds herself a playing piece in a struggle between two powers, neither of whom has Kaye's interests in mind.

Most of my experience with faerie comes from fairy tales (which I love) and books of squished pixies (which I don't). This book is neither. Dark and unsettling, Tithe draws you into a world where none of the usual rules apply. No one is who they appear to be, and their motives are impossible to define. And the pixies are more likely to squish you.

I thought this book was a bit of a slow starter, but once it got going, I really loved it. Kaye is a high-school dropout who spends all her time working to support her rocker-chick wannabe of a mom... definitely not the type of role model I would want for my daughter. She's extremely likeable nonetheless. The dark parts of this story make the lighter moments shine all the brighter. There's a great romantic component here, as well as themes of friendship and loyalty. Don't go in expecting Cinderella's fairy godmother, and you and this book will get along just fine.

Holly Black's first "Spiderwick" readers aren't little children any more, and it would seem that she intends to grow up her writing in tandem. "Tithe" explores the same world "Spiderwick" did, but with a much darker, sexual, and transformational vision. Typical of the contemporary fairy tale for teens, it follows the standard "edgy" young adult protagonist who skips school, drinks, smokes, and is sexually aware (if not active). However, while Black starts out following in the footsteps of Francesca Lia Block with her rock and roll urban fantasy world, she deviates about mid-way through from her psychadelic predecessor's path, straying more into the world Charles De Lint has been perfecting for the bulk of his writing career. It's not brilliant, but it is fun, and lives up to the press of being a modern "faerie" not fairy tale. The world Black takes us into is definitely the perilous realm, where not everyone necessarily lives happily ever after.

Stories about a girl who finds out she's part/all faerie and becomes enmeshed in that world are a dime a dozen now. But Holly Black first started this trend, with the darkly glittering "Modern Faerie Tales: Tithe" -- a clever, entrancing story that brings a bit of urban grime to the faerie world without sacrificing any of its beauty.

Kaye Fierch has spent years traveling with her mother's rock band, until one night when her mom's boyfriend/guitarist tries to stab her. So with the band broken up, her mom whisks her back to her grandmother's New Jersey house, where Kaye reminisces about some "imaginary faerie friends she had as a child.

But then she encounters Roiben, a wounded faerie knight whose life she saves -- and soon she learns that she is a changeling, who is targeted by the Unseelie Court as a sacrifice ("the sacrifice of a beautiful and talented mortal"). Now on the run with Roiben, she must deal with the faerie world's attacks on the mortal one... including her human friends.

Holly Black is one of the best urban fantasy authors writing today, mainly because her stories truly are urban fantasies -- they combine faerie glitter and ethereality with the grime, wire and subway tunnels of New York and New Jersey. She truly makes you feel as if both the faerie realm and the mortal cities are jumping out at you.

Her writing has a dark, raw beauty, studded with moments of poetry ("Moss and mud slid from its dripping flanks as the thing turned its head to regard Kaye with luminous white eyes"). And she never turns away from the uglier facets of her world -- there are hints of cruelty, madness and heartbreak, as well as the love and persistence in Kaye.

And she writes really, really good characters who run all across the board. Kaye is a very likable, heartfelt heroine -- she's initially a little fey and odd, and she has some painful growing up to do. Roiben is a rather alluring character, being all mystery, bad reputation and unearthly beauty, and you really want to see him get together with Kaye.

"Modern Faerie Tales: Tithe" is the vibrant, haunting story that spawned a thousand "I'm a faerie girl who never knew it!" knockoffs, and like many originals, it's one of the best. Delicious.

For a few years now I have been meaning to go back and read some of Holly Black's earlier works. Both her Spiderwick books and her Modern Faerie Tales were on my TBR (To Be Read) pile, but because they were older books, they kept getting pushed down on my reading list as new titles came across my desk and new authors were discovered. I have no one to blame but myself; I should have known better and read these works much, much earlier. Black shows amazing diversity in her writings and this trilogy is no exception.

Kaye Fierch is an 'Asian Blond' sixteen year old, who spends most of her time in bars with her rocker mom. She doesn't know it yet, but she is not who she thinks she is. She is not even human. She has interacted with faeries since she was young, and even though she was bugged at school and by others, she has always believed in them. Then after returning to her grandmother's home, she rediscovers the other world, and they have a plan to achieve freedom with Kaye's help.

In a world where the faerie and ours overlap much closer than anyone thinks, Black weaves a tale of mystery, deceit, danger and destruction. C.S. Lewis is quoted as stating: "Some say you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." He also states "At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences, but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life', can add to it." Black definitely achieves that in most of her writings and especially in this book. Every time I read something else by Black I am blown away by her skill with the pen.

Like many tales that take place in the realm of the fae, Tithe (as the name would suggest) is a story about a girl in the human world who finds out that she has been chosen as a sort of sacrifice for the faeries. This is a pretty common story, a good one is Hunter's Moon by Melling if you're unfamiliar with the genre, but Black takes this story and gives it a nice little twist.
Here's a quick intro. The story begins with a teenage girl named Kaye who travels around with her rock star mother. She should be in high school but because of all of the moving around her mother has to do, what with being a starving artist, Kaye finds her time better spent working. She has no father to speak of, as she is the product of a one night stand her mother had with a popular Japanese rock star and her mother h been jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend since. After an inexplicable attack on Kaye's mother by her current boyfriend, she and Kaye return to Kaye's grandmother's house, where Kaye lived when she was young. Kaye used to have what people around her would call imaginary friends whom she would talk about all the time, but no one else have ever or could ever see. She also had a school friend when she was a child, Janet, and goes out with her and her friends after she and her mother have settled in. After an odd incident involving an old carnival horse, Kaye runs away from the gathering into the woods, and to add to her current state, she stumbles upon a knight bleeding to death because of an arrow in his side. The knight takes a leaf and smears it with his blood and asks Kaye to put it in the water nearby. She does this in exchange for the night's name. When she puts the leaf in the water it summons a kelpie who takes the knight away. After some soul-searching and some conversations with some old friends, Kaye discovers that she is not as human as she seems. That she is in fact a changeling, and there are those who would like to put that information to use.
I enjoyed this novel. I've seen it around for some time but avoided picking it up because I thought it would be like the new syrupy, poorly written, weak-willed heroine in love with two guys at once, who can't stand up for herself or think for herself trend that seems to be popular with teen books right now in regards to the paranormal genre. I am however happy to report that it is more like The Blue Girl by De Lint than Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. It's an urban faerie tale with echoes of stories past, but changed enough to make it new again. I don't know that I agree with all of the changes or slants given to how the faerie world works' in fact I would have preferred that she make the faerie realm more dangerous. This is a teen novel. It doesn't have to be full of gore or indecency or anything (I mean it is still a teen novel), but I personally would have enjoyed it if there was a little more of the danger I usually associate with the fae. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty suggested evil doings in the unseelie court, but the faerie food, for example, wasn't as bad as older tales describe it. There is none of the pining away until you die or other bad side effects the food may have on mortals, it just knocks you out or gets you drunk for a while. Kind of softening the blow of the danger of faerie. Overall though it's a pretty good book.

I enjoyed this book. The characters were interesting and the story was paced well. However, it's fairly similar to most other books that revolve around the fey. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm kind of a on the look out for a book about the fey that has a unique twist. If anyone knows of any let me know.
This book would be enjoyed by anyone who liked Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr or Need by Carrie Jones.

I loved this book! I couldn't wait the read the second and third books! Mrs. Black combines the Ancient Folk lore of Faeries to how they live in our modern day cities. Brilliant!
Her characters are believable; you get lost in their dilemma as well as the romance and action.
I have recommended this book to others!

Tithe is about Kaye, a faerie. With Halloween not more than a few weeks away, Kaye and her mother suddenly wind up "back home"--her grandmothers house. Her grandmother is definately NOT happy to see Kaye's smoking, dropout self, or her wannabe rockstar singer mother. Still she puts up with them, because they have no where else to go. For Kaye, its something of a homecoming. This is where she grew up, or at least went to grade school. She meets up with her then-best friend Janice, who is now with Kenny. Kenny is popular, and somewhat good looking. Kaye has the whole, im hott for my best friends boyfriend thing going, and she unknowingly casts a be-mine spell on him. But bigger reasons drew her back. Her other childhood friends-Spike and Lutie loo, faeries, need her help. The time for renewing the 7 year tithe is upon them...and they want to break it. The tithe keeps the solitary folk tied to the Unseelie court...something some of them would rather not be. Spike and Lutie enlist Kaye's help. Kaye is supposed to be normal and get chosen for the tithe-which is the sacrifice of one talented and special mortal. Some reward huh? Anyway, Kaye does get chosen, and the book is all about the tithe and the Unseelie and Seelie Courts. Along the way she meets Roiben Rath Rye(?) a siver haired faerie knight. Apparently The Queens of the Unseelie and Seelie Courts had to swap their best knights, and Roiben was the best Seelie. Lucky for him. Kaye kind of falls hard for Roiben, in more ways than one. Janices brother Cornelius also comes into play, they become friends and she trusts him with her faerieness once she finds out. When the time for the tithe rolls around...well, i wouldnt want to spoil the book would I? However I can tell you that this book had me spellbound as soon as I picked it up, and I didnt stop til I was done. It is a very cool book, one that everyone should read. Kaye is very real, not some pristene princess. In fact, most normal people would think she was wierd if they met her. That was one of the things I really liked. Also, it talks about how Kaye feels about the "normal" people, you know like how she feels about Kenny and why she cast the want-me-spell on him. All in all, i definately recomend you read this book.

I was looking through a small Waldenbooks to find a random book. I looked in the Young Adult section and saw a beautiful, brown-black paper-back book with two green wings on the cover, bearing the words "TITHE: A MODERN FAERIE TALE".

As a little girl, I loved fairy tales. I knew I had to have this book. I bought it, went home, and read it.

I was captivated. I couldn't put it down. It was everything a teenager would ever read in a fairy tale nowadays.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It contains sacrifice, love, and having the courage to do what you know is right.

Roiben is hot =D

Where could one begin, reviewing one of the best teen fantasy novels on the market? Perhaps by saying that it indeed is wonderful, is worth your time, and will leave you feeling slightly more "magical" than before.

The truth is, this is not your average fairy tale. The heroine smokes, drinks, cusses, skips school and cheats with her best friend's boyfriend. The fairies don't sing and dance in pleasant circles - they have wars, they torture, and they practice human sacrifice. Horrifying? Hardly. It's this rather morbid, twisted view of things that makes Black's book so riveting. We've all read the cookie cutter fantasy, with queens and dragons and quests for holy grails. Honestly, doesn't the world have enough of that manufactured garbage?

Additionally, the writing style is extraordinary. Clearly, this is a matter of pure opinion, but the crisp and moving descriptions seem evidence enough. The characters are vivid, and most importantly, they're real - this is a genuine teenager, with genuine imperfections and shortcomings. Sure, from the white, upper-class, Christian standpoint, Kaye is probably horrifying. Yet to all those who can see this book's spirit and soul, it truly is ideal.