rebel_fairy's review against another edition
5.0
After choosing the Darkest Part in the Forest as my first Holly Black book, I decided to look for her first stories in the world of Elfhame - before I read the Folk and Air series. . . I opened the page of Tithe - it sucked me in and spit me out - I loved this story. I enjoyed Kate being weird and didn't understand why everyone thought she was a looney. I didn't mind the foul language or the way they spoke as most teens do, maybe not in front of their parents.
Roiben is super mysterious, hot and strong. I liked Corny's part in the story, it felt that Kaye had made a better friend than Janet.
Roiben is super mysterious, hot and strong. I liked Corny's part in the story, it felt that Kaye had made a better friend than Janet.
amyjo241's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.75
_sarah_reads_'s review against another edition
4.0
i love a good faerie tale. i particularly enjoyed this one because it was dark, but not too dark. and the ending wasn't overly sweet and happy--but just sweet and happy enough. reminds me of _the moorchild_ but for a slightly older audience.
kaitlyn_wren's review against another edition
5.0
i would so buy the next one rn if the chapters website wasn’t down
tms98's review against another edition
3.0
Young adult fantasy was zeer vreemd in het begin van de jaren 2000. Zo ook dus de eerste Faerie trilogie van Holly Black. Er waren zeer interessante ideeën aanwezig, maar ze waren niet helemaal goed uitgewerkt in dit eerste boek. Gezien de "Folk of the Air" trilogie is het duidelijk dat ze beter kan schrijven, en ook meer want dit boek is vrij dun. Desondanks kijk ik uit naar het vervolg van de trilogie!
thebibliobibuli's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
dreamchronicler8's review against another edition
2.0
Felt kind of rushed to me :/ I read it when I was around 12 but I didn't remember any of it and I don't know how because it was all very fantastical... But it felt like the story was just spat out onto the page rather than carefully crafted. I didn't really connect with any of the characters nor did I feel like I was rooting for the romance.
tishreads's review against another edition
2.0
Read it, enjoyed it, don't remember a thing about it.
anybutton's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
moirwyn's review against another edition
5.0
This review originally appeared on my blog, Books Without Any Pictures:
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2018/04/19/tithe-by-holly-black/
Do you ever have one of those books that people have been telling you to read for years and years but just haven’t gotten to yet for no good reason, but then you read it and you love it and you wish you’d read it sooner because you’re totally blown away by how good it is? My sister has been telling me to read Holly Black’s Tithe since it came out (when we were in high school, which by now is ancient history). I finally got around to it this week, and WOW.
The premise is this. Kaye is a high school dropout. Her mother dreams of hitting it big in her band and has moved Kaye around a lot while trying to make it. But it’s pretty clear that no matter how talented her mom is, it just isn’t going to happen. Kaye and her mom move in with her grandma in New Jersey, and that’s when Kaye realizes that the faeries that were her “imaginary friends” growing up are real, and that she’s accidentally gotten herself mixed up in a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. It’s a blend between life in a blue-collar Jersey town and the story of Tam Lin, and it’s wonderful.
There are so many things to love about Tithe that I don’t even know where to start.
This is the kind of story where the teenage protagonist isn’t perfect. Kaye smokes. She drinks. She goes out with her friends and flirts with her friend’s boyfriend. Kaye is kind of lost in life, and it shows. She’s really smart, but she has no direction. And we see her grandma and her mom arguing about parenting, because the mom is so permissive and the grandma thinks that more rules and order will help Kaye in life. But Kaye’s mom is also lost in life. And by the time that the parenting argument happens, Kaye is already immersed in fae politics, which means that she’s got her own priorities which have nothing to do with becoming a human adult. And none of the people Kaye hangs out with (e.g. her friend Janet and Janet’s brother Corny) really have solid life plans. They’re still in the process of finding themselves. It felt real and brutally honest, and closer to the experience of a lot of teens than characters who have everything figured out and are “on the right track.”
Now for the fae. Kaye’s love interest is Robien, a fae whom she helps when she comes across him injured in the wood. But Robien is currently a slave to the queen of the Unseelie court, and because she has his true name, he can be forced to do anything she commands, no matter how awful it might be. The fae in Tithe are inhuman, and normal human morality or behavioral rules don’t really apply to them. They steal mortal babies and swap them out with fae children just for funsies. They can be cruel for no other reason than their own amusement, and they see humans as fragile toys that are far too easy to break. And that doesn’t mean that the fae are evil, either. They’re like forces of nature that operate according to their own rules and culture, a careful system of promises and bargains and exchanging of power that holds their society together. And if you’re an outsider, this means that getting involved with the fae is, in general, a really bad idea, because you’ll have no idea how to navigate their society without eating forbidden fruit or becoming someone’s unwitting slave. But they’re beautiful and seductive as well, so you don’t want to look away. Reading about the fae is utterly fascinating, and I couldn’t get enough of them.
Sometimes when you take a modern setting and introduce supernatural or fairy tale elements, the line between modernity and myth can be jarring (e.g. Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series). But that really wasn’t the case here. The fae are timeless, and can walk in and out of any world with comfort. And following Kae between New Jersey and the faerie courts worked. It felt *right.* The book doesn’t try to make the fae themselves into modern characters, it just introduces them to our world.
I’m a sucker for Tam Lin retellings and interpretations, and Tithe is now one of my all time favorites. Highly recommended.
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2018/04/19/tithe-by-holly-black/
Do you ever have one of those books that people have been telling you to read for years and years but just haven’t gotten to yet for no good reason, but then you read it and you love it and you wish you’d read it sooner because you’re totally blown away by how good it is? My sister has been telling me to read Holly Black’s Tithe since it came out (when we were in high school, which by now is ancient history). I finally got around to it this week, and WOW.
The premise is this. Kaye is a high school dropout. Her mother dreams of hitting it big in her band and has moved Kaye around a lot while trying to make it. But it’s pretty clear that no matter how talented her mom is, it just isn’t going to happen. Kaye and her mom move in with her grandma in New Jersey, and that’s when Kaye realizes that the faeries that were her “imaginary friends” growing up are real, and that she’s accidentally gotten herself mixed up in a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. It’s a blend between life in a blue-collar Jersey town and the story of Tam Lin, and it’s wonderful.
There are so many things to love about Tithe that I don’t even know where to start.
This is the kind of story where the teenage protagonist isn’t perfect. Kaye smokes. She drinks. She goes out with her friends and flirts with her friend’s boyfriend. Kaye is kind of lost in life, and it shows. She’s really smart, but she has no direction. And we see her grandma and her mom arguing about parenting, because the mom is so permissive and the grandma thinks that more rules and order will help Kaye in life. But Kaye’s mom is also lost in life. And by the time that the parenting argument happens, Kaye is already immersed in fae politics, which means that she’s got her own priorities which have nothing to do with becoming a human adult. And none of the people Kaye hangs out with (e.g. her friend Janet and Janet’s brother Corny) really have solid life plans. They’re still in the process of finding themselves. It felt real and brutally honest, and closer to the experience of a lot of teens than characters who have everything figured out and are “on the right track.”
Now for the fae. Kaye’s love interest is Robien, a fae whom she helps when she comes across him injured in the wood. But Robien is currently a slave to the queen of the Unseelie court, and because she has his true name, he can be forced to do anything she commands, no matter how awful it might be. The fae in Tithe are inhuman, and normal human morality or behavioral rules don’t really apply to them. They steal mortal babies and swap them out with fae children just for funsies. They can be cruel for no other reason than their own amusement, and they see humans as fragile toys that are far too easy to break. And that doesn’t mean that the fae are evil, either. They’re like forces of nature that operate according to their own rules and culture, a careful system of promises and bargains and exchanging of power that holds their society together. And if you’re an outsider, this means that getting involved with the fae is, in general, a really bad idea, because you’ll have no idea how to navigate their society without eating forbidden fruit or becoming someone’s unwitting slave. But they’re beautiful and seductive as well, so you don’t want to look away. Reading about the fae is utterly fascinating, and I couldn’t get enough of them.
Sometimes when you take a modern setting and introduce supernatural or fairy tale elements, the line between modernity and myth can be jarring (e.g. Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series). But that really wasn’t the case here. The fae are timeless, and can walk in and out of any world with comfort. And following Kae between New Jersey and the faerie courts worked. It felt *right.* The book doesn’t try to make the fae themselves into modern characters, it just introduces them to our world.
I’m a sucker for Tam Lin retellings and interpretations, and Tithe is now one of my all time favorites. Highly recommended.