Black, Holly: Tithe
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
Writer: Holly Black
Genre: YA/Urban Fantasy
Pages: 331
I don't like faeries. So I really don't know WHY I keep picking books up that feature them. I know I've got at LEAST two more faerie titles in my book stacks too.
Of course, I also say I don't like vampires and dragons and, well, same story as the faeries. You can find at least TWO different vampire and dragon titles in my book stacks.
In this case, I picked up Tithe because I've always heard great things about Holly Black. Her Spiderwick Chronicles never caught my interest, but these pretty, modern faerie-tales did. So I decided to give her a shot.
The premise: Kaye's always seen faeries. Hell, they were her "imaginary" friends when she was a kid. But since then, she's traveled the country with her rock-star mom, and has since grown out of touch with her faerie friends. But when an incident forces her back home to Jersey, she soon learns her friends weren't imaginary at all, and what's more, they need her help. Unfortunately, her help could mean her death.
Spoilers ahead.
This is a hard book to describe. Plot-wise, it started out pretty slow, yet, it read way too fast. So how do I explain that lovely contradiction?
Plot: The plot feels pretty weak in this book, and for the first 100 pages, I felt like one thing kept happening after another. Not every scene was necessarily related, so I didn't feel a drive forward to something certain and inevitable in the story. I was just turning pages and reading scenes to see what happened next.
Pace: I read fast. Anyone following this journal knows that, especially lately. But when I started this book, I kept blinking and demanding the damn thing SLOW DOWN. In that I mean I wanted to take a little time with the scenes, get a better feel for the setting, the characters. Black has some lovely moments in her prose. They glitter like jewels, but you can't linger, because you're whisked away by the action--her mother almost getting killed, Kaye's near-rape, her meeting of Roiben. I really wanted to feel grounded, and I never did until the plot finally took shape with the revelation that Kaye is actually a changeling, and a pixie at that. Once her true nature is revealed--to herself and others--does the story start to pick up. Sure, scenes still seem to just happen, but they're a little more connected than they were, and that was nice.
What won me over was the love story between Kaye and Roiben. Okay, okay, yes, pretty elf-boy falls in love with human girl who's actually a pixie. I wouldn't be surprised if there's accusations of Mary Sue out there in the fandom, but oh well. I enjoyed the chemistry, and I have a fondness for elves. Though I'll admit I'm tired of the knowing-true-name bit, and I'm really tired of faeries and their Courts and their twisted politics. But hey, I came into this book biased, and I enjoyed it, but not for the, well, faeries.
Sorry, I still can't think of elves as faeries. Blame Tolkien. And Peter Jackson.
At any rate, I enjoyed the book, and while it's unfair to compare it to Wicked Lovely (which was published AFTER Black's), I feel my experience with Marr's work made Black's work feel a little too familiar. Well, that and Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron. I think I prefer Marr's because, aside from reading THAT book first, I feel Marr did a little something different with her faeries and their Courts, even if the difference is as little as naming them Summer and Winter.
But this isn't a comparison. I'm just trying to explain why Black's book didn't grab me as it might have had I not read Marr's or even Bear's work first. But I do feel I got nothing new with Black's work, and again, that's not necessary Black's fault. I just happened to read her book out of publication order of the rest.
Still, when the prose slowed down a bit, Black does have a lovely eye for details. Hell, I wanted a separate story about Kaye and her mom before all the magical stuff, because that relationship really interested me, and the scene at the beginning where Kaye deposits her ashes into her mom's beer just to see how drunk her mom was, well, that's just fantastic. And sadistic. And fantastic. Makes me want to read more of Black's short fiction, because at the beginning, that's how the book read. Like short fiction.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: I enjoyed it and will likely read the rest of the trilogy, but if you're like me and have read Wicked Lovely first, just know the two books are peas in a pod. Black's was first, and that's important to remember in terms of context, and really, there are some lovely bits of prose and fun moments in the book. I also really, really liked Black taking risks with her secondary characters (Kenny's enchantment, Janet's fate, and Corny's sexuality), and it'll be fun to see what she does next.
Next up: The Becoming by Jeanne C. Stein