Review of Tithe by Holly Black

Format: Paperback
Genres: Fae, Romance, Fantasy,
Pages: 310
Publisher: Simon an Schuster
Release Date: 2003 sometime
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries!

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle that could very well mean her death.


I have an old battered copy of Tithe - a copy so old it took some digging to find even a passable photo of the cover. I've read it at least three times now and it's definitely an old favourite of mine. I've never reviewed it before though, and I do think that I was reading this for the first time I would probably rate it lower than I have (like a 4 maybe), so this review is completely biased and you can judge me all you like for that.

 I love the fairy concept. I usually avoid books with fairies in them, finding the idea cheesy but in Tithe they're dark, scary and downright brutal. There are a lot of references to Chess too, chess boards being used, Kaye's mentioned as being a pawn in the description and the Seelie and Unseelie court essentially being the White an Black sides respectively.

I last read this at least five years ago and I did notice some things that I wasn't as okay with as I was before - how Violent Roibin could be to Kaye for example. However, it's a bit of a grey area as he was literally forced to, due to his name being used. Fairies *sigh*. The pace was very quick, almost too quite and one character in particular I wanted to get to know more about. 

It does have it's rough patches (remember that this is Holly's first novel) but the story overall is very strong and very unique. It's one of the only stories that's really stuck with me over the years and I was happy to sit down and re-read it again. I have not read it's sequels yet, so I'm looking forward to reading more about that world.

 

Comments

  1. Unknown1:59 pm BST

    I loved this book when I first read it (years ago now). I wonder how it would stand up to a reread. I remember liking the sequels though; they have the same dark feel.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love comments! Spam comments will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Many Covers Monday - ALL THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

Image
After it was not so recently revealed that the classic, original covers were to go out of print and replaced with new, shiny covers, I thought I'd do something crazy this Monday. Harry Potter. But not the first book, no! This Monday I'm showcasing... entire sets of the books. Cool, but a lot of work. And a lot of tabs. These won't just be the covers you know and love, I've included international sets of the books too, which I've never seen before. Not all of the covers are here, but most of them are. (Ignore the random pattern for the last image. I wanted to tile them right) (This post was originally posted back in 2014 and since I'm re-reading the whole series I thought I might as well go for a full Harry Potter week on my blog by sharing my most popular post with new cover sets added. UK - these are the new covers revealed by Bloomsbury recently. These are my favourite covers, I wasn't impressed initially but the amazing covers won
Read more

Many Covers Monday: 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Image
Today we're looking at the many different covers of Jay Asher 's 13 Reasons Why and choosing a winner! Some are rejackets and others are foreign language covers. Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list. Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers. Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK / US ¦ Goodreads This was his freaking debut? Oh man, this book was amazing. I read it at least 5 years ago and still remember it, I'm going to read it again - as soon as I can grab a co
Read more

Many Covers Monday: One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Image
On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.   Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose? Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.    UK/US I really love the US cover. It keeps the air of mystery by covering t
Read more