Tithe: A Modern Faerie TaleAuthor: Holly Black
Series: Modern Faerie Tale (#1)
Publisher: Simon Pulse
How Received: library
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 the sixteen-year-old 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 plead guilty - I judge books by their covers, and this one I couldn't pass up. I mean, look at the font! The contrast! It's such a cool cover!
Anyway, that was how I came to pick up Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black from my school library.
Booklist's review does describe the book nicely - "Dark, edgy, beautifully written, and compulsively readable."
I enjoyed the story - it's a short book (331 pages in a book half the height size of normal hardcover books), an easy read (I read it in a one two-hour sitting over dinner), and you can easily relate to the characters. I'm looking forward to reading more of her works. ^^
Overall Rating and Final Comments: 8/10. A nice, easy read.
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale or Artemis Fowl?: Tithe is much darker than Artemis Fowl, but both are easy, enjoyable reads following the tale of faeries.
Happy reading!
~Nicole B.
I've been wanting to read this! And the cover is awesome. (I'm guilty of judging a book by it's cover, too.)
ReplyDeleteI agree. I like to look at book'sspines and judge them by their fonts.
ReplyDeleteYou should read the sequel Ironside. Valiant also has some of the same characters, but features different main characters.
ReplyDeleteI read it tw weeks ago, and I really need to read the sequel;o)
ReplyDeletei absolutely love tithe and the sequels, Valiant and Ironside. Valiant is my personal fave:) Actually, shockingly, I like them better then Twilight!
ReplyDeleteI love tithe and it might be neck and neck with twilight but it's definately not better than breaking dawn.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the book, but from this and Ironside, I really really want to.
ReplyDeleteYou have to be kidding, not better than breaking dawn?
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, I am a Twilight-hater, and Breaking Dawn WAS the worst of the series.
I really have to read Valiant and Ironside, I suppose, 'cause I just finished Tithe.
I really liked it, her writing style is awesome- some people say too descriptive, but I disagree. They refer to the "sun slitting his wrists in the bathtub part" (if you've read, you'll understand) but I think that's a bad example because that wasn't in a descriptive format atall, it was said by Kaye, showing us her character. That line said a lot about her differentness, her morbid imagination and easy creativity, the way she views the world, sees beauty in dark things, how she is unafraid to show her "weirdness" to others.
I found part of Tithe's allure to be in Holly Black's brutal portrayal of faeries, and really, a little torture makes a book infinitely more interesting. ;]
I think the characters in tithe were so much more developed than in Twilight (I say this because I've seen this sentence reversed), Bella Swan is the most boring, flat character on earth, and edward cullen is one-leveled, too-perfect (and a jealous, controlling, obsessive boyfriend) and Stephenie Meyer ruined vampires anyway I think. (SPARKLING?!) Every author has license for creating their own vision of vampires, but really, hers are a stain on the vampire genre.
The teenagers in Tithe are realistic, and again, because I have seen this said, there was no more swearing than was necessary. Teenagers are like that, and language certainly didn't stunt the plot, Stephen King does that.
I'm going to read Valiant first, but ugh, I wanna read Ironside! I'm going to miss Roiben and Kaye for a while...