Buoyed with enthusiasm following my newfound love of Patricia Briggs, I decided to venture further into the realm of urban fantasy. As luck would have it, I had two suitable candidates sitting on my To Be Read shelf: Tithe by Holly Black and Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. As both books feature faeries and are aimed at the teen market, I thought it would be interesting to post my reviews on two consecutive days, and conclude with a brief comparison. Today’s review is of Holly Black’s Tithe.
Tithe is a dark, gritty novel and my first exposure to the word of the fae. Sixteen-year-old Kaye Fierch lives in Philadelphia with Ellen, her wannabe rock star mother, and Lloyd, Ellen’s boyfriend du jour. When a violent incident forces the women to flee the city, they return to New Jersey to live with Kaye’s grandmother. As a child, Kaye played with imaginary faerie friends. They were as real to her as humans, but no one else had the ability to see them. They vanished from her life when she moved to Philadelphia, and she vaguely wonders if they’ll put in a reappearance now that she’s back in Jersey.
Kaye is happy to reconnect with her grade school friend, Janet, and get to know the kids she hangs out with. Unfortunately, things don’t get off to a good start. On her way home from a disastrous night out, Kaye encounters Roiben. Although she knows Roiben cannot be real, she immediately recognizes him for what he is: a faerie knight – and a very handsome one at that. As Kaye becomes more involved with the faeries, she realizes that she’s stumbled into something far more sinister than the playful faeries of her childhood led her to believe.
Tithe sucked me in at the beginning but several things prevented it from being a satisfactory read. Firstly, the teenagers are all ultra cool and edgy. I didn’t warm to any of them. The sexual references which disturbed so many Amazon reviewers didn’t bother me. Perhaps reflecting my own prejudices, the chain-smoking teens annoyed me far more. While I realize it’s probably a more realistic rendering of teenagers than Sweet Valley High, I wish more than a passing reference to lung cancer had been made. Teens read books like this and think it’s cool to smoke. OK, end of old lady rant.
Holly Black is clearly very knowledgeable in faerie folklore. Unfortunately, she assumes that I am, too. Very little regarding the faeries is explained sufficiently. I was confused by references such as ironside, kelpies, and glamour. By the end of the book, the hierarchy of the faerie courts was still an enigma. At the very least, I would have appreciated a glossary at the start of the book.
On the positive side, Black writes well and I’d imagine Tithe would appeal to many fans of fantasy and urban fantasy. There are many loose ends at the end of Tithe and I’m assuming these will be resolved in Valiant and Ironside, the next two books in the series. However, despite a promising start, I found Tithe a frustrating read, and I was left unsure that I want to read more about Kaye and her friends. Grade: C
{ 13 comments }
I know what you mean, Sarah, about needing a glossary to help with this sort of fantasy. I’m reading Kresley Cole’s Kiss of a Demon King, and I’m continually confused — and it *has* a glossary at the beginning. It just doesn’t define everything I want defined!
I also agree with you about smoking — personally, I’d be happy if characters never smoked in books. I agree with the bumper sticker: kissing a smoker is like licking the bottom of an ashtray. How unromantic. I realize that people smoke in real life, and that even smokers can be lovable and charming. But (and yes, here I too am indulging in old lady rant) smoking is neither lovable or charming. At least have a fictional smoker be conflicted about it!
To have teens smoking without any sense of the consequences is perhaps even more realistic but c’mon — this is a book with faeries, for goodness’ sake! If the author wants to contrast gritty adolescent realism with faerie “glamour,” just stick the kids in the Cherry Hill mall all day, saying “like” and “you know,” and rolling their eyes at anything said by an adult. That’s realistic enough!
The YA genre isn’t my forte up till now and I did actually read Wickedly Lovely, looking forward to your review of that one Sarah
I don’t think Tithe is going to make me feel the love for this genre any better. I love fantasy, I know my way around the fae folklore, but somehow it’s the teenage thing. The way you describe the story is getting me very interested but hhhmmmm, wel, yes, teenagers, nope not feeling the vibe :S
@Magdalen LOL! I guess many terms and ideas must be recycled in fantasy books and someone who reads a lot of them would know what they mean without an explanation or a glossary. As a newbie fantasy reader, I’m not familiar with the terminology. I’ll post my review of Melissa Marr’s ‘Wicked Lovely’ tomorrow. She does a better job of explaining the faerie folklore, for which I was most grateful!
By the way, my mother is visiting and working her way through the Julia Spencer-Fleming books. She’s almost finished the second and has asked to borrow the rest. Another fan, methinks!
@Leontine I went through a phase of reading YA fiction last year. There are some wonderful books out there.
I enjoyed ‘Wicked Lovely’ quite a bit, although I think I would have liked it even better had it not been YA. I’m planning to try some more adult urban fantasy authors and would love some recommendations. I’ve heard good things about Jeaniene Frost, for example. Do you read much urban fantasy?
Speaking of YA, Sarah — have you read anything by Eva Ibbotson? I read The Countess Below Stairs, and loved it. Much more of a fairy tale than Tithe, I would guess (having not read Tithe), despite being theoretically realistic. Very charming, and I have to say (while not disagreeing with Leontine at all) the YA aspect seemed very appropriate. One could imagine the story (impoverished Russian countess, post 1919, takes a job as a under-housemaid in the household of an almost-impoverished English earl) written, shall we say, more adult-ly (i.e., with sex), but I honestly don’t think it would have made it a better story. When the most explicit act between the hero & heroine is a hand stroking a cheek, it can be amazingly highly charged! Plus, I’m a sucker for those fairy tale endings!
@Magdalen Yes, I LOVE Eva Ibbotson! ‘The Countess Below Stairs’ is excellent, as is ‘A Company of Swans’. I haven’t read her kid books but I have all of her adult ones.
I read Valiant before I read Tithe, and they’re not really connected, though Ironside continues the Tithe story. I LOVED Valiant. I thought it was so much better than Tithe. I’d heard raves over Roiben but I thought Ravus in Valiant a much more compelling character. It’s still a dark and gritty book, but the core relationship totally worked for me.
Hi Sarah,
UF is a genre I read my fair share in. I read Jeaniene Frost and I had to get into it but wow does she know how to grab you at a certain point! I also read SJ Day’s Marked series and well adored her celestial element in it. Karen Moning’s Fever series can also be marked as a UF series and I’m crazy about this series. Ilona Andrews is also an author who captured my attention with her Kate Daniels series and I hear a lot of good buzz surrounding Marjorie M Liu’s Hunter Kiss series. Now I haven’t read Marjorie M Liu with this series but I have read in her Dirk & Steele series and think her writing style is incredible.
@Alison Kent Really? I actually liked the blurb for ‘Valiant’ more than that for ‘Tithe’ but I assumed they had to be read in order. Thanks for the info.
@Leontine I think I’ll try the first Jeaniene Frost book as it looks like light entertainment as opposed to dark and gritty. I read an excerpt of ‘Halfway to the Grave’ on Amazon and it grabbed me from the first page. I also read an excerpt of ‘Nightlife’ by Rob Thurman and it also looks like a good read. I’ve heard of Ilona Andrews and Marjorie M Liu. My list of recommended UF reads is getting long!
Meh. The cover is fab, but this doesn’t really seem like it has enough romance and twists to keep me interested. Plus I’m not a huge fan of faeries.
@heidenkind No, there’s definitely not much romance, and what bit there is, isn’t particularly romantic IMHO.
I absolutely adored Tithe.
True, it probably helped that I’m a big fan of fantasy and also have an in depth knowledge of faerie lore. Still, I do think it’s a wonderful book. The comparison between the gritty, real world and the sparkly, flashy, but still darkly sinister world of the fey is brilliant. The challenging of the stereo type of fairies as pretty and butterfly winged is great, because the real fairy stories from the gaelic countries were just that- dark, frightening and sinsiter. the world of the fey is wonderfully created and I think Black has a flair for description in that she’s able to create vivid mental pictures with very few words, which is wonderful. I think the characters, particularly Kaye, Corny and Roiben are wonderfully constructed, likeable, and less cliche than they could have been.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
@Silver_horses I preferred Melissa Marr’s rendition of the fae, perhaps because she explains the folk lore in a bit more detail. I’ve heard from several sources that Holly Black’s Valiant is a better read than Tithe, yet other readers say the opposite! I guess tastes differ.