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Summary: Fantasy has never been so real.
Review: In TITHE, Holly Black weaves a wonderful tale of trust and betrayal, glamour and grit. Her characters are all too human, even when they turn out not to be. I remember growing up, feeling the outcast, not fitting in and never truly understanding why. For Black's main character Kaye, she discovers the reason she never fit in and gets caught in the middle of an intricate plot that forces her not only to understand herself, but the greater world and peril that surrounds her and her friends. Rushing headlong into danger, it's not her magical ability that saves her (or us), but her wits.The merging of the Faerie and human realms has never been done this well since Raymond E. Feist's "Faerie Tale." Highly Recommended.
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Summary: A Marvelous Story!
Review: A marvelous story! Tithe is more than a good book; it's a wonderful experience. I'm not sure why I got it in the first place. I just re-read the reviews. No matter how well someone describes the story line, no description comes close to explaining the tremendous impact this book has when you read it. As Roiben says, faeries can be a capricious lot. Bringing them to the 21st century in the way Holly Black has done makes me want to head for the nearest forest and meet them in person. Don't be put off by the young adult categorization. Tithe crosses all age lines, although I probably wouldn't read it to my six year old niece.
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Summary: Shadows in the forest
Review: When Kaye returns with her mother back to her childhood home, she is able to reconnect with her old friends Janet (whose boyfriend becomes enamored with Kaye) and Corny (Janet's gay brother), as well as her faerie friends. Kaye quickly finds herself a pawn in a dangerous game between two faerie queens, a game that will only end in bloodshed. With both her human and her faerie friends in danger, Kaye has to figure out her own place in each world and whom she can trust in order to survive. While marketed to a young adult audience, Black's dark fantasy is deserving of a wider audience. "Tithe" is a wild journey through the darker aspects of the faerie realm that will leave readers anticipating a continuation.
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Summary: Tithe, I coudn't put it down.
Review: I finished reading Tithe at 12:07 a.m. and I loved it. Tithe was one of those books that I just couldn't put down. I started reading at about 6p.m. on Wednesday and didn't stop until 2:30 a.m. and yesterday I took the book everywhere with me so that I could take every available opportunity to read. Tithe is so beautifully written and fantastically vivid. The story flows so smoothly, there was never a dull moment. I often find with books that towards the middle I get a little bored and start reading something else for a while, this didn't happen with Tithe. Just to illustrate how much I enjoyed the book, I'm a BIG Star Wars fan. I have read every Star Wars book, which has been published since 1996, as soon as I could get my hands on a copy. Normally all other books get put on hold for Star Wars. The new Star Wars book arrived in the same package as Tithe. I haven't read a single page of the Star Wars book yet; I was far too engrossed in Tithe. The only problem I have with Tithe is that I didn't really want it to end. I want to know more. I want to know what happens to Kaye and Roiben. I want to know more about Kaye's childhood with Spike, Lutie and Gristle (especially Gristle). I hope that the story of Kaye and Roiben will continue.
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Summary: A True Fairie Tale Indeed!
Review: Being a big lover of fantasy stories, I am always on the lookout for a good story about fairie-folk that isn't too girly. This is an intriguing, edgy, and dark journey into the world of fairies. It's like the movie "The Lost Boys" meets a classic Brothers Grimm tale. It's sexy and it's smart, I can't wait for the sequel!
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Summary: Harry Potter, American Style
Review: I have so very little time to read anymore that it requires something of exceptional quality for me to spend even a few minutes a day reading. "Tithe" was not that type of book -- It was better. I sacrificed an entire night to read this from cover to cover in a single sitting. Ms. Black has created a faerie world in our own back yard, in this case New Jersey, that is slightly darker, grittier, and in its own way far more realistic that the sanitized view currently held of the Fae. She clearly did intensive research into the myth and legend of the Shining Folk and their kin, and this knowledge glows through in the incredibly well crafted work filled with believable three-dimensional characters and settings. Clearly aimed at the young adult and up crowd, I wouldn't recommend it for the younger devotees of Rowling's books, but more towards 13 and older due to some language and suggestiveness. I would recommend basing any decision on the maturity of the reader, however. I would also recommend that ANY fan of Harry Potter, or ANY high fantasy for that matter, that doesn't mind the somewhat more realistic language and actions portrayed in this novel should purchase it immediately -- devour it, savor it, read it over and over. It is destined to be a classic of both young adult AND adult fantasy. I cannot stress enough how quickly, as a reader of adult fantasy for over 25 years, this book has moved into my ranks of the five best stand alone fantasy novels of all time. Should she write a sequel of even vaguely similar quality then most assuredly they will take their place amongst my favorite fantasy series' of all time as well.
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Summary: To Faerie and back again
Review: A lush word painting that swept me up and had me traveling from the sordid bar scene in Philadelphia, to the suburban decay of an aging seaside New Jersey town and then on to the wonderously depraved courts of Faerie. It carried me along for the whole ride and when it ended I wanted more!
Kaye Firsch is a teenager whose life has changed abruptly, returning to her childhood home and reuniting her with old friends. But, her friends have grown and changed as she has.
Even the faeries she played with as a child are not the same amusing simple playmates she remembered.
Her life becomes even more wildly confusing when she meets and aids the Faerie Knight Roiben and almost immediatly after discovers she herself is not human but a faerie changling.
Trying to get a grip on her true identity Kaye inadvertantly calls the attention of the Unseelie Court to herself and her human friends.
She is chosen to be the sacrifice that will bind the wild fay to the Unseelie Court for 7 years. Her fay friends want her to avoid Roiben and to play along with the sacrifice assuring her she will be rescued in time and by doing this will aid them in gaining their freedom.
She is too interested in Roiben to take their advise but she is unsure of where his loyality lies for he is a Seelie Knight serving the Unseelie Queen.
When the time for the Tithe comes she realizes things are not as playing out as anyone expected them to and she will have to save herself! Though how, when she cannot through off the glamor that disguises her as human, she cannot imagine.
Rescued and running she finds she cannot simply retreat to human life and forget all that happened. She must straighten out the problems caused by there not being a sacrifice And she needs to know why all this has happened.
With Roiben's help she sets out to accomplish this.
Confused about her feelings for Roiben, unsure of how much she trusts the Seelie Court, and desperitely trying to keep her friends alive and safe in a world suddenly very unsafe Kaye tries to rescue her friend Corny from the Unseelie Court.In trying to do this she meets the Seelie Queen and finds the real Kaye Firsch, still a child, and residing at the Seelie Court.
Roiben is captured and Kaye must risk her life to save he and Corny. Kaye succeeds in the end by using her street smarts and her all too human talants. Using these same human attributes she suddenly sees and reveals the real plot that involved her in all of this and keeps it from succeding.
Ms. Black uses words as an artist does a brush to give you the textures and tastes and scents as well as pictures and she does it beautifully!
Her settings are real.I live in the area and I know them. Her teens live and breath, they swear and do things that would shock their parents. They are the teens you can find in any high school not the sanitised idealised and two dementional ones found in most books. Her faeries are threatning and frightning. They are gloriously wickedly other.
IT is not a perfect book but once I picked it up I could not put it down until it was finished and then I wanted more!
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Summary: One of the best fantasy novels I have ever read
Review: Halfway through this book I forgot it was written for a YA audience. I haven't been a teen in a few years but I felt like this book was still written for me. The language is rich and decadent, like some Parisian dessert bought at a late-night cafe. The characters were well-developed and realistic - I wish I had friends and foes like Kaye and Corny and Nephamael. The plot has enough suspense and twists and turns to satisfy even finicky readers. Black has redefined faeries, with the modern edge of a straight razor yet without ever losing sight of their original folklore. My bookshelf eagerly aways her next release.
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Summary: An AWSOME book!
Review: First of all, I would love to say that I love faeries! But after I read this book, it totally twisted my imaganation of them! I encouraged all my friends to read it, who felt the same way about it as me, just to tell you...I have read it seven times, and counting, it is one of my all time favorite books. It is mainly about a girl, Kaye, who travels around with her mother's rock band. After her mother's boyfriend tries to kill her, they move back to New Jersey, where Kaye's 'imaganary' friends return to her and tell her that she is a pixie. She saves a knight, Roiben *drools*. Kaye become a sacrifice to the UnSeelie court, when Roiben and her imaganary friends, Spike and Lutie-Loo, save her. Roiben and Kaye fall in love, and that is pretty much the end. I am really yearning for a sequal, because it ended too soon! *crys* It is probably my favorite book, besides the swearing, violence (which in all fairness was pretty awsome) and some sexual content, it is an awsome book for reluctant high school readers.
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Summary: Gorgeous Gutter Faerie /Urban Fantasy
Review: "Tithe" by Holly Black -- wow. I spent Sunday afternoon at the bookstore and saw it in the teen section, and only meant to thumb through it. Ended up reading it straight through. Gorgeous gutter faerie modern fantasy. A mix of cigarette ash and magic glamours. Kaye, a teenage girl whose lived a hard knock life on the road with her rock star wannabee mother has few illusions about life... or so she thinks until the ones that have been wrapped around her since childhood begin to unravel amidst the intrigues of Sidhe courts and the struggle for power while Samhain approaches and the price for obedience and submission of the non-aligned fay comes due. Kaye is a pivotal piece in a game between the beautiful and treacherous Seelie and Unseelie where every false move is paid for with blood and sanity... that of her friends, her loved ones, and her own. Just really, utterly, truly a gorgeous read. My heart still aches with the lingering memory of it. Five star read, absolutely.
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