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Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale | 
 enlarge | Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Category: Book
List Price: $8.99
Buy New: $3.50
You Save: $5.49 (61%)
New (45) Used (32) Collectible (3) from $2.98
Rating:  206 reviews
Sales Rank: 3991
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0689867042
EAN: 9780689867040
ASIN: 0689867042
Publication Date: March 23, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Sixteen-year-old Kaye Fierch is not human, but she doesn't know it. Sure, she knows she's interacted with faeries since she was little--but she never imagined she was one of them, her blond Asian human appearance only a magically crafted cover-up for her true, green-skinned pixie self. First-time author Holly Black explores Kaye's self-discovery and dual worlds in her riveting, suspenseful novel Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale. The book has its faults: it slips into shock-value mode; the descriptions are often overwritten (sunset on the water looks like the sun slit his wrists in a bathtub); the language is overly, unnecessarily explicit; and the writing often unpolished. Still, the story's pull is undeniable, and readers under its spell will be hard-pressed to put the book down. The novel begins in a bar in Philly, where Kaye's alcoholic rock-singer mother's boyfriend tries to kill her. For their own safety, mother and daughter quickly move back to grandma's on the New Jersey shore where Kaye grew up. This ugly turn of events was all rigged by the Faerie world, as it turns out, a world Black describes in deliciously vivid, if rather overblown, detail. Kaye, a drinking, smoking, foul-mouthed high school dropout in the land of mortals, soon finds herself embroiled--as a human sacrifice, no less--in a battle between Faerieland's Seelie and more malevolent Unseelie courts. The beautiful, mysterious knight Roiben, torn between worlds himself, falls in love with Kaye--the brave, clever changeling--against his better judgment. Throughout the electrifying journey to the horrific underworld of this modern faerie fantasy, teen readers will relate to a hard-luck tough girl who feels alienated, discovers her best qualities in the worst of circumstances, and finally finds a place between worlds where she can feel at home. (Ages 13 and older) --Karin Snelson
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 201 more reviews...
 Awesome December 1, 2008
Fortuna Stark
this is an exedingly well done book. The plot writhes and flows with exitement and lavish characters. Truly a masterpiece.
Great Book November 17, 2008
Sarah M. Statler (Lewiston, ID)
This was a great book. Right along the lines of Melissa Marr books. It does had a bit of inappropriate items for very young readers but for actual "Young Adults" it is just fine. Highly recommend this book.
Gritty blend of urban desolation and otherworldly faeries November 8, 2008
Veggiechiliqueen
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Holly Black's "Tithe" is based on Celtic folklore of faeries and changelings; faeries who were switched in place of human babies. The protagonist Kaye is a world-weary sixteen, tired of fishing her mother's head out of toilets and hauling her home from seedy dives after she's too drunk to stand up. Kaye dropped out of high school in order to work at a Chinese restaurant to earn money to support her mother in-between her mom's abusive boyfriends and succession of run-down apartments. Her friends Janet and Corny are also on similarly dead-end paths. Corny dreams of drive-bys and killing people and is full of suppressed rage. Kaye's mom sees nothing wrong with her daughter getting drunk enough to pass out, or to do drugs, or waking up in bed with a stranger; so much for a strong mother figure. This is not a book for sensitive readers; you have alcoholism, drugs, rape, violence, and torture.
As a child, Kaye imagined that she saw faeries, and when she concentrates, she can cause things to happen. This all comes to a head one night after a strange encounter with a mysterious wounded man in a forest; Roibin is a faerie prince of the Unseelie court, and associating with him brings Kaye and her magical friends into danger as they are swept into the brutal conflict between the two rival faerie kingdoms. Kaye learns that she's been leading a double life, and tries to wrap her head around the fact that her childhood memories of faeries and magic are in fact true.
The novel is briskly paced, alternating between Kaye's grim urban reality of poverty and violence and the magical world that she is now a part of. Black does a good job incorporating elements of faerie lore from classic literature and folklore; each chapter begins with a verse related to Kaye's predicament taken from poetry, including Shakespeare, Rilke and Teasdale. The ending is clearly set up for the sequel Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale.
As a child, I was mesmerized by faeries, beginning with The Perilous Gard and Josepha Sherman's Child of Faerie, Child of Earth and Windleaf. Tithe is a fine heir to these tales of beautiful, otherworldly beings and the intricacies of their courts and rituals.
One of My ALL TIME Favorites September 29, 2008
A. Changeling
I received Tithe as a gift soon after its publication and was immediately sucked in. Many books are hard to get into, with a lot of back story clumped at the beginning - Tithe is not one of them. There is plenty of action, emotion, danger and intrigue to keep you reading and guessing. The humans are real, the faeries are fantastic, and Black refuses to paint an unrealistic picture of either the human or faerie realms for the sake of keeping her YA literature innocent and candy coated. This is YA literature that respects its readers' intelligence, and we need more of it.
I love the way Black blends natural teenage emotion (feeling alienated, longing for the attention of the cool guy, struggling to keep your identity while fitting in SOMEWHERE) with grander, more pressing issues (love and hate, good and evil, war and resolution).
Tithe is urban fantasy at its best: enough of the real world to believe it, enough of the Faerie world to make you sad to leave it.
Black's writing makes me feel torn between harboring the book like a sacred secret, and shouting of its grandiosity to everyone I meet. Inevitably I settle for something in between, tolling its virtues to those who are worthy of receiving it.
 Ehh September 25, 2008
H. J. Chambers
I find it rather hard to choose what type of review I would like to write, positive or negative. I suppose mine will be a bit of both.
One the one hand, I have to give Holly Black credit for attempting to write characters that do not fall within the norm. Not everyone is of a certain race, hair color, eye color, personality type, etc. and it is refreshing to read something other than a Mary Jane. I can also appreciate any author who is daring enough to include sex, cussing, and drugs into their story. What teenager hasn't partaken in at least one of the three aforementioned activities? However, despite Black's attempt to create a relatable and realistic character, I felt that Black made Kaye rather unidentifiable. She may not have been an All American do gooder, but she certainly fell within a stereotype, just not a very flattering one. She came across as a redneck/goth hybrid if such a thing were possible. She certainly was not anyone I would look up to or befriend. Is this really the kind of woman any of us would strive to be? One that chain smokes, steals, dresses like a street walker, and messes around with her best friend's loser boyfriend?
Also, while I can appreciate a book that attempts a unique structure, the writing style was hard to enjoy. It was disjointed and I found myself having to reread several passages in order to make sense of what they were trying to convey.
Lastly, Did anyone else find the love between Kaye and Roiben hard to swallow? I get that she thought he was cute, but looks aside, why is Kaye attracted to him exactly? More importantly, why is he attracted to her? Black did a poor job of making their love believable.
All in all, the story made for an entertaining read, but it certainly did not live up to the hype.
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