Review: Tithe by Holly Black

  Title: Tithe                                 Pages: 331
  Author: Holly Black                   Source: Library
  Publisher: Simon Pulse            Published: Mar 23, 2011
  Series: Modern Faerie Tales    Purchase: Amazon
  Rating: 4 out of 5

Sixteen-year-old Kaye travels from city to city with her mom and the various bands she's been in. Kaye isn't normal - she's weird actually, but she considers it a good weird. She sees faeries and had three faerie friends when she was little. No one believes her when she tells this to people and they consider her strange.

When Kaye moves back into her Grandma's house where she used to play with the three faeries, she gets a message from them saying that they need her help - they need her to pretend to sacrifice herself for an ancient faerie treaty.

I struggled for the first one hundred or so pages with this book. I just couldn't seem to get into it and wasn't understanding what was happening due to that fact. I'm really glad I trekked on. I love faeries, so I thought this book would be right up my alley. I didn't really know much about the premise, though, but I was really interested as I kept reading on.

The plot was very interesting and heavy with lore, which I loved. I loved learning what a faery Tithe is and learning about the Seelie and Unseelie court. The plot had some unseen twists, which is always welcome, and they were handled quite well. I was frustrated at different times, but I cannot say anything really without giving away the plot (if you'd like to know, please look to the bottom of the review), sort of.

The writing was absolutely lovely. Everything is described beautifully, yet it leaves some details for the imagination, too. The writing is one of the things that made me keep reading the book to the end. Holly Black writes effortlessly and eloquently.

Kaye was an amazing main character because of the fact that she's strong and fearless most of the time. She has her moments of where she's completely naive and in a way scared, which balances her strong personality wonderfully. She was written incredibly well and I simply adored her character.

Roiben was dreamy and so hard to read, I could never tell what his emotions were. I loved the chapters written in his point of view, because I gained some insight to his mind and how it worked. He was so sophisticated it seemed. Another well written character.

My favorite character though, hands down, was Lutie-loo. She was adorable and I found myself practically squealing everytime she came into the story, had dialogue, or did something. I loved her.

Again, I'm very glad that I finished Tithe. I loved Kaye's world and will certainly read Valiant in the near future and am now a fan of Holly Black. I would recommend Tithe to any faerie lovers or if you've never read a book about faeries, I'd recommend Tithe as your intro into the world of these sometimes devious creatures.

I give Tithe a 4 out of 5.

Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
Spoiler!!!! I didn't like that once she learned Roiben's real name, at a number of times she could have commanded him to ignore everyone else's commands and/or to change his name. I was practically screaming at Kaye to realize this :P.