 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: "There are many positives to be found in Tithe. Black writes with an edgy confidence belying the fact that this is a first novel. She has a true gift for the entirely appropriate name. She brings characters to life with a sketching splash of details that still recreates them fully-realized in the reader's head. She tells her story in such a way that it is as immediate and contemporary as a charted song, but also as timeless as a beloved fairy tale. But mostly it's that she returns wonder and true danger to the plot device of mortals interacting with Faerie. . .This is literally one of the best fantasies I've read in years, never mind it being one of the best debut novels. And I'm immediately finding room for it on the small shelf of books that I can always unequivocally recommend when someone asks me for my favorite books in the fantasy field. " --by Charles de Lint from the January 2003 issue To read Charles de Lint's whole review, click here.
From Publisher's Weekly (starred): "Tripping the dark fantastic with newcomer Holly Black means pixie dust may well include blood spatter, sharp thorns and bits of broken glass. At the center of this edgy novel is Kaye Fierch, a 16-year old "Asian blonde" who spends most of her time taking care of a would-be rock star mom. When her mom's latest boyfriend turns homicidal, they return to Gram's house at the New Jersey shore, where Kaye hooks up with childhood friend Janet and her gay brother Corny Stone. Stark images ripple through the third-person narrative, offering clues to Kaye's internal state (e.g. "She loved the serene brutality of the ocean"). A covert sexual overture from Janet's boyfriend precedes Kaye's night time encounter at the edge of the woods where she meets and rescues Roiben, a mysterious Black Knight with silvery hair. Throughout, the author subtly connects Kaye's awakening sexual feelings in the real world and Roiben's sudden appearences. Kaye soon discovers that she is a changeling--and that her one-time "imaginary" faerie playmates want her to pretend to be human, so they can use her for the Tithe ("the sacrifice of a beautiful and talented mortal") to earn their freedom for seven years. The author's Bosch-like descriptions of the Unseelie Court, with it's Rackham-on-acid denizens, and the exquisite faeries haunts as well as charms. When fate intervenes, sudden tragedy teaches Kaye about the high cost of straddling the faerie and human worlds (and sets the stage for a possible sequel). A gripping read." -- from the October 28, 2002 issue
From Kirkus Reviews (starred): "Debauchery, despair, deceit, and grisly death--what more could you ask from a fairy tale? Sixteen-year-old Kaye has always felt like a freak; partly because she spent half her life in seedy bars while her mother vainly pursued rock-star fame, but also from her memories of childhood fairy companions. Still, she's not prepared for what happens after she rescues Roiben, the gravely wounded and impossibly gorgeous elven knight. Her friendly sprites return to warn her that Roiben serves the Unseelie Court, the darker aspect of Faerie, and that she has been designated the mortal sacrifice in the ritual Tithe that binds the independent fey to their cruel and rule. But what if that sacrifice weren't...quite...mortal? Black's stunning debut cleverly twists the Tam Lin tale. Though Kaye's home life seems almost comically sordid, when the action moves to the various Faerie Courts and their allies, the intrigues make an intricate tapestry, woven of dark threads of obsession, degradation, and horror, yet graced with a bewitching beauty and a surprisingly tender romance. Once she drops her angst-ridden attitude, Kaye is a clever, courageous heroine with an appealingly wry voice, and Roiben is a gloriously damaged and darkly noble tragic hero. While most of the supporting cast has little to do beyond playing villains or victims, Black has an eye for the telling detail that brings the most minor character to life. A labyrinthine plot with Goth sensibility makes this a luscious treat for fans of urban fantasy and romantic horror." --from the September 1, 2002 issue
From the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books: "Sixteen-year-old Kaye returns to the home of her youth (her maternal grandmother's house) with her roc-and-roll musician mother. Once there Kaye seeks out her old school friend, Janet and then she seeks out even older friends--the faeries that used to visit her when she was a girl. Finding them isn't easy; in fact, it isn't until she saves the life of a dark faerie knight Roiben that her faerie friends contact her with a message: 'Do not talk to the black knight anymore. tell no one your name. everything is danger.' Her fascination with the faeries of her youth combined with her fascination with Roiben proves irresistable and Kaye finds herself willingly drawn into the battle between the Seelie and Unseelie courts of Faery, a battle that will culminate on Samhain with the paying of the Tithe to bind the "solitary fey" to one court or another for seven years. Walking confidently in the midst of the urban decay and development, and her characters--disaffected, rough-tongued modern youth and ancient twisted fey--are right out of VH-1's darker rock moments. Kaye, despiter her emotional confusion, is one tough, semi-Goth cookie who knows how to use her wits to and learns how to use her magic (it turns out she's a pixie changeling). Her quest for true love, true friendship, truth in general, while predictably successful, still makes one wild ride. Hand this to teens seeking a melding of Annette Curtis Klause and Francesca Lia Block." --by JMD, from the January 2003 issue
From Teen People (picks): "Kaye's a modern-day teenager who starts having some pretty weird experiences (have you ever been bodychecked by fairies at your local diner?). Once she gets caught up in their all-out war, Kaye realizes just how real her 'fantasy' world is." --from the October 2002 issue
From Locus Magazine: "Kaye is a teenage dropout who shoplifts smokes -- and sees faeries. Her mother's a singer, but when her latest band splits up, Kaye ends up staying at her grandmother's house, where she saw faeries as a child. After a bad date, Kaye has a strange encounter with a wounded Seelie knight, and gets caught up in a struggle between Seelie and Unseelie Courts that looses dangerous forces on the human world. With some distinctive touches amid the traditional elements of faerie magic, this is an unusually powerful YA contemporary fantasy, and an outstanding first novel." --by Carolyn Cushman, from the September 2002 issue
From The Green Man Review: "Tithe is beautifully written. Black has a rare gift for descriptive language and a deliciously creative imagination, which she combines to illuminate scenes with uncommon vibrancy. The first lines of the book snatched me up by the scruff of the neck and dropped me onto a stool in a cheap bar in Philadelphia; later her description of a Faerie ball Under the Hill had me shivering with visions of debauchery." --from website To read Maria Nutick's whole review, click here.
From Mythprint (Journal of the Mythopoeic Society): "I used to hate the formula reviews- you know, take one part Talking Heads, three parts They Might be Giants and stir and you have Hot New Band! - but now, after just finishing Tithe, by Holly Black, I see the wisdom of such a method. Because Tithe, for all that it is new and unique, can be easily described with this kind of formula. I was reminded strongly of Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block, and also of The Moorchild, by Eloise McGraw. If you adored Weetzie Bat and wished it was longer, Tithe has a similar tone in many ways and is several times the length of Weetzie Bat. Like in Weetzie Bat, Tithe¹s characters seem realistic - they are teenagers with seedy, imperfect lives, who inhabit a world of disappointing parents and not fitting in. The sense of place is astute in both as well - Block with her LA dreamscape and Black with her polluted and cruel New Jersey. The plot of Tithe is fairly complex for its intended
age range, 12-14, but I don¹t think any girls (and this is most
decidedly a girl¹s book) will be deterred by that complexity. The
main character, Kaye, is an engaging one - a misfit who turns out to
be a changeling, and, like the title moorchild in McGraw¹s book,
goes underground to discover her roots. The drama and action are mostly
there, in the faery world - where Kaye must discover everybody's loyalties
and try to stay alive. Black creates a believable faery world One of the things that sets Tithe apart from its predecessors in the same genre is its literary bent. Not only does Black open each chapter with a well-chosen quote, her characters are well-read, and refer to fantasy fiction of all mediums. Comic books, prose books, television, all are consumed by Kaye and her cohorts. The benefits of this are two-fold: one, it makes the characters easier for the reader to identify with, as they, too, inhabit a world where you can read a Sandman comic and watch Star Trek; and two, it introduces the reader to the very texts that have influenced the author. So if
I was to use the formula: Take the ambiance of Weetzie Bat, part of
the plot of Moorchild, add two parts fangirl and one part Shakespearian
rhetoric, place in New Jersey and stir; I would not be far from the
truth." -- by Emily Lauer, from the December
2002 issue
From VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates): 4Q-4P-S-A/YA (for code translation, click here) "After being on the road with her mother's rock band for years, Kaye is by no means a typical sixteen-year-old. When her mother is attacked by a fellow band member under odd circumstances, the two go to stay with Kaye's grandmother in New Jersey, where Kaye had grown up and had seemingly been able to converse with members of the faerie world. After a disasterous night out with some human friends, Kaye stumbles on a beautiful armored faerie named Roiben who has been brutally attacked. Kaye's assistance to Roiben plunges her into a power struggle between two factions of the faerie kingdom, the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts, whose worlds are full of violence and exploitation. The only human she chooses to trust with her story is her best friend Janet's gay brother, Corny. When Corny and Kaye search for answers, Corny becomes a pawn in the power struggle while Kaye learns that she's actually a changeling. Although this story is not for the squeamish, teens who enjoy violent fantasy with romantic overtones will undoubtably provide and eager audience for this disturbingly lurid tale. Its dark tone, sex, violence and language place it in the realm of older teens, although the anime-like character descriptions and cover will lure younger teens as well." --by Mary Ann Darby, from the October 2002 issue Also from VOYA: "I think that this book would be good for readers in high school. It had a large amount of dark subject matter and was very angstish. The plot development was excellent, however, and the entire novel was a breathtaking flight of the imagination. I enjoyed the way the author put random quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I read it cover to cover in about two hours--I couldn't put it down! Older fans of the infamous Artemis Fowl books by Colfer will delight in Black's first literary work, a magnificent fusion of fantasy and very real darkness, and will be left waiting for more." --by Tori Kopesky, Teen Reviewer, from the October 2002 issue
From School Library Journal: "Kaye is 16 when she finally learns why she's such a strange young woman: she's a changeling pixie under a spell. A move home to the New Jersey Shore brings her back in touch with her childhood friends, the solitary fey, who want to end their servitude to the higher-born faeries by foiling the sacrifice of human blood known as the Tithe. Kaye offers to masquerade as a human for the Tithe and is swept into a complicated net of politics and treason between two rival courts of faeries. Grim scenes from Kaye's life pile up at the beginning of the series in what initially seems a gratuitous manner (her mother is almost stabbed by her current boyfriend, Kaye steals for thrills, a new acquaintance tries to rape her), but the details all have explanations later on in the equally grim world of the faeries. The plot moves quickly, and the secondary characters are appealing, if not always entirely believable. Occasional awkward changes in point of view won't discourage readers who enjoy dark edgy fantasy. However, the excessive use of obscenities adds little to character development. The greatest strength of the story line lies in the settings, particularly the description of the debased Unseelie Court." --by Beth Wright, from the October 2002 issue
From Booklist: "With a hard-drinking rock singer for a mother and a band of faeries as childhood friends, 16-year-old Kaye's life has always been unconventional. But when she rescues a gorgeous knight, Roiben, from mysterious attackers, Kaye is thrown into a terrifying otherworldly war between two faery kingdoms. In this wildly imagined debut, Black tells a gothic fantasy that contrast's the faerie world's seductive horror against the gritty world of contemporary, industrial New Jersey. Black includes plenty of mysteries and some mature, sexy innuendo to keep the plot flying along: is Kaye human? Which court is really in power? Who can be trusted? Does Roiben love Kaye or is he under another's spell? What's become of Corny, Kaye's gay friend who has fallen for an abusive knight? But its the riveting descriptions of the faerie world--a bacchanalian hell described in remarkable detail--that will most capture readers. Dark, edgy, beautifully written, and compulsively readable, this is sure to be a word-of-mouth hit with teens, even a few usually unmoved by magic and monsters." --by Gillian Engberg, from the February 2003 issue
From the Elliot Bay Book Company: "Tithe: A Modern Fairy-Tale by Holly Black (Simon & Schuster) Fans of unconventional fantasists like Francesca Lia Block and Tanith Lee will love Holly Black's first novel for teens. Tithe is a poetically angst-filled fantasy about Kaye, a lonely and imaginative sixteen-year-old girl who travels around America with her mother's rock band. When Kaye and her mother fall on hard times, they return to their home where long ago Kaye's vivid imagination brought her visions and strange friends from Faeryland. Drawing on the old mythic tradition that this world and the land of Faery are intertwined in space and time, so that sometimes mortals can wander from one into the other, Holly Black updates the fairy-tale form by showing this world's painfully prosaic nature and the darkness and danger of Faery's myriad wonders. The title, a good indication of the suspense in store, comes from the ancient Scottish ballard "Young Tam Lin": And pleasant is the faerie land / But an eerie tale to tell, / Ay at the end of seven years / We pay a tithe to Hell; / I am sae fair and fu o flesh, / I'm feard it be mysel." --by S.A.B.
From Amazon.com: "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)" --by Karin Snelson |