Synopsis:
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.
Review:
So I read this book way back in 2015 and I definitely remembered a few elements. Mostly just Kaye being a green fae (I won’t apologise for the spoiler as this book is over 20 years old now), well basically only that. I thought I had remembered more of it, but apparently not. I don’t remember this book at all. Obviously I don’t remember every detail of every book I’ve ever read but I thought I’d at least remember parts of Tithe.
Sadly, this just isn’t a great book. I love Holly Black, she’s one of my favourite authors, but her debut really misses the mark.
The story seems to move at a snail’s pace, but that’s technically not the case. The entire book takes place over a week or so, but it feels much longer. It’s fairly short at 320 pages but it took me far too long to get through it. Usually when I reread a book I can get through it much quicker, but not this time.
The characters are massively two dimensional and I really dislike how Kaye’s ethnicity was talked about. It seemed like these characters were doing just anything. No rhyme or reason, but oh you will have it all painfully described to you.
That was my biggest issue with Tithe. It’s a case of show don’t tell. I get really frustrated when every sentence starts with Kaye did this, Kaye did that etc. It’s not fun to read and it makes the book feel childish.
The actual premise of Tithe is great. Holly Black is incredible at creating faerie worlds. I like how this was a prelude to the Elfhame that we all know and love.
This review is very short as I honestly don’t really know what I thought of Tithe. It was an ok read, but I definitely have more negatives than positives.
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