Tithe - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689837070 ISBN 13: 9780689837074

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's, 2003

Synopsis

A gripping tale of a teenage girl finding out how different she is - and how she must use her ingenuity to survive, and save her friends. A teenage girl goes back to her childhood home - the place where she used to talk to faeries. Coming up to Hallowe'en, she meets her old friends - and Roibin, who tells her his true name. Discovering the truth about herself, she agrees to go along with a plan to disrupt the human sacrifice that binds her faery friends to unkind masters. But she is to be the human sacrifice, and not everyone has been telling her the truth...

About this title

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

About the Author

Holly Black spent her early years in a decaying Victorian mansion where her mother fed her a steady diet of ghost stories and faerie tales. An avid collector of rare folklore volumes, spooky dolls, and crazy hats, she lives in West Long Branch, New Jersey, with her husband, Theo. This is her first book. For more information, visit www.blackholly.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0689837070
• ISBN 13: 9780689837074
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1