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Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
by Holly Black

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46777.Tithe_A_Modern_Faerie_Tale?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1170343494m/46777.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46777.Tithe_A_Modern_Faerie_Tale?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25422.Holly_Black">Holly Black</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8735189?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars Summary: comfortably predictable storyline with some huge plot holes, but more than fun enough to read. Just make sure it doesn't put off Weetzie Bat or other masterpieces of the YA genre. 
 
 This book is marred by one major flaw that doesn't affect most of the YA set: bad things happen--both on- and off-stage--to sympathetic characters around our protagonist and no one cares. Several "best friend" character die, the two mothers are left bereft of their children, a small child is abandoned to the faeries, and the nearby world is beset by death and destruction, but it doesn't affect the main, teen-aged protagonist and we only follow her pursuit of a dangerous older man who doesn't want to use her naivety no matter how much she tries to make him. His self-recriminations--even while he's killing innocents--for making out with her while she was drunk make for a great character. 
 
 In addition, the important and interesting family drama with her wanna-be rocker mom and her controlling and narrow-minded grandmother is left not only unresolved, but probably unresolvable. 
 
 Fortunately, the faerie plotline is well handled, if 100% comfort-food, even for the YA crowd. Our protagonist is asked to play the role of the sacrifice victim in a faerie sacrifice taken straight from Tam Lin, with the promise that her good faerie friends will save her at the end and reveal thats the bad faeries had broken the rules. Of course, "good" and "bad" will intermingle and swap around throughout the course of the story (as is appropriate in a faerie tale) and she has to look after herself and mis-trust her lifelong faerie friends. 
 
 She does a passable job of wising up, if not growing up, and the action-y scenes are quite fun as her wanna-be beau fights off orders to kill her, she tries to rescue her almost-friend from a dangerous lover, and both the supposedly good and definitely bad faeries line up to use her for their political ends even if it means killing her. 
 
 So it's a fun read, but don't expect any of the usual YA moral or character growth. Pure entertaining fluff. 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/63444?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Seth's review
rating:
bookshelves: ya

Summary: comfortably predictable storyline with some huge plot holes, but more than fun enough to read. Just make sure it doesn't put off Weetzie Bat or other masterpieces of the YA genre.

This book is marred by one major flaw that doesn't affect most of the YA set: bad things happen--both on- and off-stage--to sympathetic characters around our protagonist and no one cares. Several "best friend" character die, the two mothers are left bereft of their children, a small child is abandoned to the faeries, and the nearby world is beset by death and destruction, but it doesn't affect the main, teen-aged protagonist and we only follow her pursuit of a dangerous older man who doesn't want to use her naivety no matter how much she tries to make him. His self-recriminations--even while he's killing innocents--for making out with her while she was drunk make for a great character.

In addition, the important and interesting family drama with her wanna-be rocker mom and her contr...more Summary: comfortably predictable storyline with some huge plot holes, but more than fun enough to read. Just make sure it doesn't put off Weetzie Bat or other masterpieces of the YA genre.

This book is marred by one major flaw that doesn't affect most of the YA set: bad things happen--both on- and off-stage--to sympathetic characters around our protagonist and no one cares. Several "best friend" character die, the two mothers are left bereft of their children, a small child is abandoned to the faeries, and the nearby world is beset by death and destruction, but it doesn't affect the main, teen-aged protagonist and we only follow her pursuit of a dangerous older man who doesn't want to use her naivety no matter how much she tries to make him. His self-recriminations--even while he's killing innocents--for making out with her while she was drunk make for a great character.

In addition, the important and interesting family drama with her wanna-be rocker mom and her controlling and narrow-minded grandmother is left not only unresolved, but probably unresolvable.

Fortunately, the faerie plotline is well handled, if 100% comfort-food, even for the YA crowd. Our protagonist is asked to play the role of the sacrifice victim in a faerie sacrifice taken straight from Tam Lin, with the promise that her good faerie friends will save her at the end and reveal thats the bad faeries had broken the rules. Of course, "good" and "bad" will intermingle and swap around throughout the course of the story (as is appropriate in a faerie tale) and she has to look after herself and mis-trust her lifelong faerie friends.

She does a passable job of wising up, if not growing up, and the action-y scenes are quite fun as her wanna-be beau fights off orders to kill her, she tries to rescue her almost-friend from a dangerous lover, and both the supposedly good and definitely bad faeries line up to use her for their political ends even if it means killing her.

So it's a fun read, but don't expect any of the usual YA moral or character growth. Pure entertaining fluff. ...less

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