Yep, another book involving an uber hot fairy prince. Doncha just love these fairy princes?! They’re up there with the vamps as far as I’m concerned.
I’m a tad embarrassed cos it’s taken so long to get around to reading Tithe. I mean, it’s one of the first (maybe the first?) urban fantasy YA novel that gets all messed up fairytale on our butts! But hey, I finally got around to it and I realllllllly enjoyed it.
It’s about 16-year-old Kaye who returns to her childhood town after trailing around after her mum’s rock band for a few years. Here, she re-acquaints with her old fairy friends and saves a hot fairy prince (
What I LOVED about this book was the strong female lead, the tight clear plot and the dark, crumbling setting – the rotting seaside town where her grandma lives. The whole setting really rams home the ’fairies gone bad’ thing .
At first, I found her writing style a bit awkward but as the novel moved on, I started to really appreciate it, especially her use of similes (eg. her description of the sunset looking like it’s ’slit its wrists and is bleeding orange all over the ocean’ is an oft-quoted example).
The male characters are hot, including Kenny, the (mortal) boyf of her best friend, who I found strangely alluring. And Roiben, the fairy knight, is typical of this genre’s ‘heroes’ – wicked, violent but alluring. The plot was intricately mapped out, you could tell that with the writing. Every scene had a purpose and the endgame was well in sight from the start.
My only issues were that I wasn’t convinced by Kaye and Roiben’s ‘connection’. I felt this was a classic case of ‘I fancy you cos you’re hot’. I didn’t understand why else there was this connection between them? The love element wasn’t delved into as much as I’d like though I’m a romantic at heart and have often found fault with novels cos of this so maybe I’m asking too much? I also felt the end kinda whispered instead of screamed, which is fine for some but I like a little more oomph in that last scene.
The book also declared itself as being a ‘modern faerie tale’ and you certainly get this feel – a quick, clever, witty read. Maybe I’d liked a bit more depth though?
But overall, a great read. Holly Black is no doubt a really accomplished writer and is totally in touch with her dark side. I still prefer Melissa Marr (specifically Wicked Lovely), mainly cos it has more ‘depth’ but definitely one I’d recommend.
And writing-wise, when I started reading the de-fairy-lightful Tithe, I wondered if I’d read it before in some fairydust-induced haze. Not cos it was dull, oh no, but mainly because it was doing just what I wanted to do to ‘grit up’ my writing. The kooky, funky, messed up main character; the derelict settings; the dark, violent scenes, the kind I saw in my mind’s eye a few months back when I was thinking about how to make my writing a bit more ‘real’. But I have never read it, not in this mortal world anyway 
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