READING: Tithe (The Modern Faerie Tales,#1) by Holly Black

Tithe by Holly Black

Publication Date: March 23rd 2004

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Paperback, 331 pages

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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 the sixteen-year-old 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.

Honestly,it's really hard for me to write a review for Tithe...It's not that i didn't like it...But many,and i mean many things in this book bothered me.It's one of those times when you come across a book,that although you didn't exactly like it,you can't actually write a bad review either.That's the case with Tithe...

From the very first sentence of this book i fell in love with it!You don't come across many books that dare to present reality for what it is,not trying to sweeten things up.And by saying presenting reality for what it is,i mean that at last,Black created a teenager charactes who cusses,drinks,smokes and yeah...knows everything about sex and she's casual about it!Kaye is one of my favorite heroines just for all those.Because,let's face it,teenagers nowadays may do far worse things than those Kaye did and i was glad that a writer dared to present things for what they really are.We may all hide behind our own fingers or pretend not to see some things and hope that teenagers don't smoke or drink or have sex,but the truth is that most of them do,most teenagers try their very own limits no matter how good their upringing is.And to be honest,Kaye is not your typical teenager neither is her ubringing that good,so most of the things she does are more than justified...

The writing style is a whole different story though... Black's writing style was what made me love to hate this book!I loved the very vivid pictures the author managed to create but i felt that the whole book was a sort of an assemply of scenes thrown in together...A number of times i found myself lost from one scene to another not quite certain where the scene ended or how the next one began...I must admit,English is not my first language so it's only natural that i have unknown words or phrases while reading a book,but to this day,the only book i ever encountered a problem while reading it was The Lord of The Rings,and let's face it,Tolkien is a bit hard even for native speakers at times....(or so i've been told by some friends)So,maybe i felt lost due to my lack of understanding Black's language but the result was the same...

I just couldn't get into this book no matter how hard i try and no matter how i wanted to like it....Once again,i found the protagonists in this book just accepting anything paranormal without a second thought or without seeking explanations.And ok,i can accept that Kaye just accepted those facts unquestioningly but Curly too?I don't want to dwell more on that point for fear of spoilers,but again i found myself wondering why the heroes won't seek for the right - obvious - questions until it's suited for the plot...

Anyway,even now i really don't know how to rate this book or decide if i like it or not.The story was rather good but i just couldn't get into it.But one thing is for certain,whenever Tithe is mentioned,Black's amazing portrayal of Kaye will be the first thing to come to my mind.And for that thing only i think that everyone should try to read this book