Review: Tithe

Readers, I have been in a funk lately. There is an enormous stack of books on my refridgerator/side table (my room has become the holding cell for all manner of junk these days), most of which I am, or was at some point, interested in. But lately I just haven't been able to stick to it. Two weeks went by without me finishing anything other than Coraline, which is pretty sad really. But the downward spiral has been broken, if only by a mediocre offering.

Genre: novel, young adult (we all know what that means)

Plot: Kaye is a weird 16 year old who, when she's not pulling her washed-up rock-star mother's head out of a toliet, daydreams about the faerie friends who used to play with her as a child. Now back in New Jersey, a chance encounter on a rainy road draws her into the world of Faery, where her actions have unforeseen consequences.

I'm not going to lie, this plot had about as much depth or coherency as a Sci-Fi Channel (or should I say Syfy) Original Movie. I have good memories with many YA writers, such as Jane Yolen or Donna Jo Napoli, but much of what makes the genre compelling was missing from this one. One dimensional characters, terribly boring story, no true twists, unpolished language all contribute to its failure, but worst of all is the supposedly-complicated plot cliche. Oh I hate this trope. You know the one, where the author pretends she's come up with this marvelously intricate plot, but if you stop and think half a second it's really pretty lame.

To sum it up, every negative thing you've heard about Twilight could probably be said of this book. Even Roiben, the main male emo hero/love interest shares a lot of similar qualities to everyone's favorite statue.

Structure: 15 Chapters, each beginning with quotes so randomly obscure I seriously thought Black was making it up. But when I got to one I recognized from Rilke, I knew they were real. The beginning chapters jump so far into the story without any explanation that I was left with a jarring sense of abandonment. The ending chapters, however, go completely the opposite direction -- the story is neatly wrapped in a pretty conventional/predictable package.

For something that obviously had a LOT of development from the Tam Lin story, I guess I'm just a little disappointed it didn't take on some of the more interesting, clever turns it could have.

Execution: This was Black's first novel, and it shows. The prose is unremarkable, at times wandering into the ridiculous. The climax Tithe scene was the only interesting, well-written piece, but even then I suspect heavy amounts of influence from The Chronicles of Narnia and/or Harry Potter (which, I should say, isn't necessarily a bad thing). Still, I hope the sequel amps up the prose pizzaz, because hiding okay prose behind cool-sounding quotes is not something I'd make a habit of.

Theme: New Jersey, Goth Faeries, modern fairy tale

Read this if you like those gothic "faerie" drawings I always see at the mall.

2 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Well, apparently she got better. Holly Black is the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, in addition to the two sequels to this series (Ironside and Valiant).

A full list of her work is available here.

If you liked this, you might also like:
Anything by Jane Yolen or Donna Jo Napoli -- I think you will find their ability to retell fairy tales and mythology much better realized

The oft-mentioned, always-mocked Twilight series

I'm currently reading Francesca Lia Block's The Rose and the Beast, which is another fairy tale retelling but in much more lyrical prose