Holly Black

A Modern Faerie Tale

Tithe

chloe rae

This was a weird one for me. I REALLY liked some aspects, really didn't understand some other ones. I found this book impossible to put down and super fun to read; I just had to keep telling myself to not take everything too seriously which was working fine until that ENDING. I mean, what WAS that? It was so disjointed and rushed and odd that I couldn't tell at first that it was the ending? Strange. But all that being said, I'm super excited to see what happens in the next book?
This book reminded me of two book series: The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa and Holly's other faerie series, Folk of the Air. I feel like this book was a not as well executed version of the Iron Fey series, and also like this series is what was originally going to be her Cruel Prince series but she knew she could do it better so she DID. Both of those other series reign supreme over this one, but I'm still so intrigued to see where she takes this story. The romance was super insta-lovey but it was fun and I didn't really mind until I got to the end and felt like nothing really warranted the relationship?
I don't know. Either way, I'm excited to continue on. I have a feeling it'll get better and better as the story progresses.

Ariel

I am so confused. the only factor that kept me reading on was the romance that wasn't any better but sure .

I really enjoyed this! I really love how Holly Black writes faeries it’s just so well done and weaved together. The story was interesting and I enjoyed the characters. I got all 3 books from this series for Christmas so I’ll be reading the next one ASAP cos that ending has me intrigued!! It’s really interesting too to see the difference between this and her most recent fae series TCP and how far she has come from Tithe to her work today!

I really loved the length of this book too, 250 pages is a good length and the pacing for the book was spot on!

My only issue was I was listening to the audiobook and reading along, the audibook was the original version so there was a few yikes things in there and I was a bit taken aback but the 2020 edition has fixes and rewrites so my review is of the physical book and not the audio!

Stranded 

I don't know what to say. I loved the other books by Holly Black but this was not it. The characters were completely flat. The protagonist's personality consists of her smoking and partying habit and the plot was also very one dimensional to me. 
However it was a quick read and I still love the author's writing style.

Kirsten Simkiss

I'm gonna be frank, this book really didn't appeal to me. I love the tricksy faerie courts and the clever outmaneuvering of one's opponents according to the way the game of the faerie court is played. That part is good and fine and honestly pretty interesting. However, you see this whole book from the perspective of Kaye and that's where my enjoyment of the book dies. 

Kaye is, for all intents and purposes, a blundering edgelord of a character - and I mean that in the kindest way possible. She's one of those kids you probably thought were cool back in high school with the edgy emo kid look but when you look back at them and how they acted as an adult, you cringe hard. She and her friend Janet are those kids. Kaye literally exists to invite drama. She enchants her best friend's boyfriend "accidentally," consistently pisses off her friend by enjoying the attention even though she isn't into him and is actually into this immortal faerie guy who's definitely coded as being way WAY older than she is (which is the fifteen to sixteen year old range), she smokes, she drinks, she hangs out in abandoned buildings with her friend who doesn't even like her for most of the book so she winds up replacing her with her brother. She's not someone I think most people can probably relate to that much. Aside from being a terrible friend, she doesn't really have much of a personality as it stands in this book. Most of her personality is reactive rather than preexisting, which is something I personally don't love in a main character. It's all well and good to give your characters a trial by fire to bring out their best and worst, but they have to HAVE a best and worst to bring out.

Another thing that bothers me is that none of the characters in the book seem to have any chance to really react to what's happening to them. At the start of the book as the result of a faerie's manipulations, Kaye's mother is almost stabbed and murdered by her boyfriend who they live with. Naturally, you would expect some kind of emotional response to this. Shock, hysteria, concern? Nope, just "We're gonna go move in with Grandma again." Another instance of this happening is when Janet is killed. Kaye gets maybe a page to grieve her drowning, and then it's forgotten. When her brother is rescued and brought back from the court, they just discuss what happened to him in the faerie court instead like his sister's death isn't the tragedy at hand. It almost felt like the only emotions in the book were anger, confusion, and sexual attraction to me - and that last one didn't really follow much. Aside from the main romance that pushes the age of consent limits, I just honestly didn't see why these two would make a good couple. Because he's hot and she's the underage main character? Am I meant to buy that? I just don't see how these two characters make a good match romantically. Seriously, what did they see in each other that made them go head over heels? Roiben has good hair, sure, fine, but that doesn't really spell out happily ever after for me. And sure, meanwhile, let's put our gay character in an abusive relationship! Seriously, why? Corny was made into a prop for us to feel sorry for again and again. 

I could never find it in me to care about any of the characters. Janet's death had no true impact for me. Corny's probably the closest I came to caring, since he was an unwilling participant in most of the craziness in this book. But ultimately? None of these characters were ever someone who I could picture being a real person. That is something I ache for in books and it just wasn't there for me in this one.

Also, what was with the author making grandma out to be the worst? She was literally trying to give her grand daughter a better life by getting her started back up in school again and getting her out of the bad habits her mother had let her slip into, like staying out all night with strange adult men (Roiben who was def coded as being 18+) and coming home at two in the morning with a pack of cigarettes. Seriously, I get that school isn't for everyone, but this child is an absolute train wreck by human standards.

All in all, I have a lot of complaints about this book. I know this is aimed at teens growing up in the 2000s - I was one of them and I'm pretty sure I picked up and then stopped reading this book back then - but this is not a book I can easily recommend to anyone aside from if they want a good example of what a faerie court is like. I do really like the core world building of the trickery of faeries.

Discover the dark and seductive realm of faerie in the first book of New York Times bestseller Holly Black’s critically acclaimed Modern Faerie Tales series, where one girl must save herself from the sinister magic of the fey courts, and protect her heart in the process.

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she drifts from place to place with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces them back to Kaye’s childhood home. But Kaye’s life takes another turn when she stumbles upon an injured faerie knight in the woods. Kaye has always been able to see faeries where others could not, and she chooses to save the strange young man instead of leaving him to die.

But this fateful choice will have more dire consequences than she could ever predict, as Kaye soon finds herself the unwilling pawn in an ancient and violent power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms—a struggle that could very well mean her death.

The Modern Faerie Tales #1

Interesting start to the series + Holly Black faerie universe. Could tell that since the release of this, Holly has grown in her writing (but an amazing starting point for her -- better than some other authors now). 

(Bre)anne✨

Savannah Winchell

Tithe by Holly Black
5⭐️
- honestly I’m thriving yo
- my first fairy boyf
- I love that Holly does the weird fairies too
- way darker than 7 yr old me remembers lol
- diversity before there was a push for it bc sis is a qween
- lutie lu is an angel bb

Flavia Machado

I just can't read it anymore. I dislike the writing style and while reading I noted a huge lack of editing. The writing is unclear in many, many places and the transitions between scenes are so abrupt that become incoherent, making it difficult to understand what's happening.

After returning home from a tour with her mother's rock band, sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

a modern faerie tale

illa

Don't get me wrong, this book is VERY early 2000s ya and teenager-y, but I still liked it, surprisingly. Rath Roiben Rye my beloved

Marissa Killian

My 1 star has nothing to do with the cursing which seems to be a lot of people's issue. I honestly didn't think they cursed THAT much, they are teenagers... I wasn't one that long ago and I heard much worse than what's used in this book. I just personally didn't get in to it. I didn't really like the main character and at one point I was confused as to what was even going on anymore. I agree with another review I read that the author tried to put too much into to little space. Usually I finish a book this size in under and hour, it took me a few days because I kept putting it down. Just not my kind of book.

Becky

This was interesting. Holly Black always writes faerie stories with her own twist. They are never kind or sweet. Faeries are dark and cannot be trusted. And her characters are always shades of grey. 

I enjoyed it. It was definitely an easy read but I don’t know how much I want to continue the series (a mistake when I own all the books). I’ll see how it goes. I just don’t know if I can find these dark tales as compelling as I’m probably meant to when I feel like she’s developed more compelling faerie stories in her career than these. Maybe if I’d not read the Cruel Prince series I’d be more invested but instead I’m mentally comparing the two. 

Alexis Rader

I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would since it was published so long ago. I have The Modern Faerie Tales physically so I read it from there. Kaye is an interesting character and has developed a lot through this story. I can't want to finish the trilogy.

Sophia De La Garza

I... I have thoughts. This book was insanely weird for me. I don't know if it's because I read it at 2 in the morning or what but this book . . .well it's something. Not bad, not good. Just. . . weird.

JB Moore

When rating books like this it's such a challenge, because when I first read this when I was roughly 14 years old (*sweats profusely in 30 years old*) it was precisely what I needed.

Then I would have given it a solid 5/5. I wanted to be Kaye more than I wanted most things. The headstrong teen protagonist was 100% relatable and I thought the edgy blend of worlds was insanely.

With 16 years between myself and the first time I read this...clearly my viewpoint is different. Nostalgia may completely blind me on this, but I will shamelessly always find solace in the world this trilogy built.

Aleena Korell

3 1/2. I liked the Tam Lin aspect, though it took a long time to get there. I really enjoy how Holly Black frames the Fae world. Very dark, creepy, and atmospheric. But the first half of the book was hard for me to slog through-- set in the human world, seemingly gritty for the sake of being gritty. Fun to read about characters that I now see made cameos in Cruel Prince, though!

Candyce Kirk

ashley hopkins

I don't know if it's the book, or what but these fairies weren't for me. I understand they were suppose to be dark that's not what bothered me. It's grittiness and vulgarness didn't bother me either. if you think teens don't act like this then I don't know what rock you've been living under. 

I think it's the fact that I didn't care for kaye or any of the characters except Roibian. Most seemed dry and boring to me.

the plot also didn't keep me to interested. (how I finished I don't know, maybe it's my need to finish books I start, and also I'll be unhaling this book.) most the time I just had the WTF feeling.

Merel Vanempten

Tbh, i bought this book because i liked the cover. Turned out really well though.
We follow a Young girl with faerie Friends. A girl that's different, i know It's getting a bit old with all these"different" girls but she really is odd. This story wasnt as great as the folk of the air series but it was still good. It's a fast moving story with interesting characters. It did get a bit childish at times. I enjoyed this.

B. K.

3 stars might be a bit generous. I liked individual scenes and elements and characters more than the whole, and felt zero emotional investment.

Alejandra Bran

Do you guys have an idea of how long it has been since I said I was going to read this book? Since 2010 that’s when I read City of Bones for the first time and realized that there are cameos between Holly Black and Cassie Clare’s books. I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would, and the reason I ended up reading it is because I read “The Cruel Prince” and some on the Tithe characters made a cameo and I didn’t know who they were. (And I’m obsess with TCP) 

Oh Shisus I regret not having read this a long time ago, it was so good. Holly Black has a very crude and dark type of writing and I can’t get enough of it. She doesn’t try to give you a pretty picture on her descriptions. This lady is not playing around. 

Just as Cassie Clare, Holly’s Faeries they are vicious, mischievous beings, so it’s hard to think there is good faeries because technically there is not. Our main characters are Faeries that are not as cruel and the ones that are the villains… I know that sound confusing, but if you read the book, I promise it will make sense.

The book has the same trope that most of YA Fantasy books have. Our Hero or Heroine finds out they are not who they are supposed to be… OMG they’re not even human lol. I really don’t care about that as long as the story is interesting, but if you are the type of reader that will put on their review “OMG its always the same with these stories” “OMG we have seen this in some many others” just stir away from this book. Still if you’re able to go past that this book will not disappoint you.

Also the Audiobook is narrated by Kate Rudd, I love her!! She is also the narrator for the “Kricket Series” one of my favorites. I already pressing play on Valiant LOL

Hannah

The first fantasy book I have read in a long time. While I found it a little hard to follow at times, overall I loved the story and am very excited to be reading the second and third

Kaeli Wolf 

Anne-Birth Kers

This was exactly what I was in the mood for at the moment! An easy quick Faerie read, by an author I already knew I loved.

So I already knew I love Holly Black’s Faeries and this book just reminded me of that. I love the way she writes them, it’s incredible. I fell in love with Kaye on page one and Roiben is amazing, I love him so much. I wasn’t a big fan of Corny tho, but oh well. I suppose you can’t like all of the characters.

The story was fun enough. It wasn’t really special, but I enjoyed it. It was hard to see where the plot was going sometimes and I was confused quite a lot. Because when I thought the main plot had ended I still had about 80 pages to go which is a lot in a book with only 261 pages, but another plot element got added and I enjoyed it and that’s what’s most important.

It was definitely fun to read this book already having read the Cruel Prince series as there are some elements from this one in there. I mean the Folk of the Air is even mentioned and Elfhame. I definitely enjoyed that.

I will hopefully continue on with this series soon!

Tithe A Modern Faerie Tale

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