Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales, #1)

by Holly Black

[nannah]

Holly Black proves time and time again she's young adult's edgelord.
This has been on my to-read list for forever; I think it was recommended to me in high school? It's about time I finally got to it!

Book content warnings
sexual harassment (+ also what I include here is non-consensual kissing situations)
rape

Ever since she was young, Kaye could see faeries. "Imaginary friends", everyone else thought, and Kaye was teased for it. But when she grew older, Kaye realized her imaginary friends weren't so imaginary, and she might be closer to the Faery world than she thought when she stumbles across a Faery Knight, saves his life, and tumbles head-first into a plot of the Seelie and Unseelie courts.

Whew, this was a ride. I'm not sure it was altogether a pleasant one, though. More like a "whoa, where is this going?" kind of ride. The first half was readable and enjoyable, even if a bit annoyingly "edgy" (a personal clash of tastes, really), but towards the second, things really seemed to slide out of control.

The climax seemed 3/4 of the way into the book, and after it passed . . . there still was 50 or so pages left. What was happening? There was a major clash between the romantic interests that was never resolved except for some romantic touches--and then I was to have assumed things were mended from there (how?). Suddenly things climaxed again with an explanation from Kaye that sounded like a Scooby Doo mystery wrap-up (literally with a page-and-a-half summary of "this is what happened, wasn't it??" that I had to read over a couple times to actually understand what she was trying to say). If your protagonist has to explain the plot of the entire book coming together in two pages . . . something's not coming together right.

Also . . . I haven't read every book by Holly Black, but I'm noticing a disturbing trend of gay side characters. Disturbing because they're always side characters, and they're always men. I haven't seen anything on Holly Black about this, but I'm starting to worry about fetishization . . . ? Again, I haven't read everything, and I'd love to be proved wrong on this.

Anyway, it just wasn't for me.