Tithe by Holly Black

Kaye has always been different. As a blonde Asian, she's used to the weird looks and stares. And the fact that when Kaye was younger she played with faeries didn't help her elementary school image. So when she suddenly finds herself back in her hometown, she's sure some magic will follow. And it does. After Kaye saves a faerie knight, she's thrown into a war between two rival faerie factions--a war in which she'll be lucky to survive.

To be honest, I hated this book. I know that sounds harsh, and if you actually liked Tithe, you might not want to read my review. But I decided to state my grievances in a list, as to make it more organized.

1) The characters were...well, let's just say they left much to be desired.

Kaye, the protagonist, was weird. There's no other way to say it. Not different or unique, just weird. And I hated when other characters would call her clever, because she did like two clever things throughout the whole book. Kaye was 16, smoked, drank, and dropped out of school. Yeah, that sounds real smart to me. The only character I kinda liked was the faerie knight Roiben. He was actually interesting.

2) The plot was a mess.

Throughout the whole book I had no idea what was going on. This character was good, then they were bad, Kaye is suddenly a pixie, just really random stuff was going on. At the end, Kaye has this epiphany (where she came up with it, I have no idea, because there was no foreshadowing), anyway, she explains everything that was going on. But I was still not clarified.

3) The writing was awful.

I have no idea how this book was published because the writitng was terrible. Holly Black tried way too hard to conjure imagery (i.e: "[talking about a sunset] Like he slit his wrists in a bathtub and the blood is all over the water."). I thought that was too much. Also, there was a lot of cursing. There's nothing wrong with a little swearing here and there, but when you drop the f-bomb while asking for the salt, it starts getting ridiculous. Ok, that didn't really happen but you get the idea.

4) The fantasy aspect was unbelievable.

I know the words 'fantasy' and 'believable' contradict each other, but good fantasy makes you believe that whatever happening is real and draws you into a new world. And this book didn't do that. I hate to say it, but books like this are the reason I don't really like the fantasy genre.

As you can tell, I really didn't like this book. I would have stopped reading it after like two chapters, but I had to review it for Pulse IT. Even so, I felt like that was a huge waste of my time.

2 out of 10.