Tithe
By Holly Black

Reviewed by Lawrence D. P. Miller

Holly Black's first novel shows us the darker side of YA fiction. Kaye, our teenaged heroine, may have once dreamed of frolicking with the fair folk, but these days, she'd be happy if her mother, Ellen, would just stop bumming cigarettes off her. When unpleasantness in the Prologue forces Kaye and Ellen to move back in with Ellen's mother, Kaye has an opportunity to revisit her childhood. She recalls with fondness the imaginary friends she enjoyed during that time, and allows her imagination to run free again, roaming all over the Jersey shore, her old stomping grounds.

As you would expect from the book's subtitle "A Modern Faerie Tale", Kaye soon encounters evidence that she may not be imagining her imagination after all, and a wonderous descent into the world that exists in the places people aren't looking. What follows is an adventure and intrigue in which a young woman with modern sensibilities comes to term with a new, or rather old, reality.

Tithe proves that the "new genre" of YA fantasy, in which modern-day kids discover secrets of other realms, doesn't have to start and end with precocious caricatures designed to appeal to every reader's idea of himself at that age. Kaye is generally likeable, but we immediately want to change her; we want her to stop smoking, to care about her future. Kaye is the 16-year-old all the 12-year-olds from all those other books would grow up to be if they didn't have their life-changing adventures before they hit puberty. Largely, Kaye has already given up by the time we meet her. As a result, when she is inevitably drawn into Grand Events Beyond Her Control (Or Are They?), we care when she even takes an interest.

The "Ages 12 and Up" marked on the cover might be a little optimistic. Within the first 25 pages, all the major swearwords, as well as some new favorites, are represented, and sexuality is a major theme throughout. Kaye and a few of her cohorts come to terms with themselves as sexual beings over the course of the book, which occurs in a natural way that deepens, rather than cheapens, the characters. Certainly, while there is no gratuitous prurience, sexual exploration occurs, and is occasionally described in more detail than one usually finds in a Young Adult novel. Most of the violence is "off-screen", which serves to add depth to the scenes in which the threat or aftermath of violence is encountered. There are no examples of violence that has comical consequences, or no consequences at all.

Tithe Holly Black Simon & Schuster ISBN: 0-689849-24-9 Hardcover, 320 pages October 2002 List Price: $16.95