Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black

I've known that his book existed for a while but only last night did I start to read it--and finish it, at 5 in the morning, having gone through the whole thing in one sitting. Tithe went far beyond my expectations.

So what were those expectations? I knew that there were faeries and that it was supposed to be "edgy" and that there was some kind of romancin' going on. I'd seen a little fan-art online, of white-haired pretty-boys with pointy ears. In my head it was Twilight with elves, a slight fantasy with some mild romance.

Kaye Fierch is our plucky protag, though she resembles the typical teen heroine in he same way a griffin resembles an eagle. Part of hat archetype is there, but there's something else entirely grafted on. She feels like an outcast--par for the course--she's probably half-asian--okay--and her mother is a musician who she travels the States with, and she hasn't been to school in two years and she may have accidentally put some kind of love spell on her best (and only) friend's boyfriend. Things get interesting.

See, Kaye had a trio of "imaginary" faerie friends while she was living in Jersey. She moved away, she stopped seeing them. When she returns she finds herself looking for them, afraid that they may have been really imaginary. It doesn't take too long before something weird happens while Kaye is out with friends, something weird happens, the aforementioned best friend's aforementioned boyfriend put the moves on her, and she runs off.

Runs off, and meets a wounded faerie knight. When she saves his life, he owes her a debt--three questions answered truthfully. Pretty soon, she meets two of her three old friends. Pretty soon, she starts glancing at mirrors and seeing herself green. Pretty soon, she's part of a conspiracy to take power away from one of the reigning faerie queens.

There's plenty going on in Tithe, and while there aren't a ton of characters, the ones that are there are well-developed and interesting. It's the little touches that make the book memorable, along with the tone; this book is much darker and grittier (and I know those are buzzwords tossed around far too often) than most of what you'd call "dark teen fantasy." I'm looking forward to checking out the sequel, Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale.

Tithe gets an A- for being totally better than expected, having a great sense of place, and for not talking down to its audience. PG-13 for language, some of the creepiest implied sex I've read in recent memory, and pointy-eared pretty boys kissing ass (literally.)