Tithe
Any book that becomes hyped up to the point of legend is a bit nerve-wracking to read. If it's great then, well, all as expected. If it's bad, the let-down is disproportionately huge. And if it's neither? Even worse - if it's... both? How to respond?!For me, Tithe is one of those super-hyped books that I expected to be utterly perfect and instead left me feeling totally ambivalent towards. Parts were wonderful, deliciously dark faerie fantasy. Other bits I did not care for at all. "Corny" was one such part - character being the more correct statement I suppose. He felt annoying and unnecessary. For the most part, a lot was just plain weird. Not only weird in the expected sense, with odd faery creatures (of which there are plenty, I assure you) but rather weird in the pacing, in the unexpected deaths of some and changes in others, in the missed explanations that suddenly make sense fifty pages later, leaving you reeling in confusion in the meantime.
Weirdly enough, I enjoyed it. There was no crushing disappointment as the long awaited read turned into a nightmare of bad grammar, bad plot and awful characters, as can happen sometimes. Simply a sigh as this turned out to not be totally perfect, as I'd naively hoped. Having loved the Spiderwick Chronicles as a child, this imperfection is nowhere near enough to put me off the writing of the wonderful [a:Holly Black|25422|Holly Black|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1261867163p2/25422.jpg]. It simply means I will not be rushing out for the sequel with desperate addictive need as I'd anticipated. (I will, however, be happily reading Ironside in the nearish future. Just to clarify.)
[a:Charles de Lint|8456|Charles de Lint|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1269735259p2/8456.jpg], I think you've spoiled me for contemporary faery stories.
