This was very very creepy

[dangermousie]

Just finished Holly Black's Tithe, a ya fantasy novel set in the faerie realm, and it was very much not a book for me.

1. Concept of changelings is creepy as hell - all I could think through the entire book was children whose lives were stolen and hate Kaye for not trying to do anything once she found out.

2. A blonde Asian heroine. WTF? Biologically impossible.

3. Kaye, our heroine, is a smoking high-school dropout. I wanted to tell her to do something with her life - she is the kind of kid I would tell Baby Mousie stay away from - talk about wasting your life and living uselessly. I really disliked her. Smoking + dropout does not make you cool.

4. This had enough plot for a much longer book - it felt sudden and crammed in with some unrealistic reactions.

5. Roiben. I don't care if he is not human but a faerie - what he needs isn't a kingdom and a pixie girlfriend. What he needs is decades of therapy. Possibly millenia. Even if I liked Kaye more than I do, a few kisses ain't going to fix THAT mess.

6. The idea of compunction through magic and/or name power is creepy as hell. It was largely not sexually used, at least explicitly, but it is still sick in the head whichever way it is used. It does not make it any better the the characters we explicitly see in thrall (Roiben, Corny) are male - it's creepy regardless.

7. I want to take a flamethrower to the faerie world so none of those sick sick bastards will exist.

All in all, despite liking some of it, this book was not for me.

Comments

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I'm sorry you didn't like it! And the things you didn't like about it sounds like things I wouldn't like about it either. Hrm, so much for putting it on my reading list. " :|

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It might be worth flipping through in a store to see if it appeals.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it as a deconstruction of romanticized-but-actually-really-icky-and-creepy fae themes, but didn't necessarily care for any of the characters, and think Melissa Marr (while still icky and creepy) did a much better job with a similar idea several years later, and with mostly better characters. Or at least, some of hers actually interest me.

What annoyed me with the magic compulsion is how it's used to completely absolve Rioben of guilt over anything he did, despite not actually feeling any guilt for it.

The idea of changelings in mythology has always fascinated me (I have a ridiculous fondness for Delia Sherman's more youth-friendly Changeling which is about a human child raised in faerie who meets and has an adventure with the changeling who took her place, and who Totally Does Not Like This Mystic Stuff No No No Make It Go Away Counting Bricks Now) but i very much agree about "oh, changelings...bummer."

I think Kaye is actually half-Japanese, and that's assuming her father wasn't mixed race.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I actually flipped through Marr's books in the store and they were even creepier from that flipthrough so I will be skipping.

I think anything set in the faerie world is clearly not for me, deconstruction or not (not that the tales needed much deconstruction to make them creepy. Reading original Grimm's fairy tales, Scottish legends et al, is enough to give anyone the creeps - I never read the bawdlerized/disneyfied versions, and the unwarnished ones, while excellent, can scare anyone :))

Re: Roiben. I actually got from the book that he was feeling horrible and even suicidal about everything he was forced to do. But regardless, the fact that stuff like that was ok in that world - I.e. Having someone compelled to do stuff (not to mention having the compelled person or even a willing flunkie do all that horrendousness) was normal in that world, made me to just want to flamethrower that world.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

From the perspective of typical modern representation, there's definitely some much needed deconstruction. Fae/Fairy Tales are typically viewed as deeply romantic and dreamy, despite...not being, at all. Rather like vampires.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

2. A blonde Asian heroine. WTF? Biologically impossible.

Not true. A considerable percentage of Mongolian children are born blonde, and they're still researching into why.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I thought so. I mean, I know that it's possible for black people to be born blonde (even if they're not mixed race), so...

And not much is biologically impossible in one group of people if it's possible in another. We're all the same species after all. Unless we're faeries.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Or a faerie exchanged with a mixed race baby...

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

And not much is biologically impossible in one group of people if it's possible in another. We're all the same species after all.

Eeeexactly. And recessive traits do not mean never-emerging traits. (Says the redhead with one blond, one brunet parent.) There's a scientific way of putting it involving terms like mitochondrial DNA, though my own objectivity is compromised in that whenever I hear that phrase I picture the dancing prawns from L'Engle's A Wind In the Door. And giggle.

Unless we're faeries.

Secretly, Madhuri Dixit is a fairy.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

Still, whenever I see some really weird coloring in a book for a main character, I get nervous - too many years seeing MarySue fics on ffn.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Ain't she cute?

I see where you're coming from. But then, there are always real-life cases of exceptional coloring -- think of that famous Nat'l Geo photo. I personally don't get phased by it in books, but I grew up with violet-eyed Alanna of Treborne.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She looks Russian :) I approve :)

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

The book grossed me out and I disliked all the characters so I never even finished. If you want something more like Mortal Instruments, try A Great & Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. It's set in Victorian England and there's magic and girl power. And it's a trilogy. You might like it. It was fun.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

IIRC, that one lost me early in the second book with "idiot foreigner knows nothing about England and can't find anything or keep up with the times or people despite living there for months and supposedly being very intelligent." Not that the first book wasn't also heavy on racial problems.

I'm not sure if I'd call it "girl power" though. While I loved the friendships between the leads, it definitely portrayed curiosity and girls seeking knowledge and power as Very Very Bad.

(Mind you, as much as I liked some elements, my experience is colored by the fact that reading first person present tense for anything longer than a short story is like nails on chalkboard to me and makes me want to yell at the author that connect-the-dots narration isn't fun.)

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

I ended up not liking the series towards the end, too. There was a really haphazard way of getting all the girls to go into the bad part of the magic lands, or whatever. "It's really dangerous! Let's bring everyone, including the blind girl, with us!"

I did read it in support of the genre, but I didn't really like it. I guess getting them from the library wasn't giving much monetary support, though..

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

It definitely had it's flaws but I thought it was a fun read.

it definitely portrayed curiosity and girls seeking knowledge and power as Very Very Bad
I thought that was because it was set in the 1800's :/ In the third book she tries to make it as "feminist" as possible. I dunno if it worked very well but it's like 800 pages of a power struggle between men and women in the magical realm with some mythical creatures, fighting and romance.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I keep eyeing them.

[fivil.livejournal.com]

Mousie! I watched one of your favourite films, The Breakfast Club, last night and naturally loved it. Have you read any good fic based on it? I found some okay ones on yuletide but that's mostly uncanon ships and I want canon ones.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't know where to find fic - I'd kill for some!

[wingstodust.livejournal.com]

... Are you serious?! I loved this book! I gobbled this up when I was twee and wanted everything changeling related after getting my hands on The Moorchild.
Okay, then again, the Mortal Instrument bored me to tears so I supposed we just have very different tastes when it comes to ya fantasy or something.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It just left me with a feeling of wanting to send a hazmat team out there to clean the dump the gal was living in :)

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

I just want to pipe up that while I good part of my life could be considered wasteful, a lot of it I had to waste to get myself to the point to choose I didn't want to waste it anymore. *takes drags off cigarette* To broaden it out to fiction, we see a lot of characters who choose the good path rather than the wrong because they've been there and it's their choice. For me, I had to experience the dark side and I find my conscious choice of a better way to be richer for the experience.

I will say, though, that it's the glorification of certain character types in YA fiction that scares me. This is a huge reason I won't read the Twilight series, and I'm sickened by the gads of girls who worship the idea of the romantic Edward-stalker and what I understand about Bella. I will freely admit I don't know it firsthand, but I did make iheartschnickle read the series in my stead, and she agreed I'd hate it. Actually, she told me to go to a bookstore, read the first 100 pages, and then be grateful I didn't have to put myself through the rest of the series :D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I didn't find Kaye unrealistic, but I didn't find her appealing. And the fact is we were supposed to think she was cool, which bugged me.

[december-clouds.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read any Tamora Pierce books by chance?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Nope

[fenrir-khan.livejournal.com]

I really liked Tithe, for various reasons. As an author, I'm one the few (it would appear) who prefer Holly Black to Melissa Marr (whose faerie-themed books I read, but didn't get hooked on). Holly Black's writing is refreshingly different, both gritty and poetic. What's more, she doesn't gloss over the more revolting aspects of the Faerie court and is able to find beauty in strangeness, squalor and vice.

I liked the heroine in Tithe precisely because she was so misguided, spleenetic and bratty: it was a welcome diversion from the hundreds of cheerful, reasonable anf focused heroines that clutter the pages of YA books (not that I don't like those, but a bit of variety is always good).

As for the whole 'name-subjection' thing, there's no denying that it's highly creepy. Though I found the fact that someone could wield such power over somebody else only by knowing their name somewhat fascinating. Holly Black makes a more disturbing use of that particular theme than, say, Butcher in The Dresden Files, but it's interesting nonetheless: how words are not only symbolically important, but have also concrete effects and can be shackles. I've always been interested in how word-based magics and spells work so that was rather my cup of tea, but I can understand how it would be off-putting.

The Changeling thing is explored more in depth in Ironside, which you should check out if you feel up to it.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I might flip through Ironside. Will see.

I didn't find the world gritty, just tawdry and dirty - Kaye's room had to have a blowtorch taken to it. Ugh.

I really disliked Kaye - she is everything I hope my kid never is.

[kathputli-girl.livejournal.com]

Awww, I really love Holly Black's Urban Fairytale books. I can see how they wouldn't be for everybody though. I just ordered her third one from this series.
Wait wait though...if I remember right, the reason Kaye looks like a blond Asian is because she's not really human; isn't she the changeling? I think the author was going on some old children's book illustrations of fairies and changleing babies for her image of Kaye.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the original kid she was switched for was also a blonde asian.

[kathputli-girl.livejournal.com]

Ah!! That's right, I'd forgotten. I think I better re-read it before I start the third book since it's been so long.
They're for young readers, but have you looked at her Spiderwick Books at all? Those are kind of cute and don't have any of the more creepy aspects that her "young adult" fiction does. 8D