Yeah so remember how I was talking about crunch time? The universe has a sense of humor… my neighborhood lost power for a bunch of hours this afternoon. So I couldn’t work. And I was already in the middle of being stuck. And boyo was it ever hot. (On the plus side maybe some forced time away from the code was just what I needed; once power was restored I started making good progress again.)

Anyway so I took the opportunity to finish up Holly Black’s Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale. It was a really fun read. Kaye is a teenage girl living a kind of fucked up life… her mom is a struggling musician and pretty heavy partier. Kaye isn’t averse to a few drinks and lots of cigarettes, herself. Which I found odd, given that this is categorized as a “YA” novel. Kaye is a pretty edgy young lady. Maybe I’m showing my age. But anyway…

The sub-title really says it all. Kaye gets introduced to the land of faerie that exists here in our modern world. Amidst the trash and the pollution lie secret portals to the Unseely Court, and Kaye finds herself caught up in an adventure that gets very personal very quickly after she saves a faerie knight that she finds wounded in some woods just off a highway. The whole juxtaposition of modern and faerie makes it a really fun read. The characters are just ok…they don’t really ‘pop’ as much as they might and it wasn’t the kind of book where you find yourself deeply caring about these people as if you knew them. But the scenery is a joy, the action moves along quickly, and overall its a swift read. Well worth your time.