{"id":4456,"date":"2018-02-12T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2018-02-11T09:38:06","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T17:38:06","slug":"mark-reads-games-wizards-play-chapter-9-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/02\/mark-reads-games-wizards-play-chapter-9-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Games Wizards Play’: Chapter 9, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of the ninth chapter of Games Wizards Play<\/i>, EVERYTHING IS CUTE. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For frank talk of sex.<\/b><\/p>\n

I expected to spend most of this review yelling about the Javits Center, but alas, I imagine that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll come in the next one. For now: let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about Grand Central. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly one of those quintessential places to visit, and I truly feel like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a magical location. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so beautiful<\/i> inside, and the specific time that Duane references here\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmid-morning\u00e2\u20ac\u201dreally is one of the best times to visit it. Rush hour is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, rush hour anywhere<\/i> in the New York area is a disaster. And Grand Central feels so LOUD during rush hour with all those voices and all that movement echoing off the walls. But it feels like an engineering and architectural feat once you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re inside it, or when you gaze at it from the south. There are logistical reasons why the wizards are routed through there instead of Penn Station (which is way<\/i> closer to the Javits Center), but I appreciated this because everyone<\/i> should get a chance to go through Grand Central. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO GREAT.<\/p>\n

And really, while the 7 train woulda been way faster to get down to the Javits, I also loved that Kit and Nita walked there. Midtown and Times Square can be a clusterfuck; same with the Theater District and Murray Hill, all of which surround or comprise the walk that these two characters go on. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re worse during rush hour, obviously, and I highly advise any visitors or tourists to avoid Times Square at all costs. (With one exception: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty fucking cool at like two in the morning. Way less people and the bewildering neon signs and ads have a bigger impact.) But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just nowhere in the world that looks or feels like Manhattan, especially that belt of it. All those towering buildings. The mix of modern next to classic. The energy, the constant flow of people, the various cultures you are exposed to in a matter of minutes, the way cafes and restaurants and clothing stores are all mashed up against one another. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a feeling of momentum and movement, of hope and possibility.<\/p>\n

And it is overwhelming<\/i>. Unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lived in a major metropolitan area, New York City feels impossible. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sometimes hard to fathom just how many people are crammed into one island, but you certainly are cognizant of it when your subway car is full and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all hot and miserable. I EXPERIENCED THIS A LOT LAST YEAR. But I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trade it for anything. This is exactly<\/i> where I want to be.<\/p>\n

Like Nita and Kit, I also find that the city allows for intense or deep conversations while in transit. I feel far less self-conscious about them nowadays than I ever have before. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to just fall into the fabric of the city because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so much<\/i> going on. Duane uses that here so that Nita and Kit can have a beautiful honest conversation about sex and expectations. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wonderful how much it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> feel limiting, especially since they manage to cover so many topics in such a short span of time. But I remember my own experience being similar to Kit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, despite already knowing I was gay. That didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change the fact that kids my age started talking about sex, and then you had to carefully navigate conversations in order to avoid being a target. And how you became<\/i> a target was just as perplexing as Duane describes here!<\/p>\n

See, if you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> having sex, you were uncool and a nerd. I frequently got designated as the leader of this specific group, both because I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep a girlfriend more than a few weeks and<\/i> because everyone perceived me as being gay. Though, of course, that meant that then<\/i> I got bullied because my peers theorized that I was<\/i> having sex, but it was the wrong kind<\/i>. If women had sex, they were shamed. If they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t having sex, they were shamed. If they had sex once, it was once too many; if they were still a virgin, they were a horrible prude. And this is just the surface level, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve thought back to some of the weird shit people believed about sex to some of the weirder behaviors I witnessed. (Like a kid getting caught in my seventh grade math class masturbating in the back row.) (Or all the bizarre homoerotic behavior I saw or participated in. I did because I was gay, but what does that mean for the OTHER guys who participated? Was it really a joke or was it experimentation?) (I HAVE SO MANY STORIES, LORD.)<\/p>\n

There was one big commonality here, though: we had terrible<\/i> sex education. And because of that, most of my conversations about sex looked nothing like what Kit and Nita say, if only because I lacked the education or knowledge! Because of that, kids sought out information in ways that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly helpful, or they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> seek to learn anything and instead just had<\/i> sex. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I believe sex education is so vital, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Kids need<\/i> to be informed about it because it will help us navigate the world better. FULL STOP. It will help us figure out identities. What kind of sexual activity we may want. Whether or not we have sexual desire at all<\/i> and what it means when desire fluctuates. What informed consent looks like. WHY OUR BODIES ARE NOT INHERENTLY EVIL OR SINFUL OR DESERVING OF SCORN AND CRITICISM.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much to talk about. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad Nita and Kit are making the effort to do so.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/oMm8qf-B7j8<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"