{"id":4474,"date":"2018-03-02T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4474"},"modified":"2018-02-25T13:04:06","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T21:04:06","slug":"mark-reads-games-wizards-play-chapter-12-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/03\/mark-reads-games-wizards-play-chapter-12-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Games Wizards Play’: Chapter 12, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of the twelfth chapter of Games Wizards Play<\/i>, Dairine tries to get Mehrnaz to tell the truth; Nita meets one of Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relatives. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of grief<\/b><\/p>\n

Whew, THIS WAS UNEXPECTED. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss!<\/p>\n

Mehrnaz<\/b><\/p>\n

So, at this point, EVERYONE is aware that Mehrnaz is hiding the truth from Dairine. And Dairine tries so hard to get to the root of Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s panic, and yet? I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re close to her coming clean. Which I get, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not easy to talk about shit like this, much less with someone who is mostly a stranger. Actually, to Mehrnaz, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a stranger; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an idol<\/i>. I am certain that she wants to appear as collected and professional to Dairine so that she can impress her. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so hard to deal with all of this ON TOP of all the familial issues she must have. Even that<\/i> is still a bit ambiguous, too! Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother hangs over everything, but her presence is distant. Dairine can only speculate how she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll affect things, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full-speed ahead regardless. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got five extra days to train Mehrnaz on the semi-final round, so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good, right? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested to see how the aschetic universe will work to test out her wizardry. FAKE EARTHQUAKES.<\/p>\n

Shanghai<\/b><\/p>\n

Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: this was a surprise. GENUINELY SO. Oh, not that Penn wanted to brag about his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153win\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within twenty-four hours of the Cull. That was utterly unsurprising. But traveling to Shanghai to meet his grandfather was\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot here, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there? I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT ALL.<\/p>\n

\n
Penn behaves differently.<\/li>\n
THAT WAS THE FIRST CLUE THAT I WAS IN FOR A WILD RIDE.<\/li>\n
Finally, we discover that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one person who intimidates the hell out of Penn, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his Baba. (Feel free to correct me, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not heard this term used in this cultural context? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the only thing that pulled me out of the section.)<\/li>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really get a sense that Penn was embarrassed or ashamed to take Nita to Shanghai. Rather, it was meeting his grandfather that appeared to freak him out more than anything else.<\/li>\n
So, I am curious what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re meant to think about how run-down and beat-up that building\/apartment was. Duane goes to great lengths to describe it all to us. Is Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandfather poor? Stubborn? Does he have a different standard of living? Or was this supposed to be a contrast between the flashy buildings and skyscrapers that people associate with Shanghai and where people actually<\/i> live? JUST THINKING ALOUD HERE.<\/li>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He likes Americans! Thinks they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interesting.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m letting y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all know that this was the exact moment in which I was 100% ready for where this ride would take me.<\/li>\n
I LOVE THAT WHEN NITA MEETS HIM, THEY JUST SIT AND STARE AT ONE ANOTHER WITHOUT SPEAKING. B L E S S.<\/li>\n
It only gets better. Because then this man says he has no real interest in giving Penn what he wants, at least not at first.<\/li>\n
Meaning<\/li>\n
that<\/li>\n
someone<\/li>\n
else<\/li>\n
finds<\/li>\n
him<\/li>\n
annoying<\/li>\n
I FELT SO VALIDATED<\/li>\n
THAT SOMEONE ELSE ALSO KNEW HOW HARD HE CAME ON TO LITERALLY EVERYONE<\/i>.<\/li>\n
Also??? We get a classification for Bobo: they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153outrider.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d COOL.<\/li>\n
FAMILY HISTORY! WIZARDS IN PENN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S FAMILY SINCE THE 1500s!!!!!<\/li>\n
Honestly, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the coolest dynamic of the whole scene: a young wizard talking with an older wizard and sharing wisdom and experience with one another.<\/li>\n
And then, in such little time that I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe how quickly this conversation changed, Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandfather and Nita get heavy<\/i>. I can trace it back to that point where he said that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[s]ome of us seem to get pushed into being older quicker.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, that was the death of her mother. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here that Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandfather reveals one of Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s secrets: his mother died a year and a half before his Ordeal. His whole life changed at such a young age, and then he was dealt a difficult Ordeal that involved him trying to bring his mother back.\u00c2\u00a0<\/i><\/li>\n
Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, there are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ordeal-fueled forays across multiple dimensional barriers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153associated with wizards who were very angry, or very stubborn, or very troubled, or all three,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called HELL JOURNEYS.<\/li>\n
THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S WHAT PENN WENT ON.<\/li>\n
A hell journey<\/i>.<\/li>\n
Oh, and despite passing his Ordeal? Yeah: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Naturally he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bring his mother back; when he<\/i> came back he was like someone defeated in battle. Any return from Ordeal is a victory. But he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it that way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n
Does it excuse his behavior? Of course not. But for the first time since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started this book, Penn is rooted in something that I can empathize with. He was thrust into a complex and challenging Ordeal while still grieving the loss of his mother, and his Ordeal was about<\/i> her. What did he experience? What did he see? What happened when the Lone One confronted him?<\/li>\n
Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that his family is annoyed by him. Penn shut everyone out. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiercely<\/i> private and stubborn with them. Which means that all the times Nita has gotten him to listen and act are VICTORIES.<\/li>\n
Oh my god. PENN. PENN<\/i>.<\/li>\n
How badly is this kid hurting? Is he lashing out at others because of it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T FUCKING READY FOR THIS, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/jrG9Ved6h3Q<\/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":"
In the first part of the twelfth chapter of Games Wizards Play, Dairine tries to get Mehrnaz to tell the truth; Nita meets one of Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relatives. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[533,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-4474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-wizards-play","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}