In the second part of the first chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Roshaun,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Roshaun simmers with the trauma of watching an assassination attempt on his mother. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n
SURPRISE, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M GOING TO LIKE STORIES ABOUT ANGST.<\/p>\n
Just kidding, none of you are surprised at all. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a constant theme over my reviews and my work, and so I found myself drawn to Rho\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s silent despair, his quiet existential crisis. Duane accomplishes this by building a contrast. She slowly gives us the details of this home away from home, which is extravagant in a subtle way but still very much a place of honor and hierarchal dominance. It oozes power and privilege, yet at the very same time, what are these people talking about? Once they get past all their greetings and small talk, what does this transition into?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important for Duane to give us these details. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly a long-winded writer, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s particularly the case in these last few novels. She immerses you in her words, in her worlds, in her characters. There might be fast-paced scenes, but I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t describe the last few Young Wizards<\/i> books as fast-paced novels<\/i>. Here, though, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking about pacing. I was concerned about normalcy. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s normal for these characters? What are their days like? We get a sense of that, from Miril\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meetings and political concerns, to Nelaid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s duties working with the Sunwatch facilities, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to see how their lives are full of routines and patterns.<\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so inconceivable to Roshaun, however, is the clear contrast this normalcy and the absurdity of the assassinations that are constant in his parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lives. To the reader and to Rho, this seems impossible. Ridiculous. CLEARLY A GIANT PROBLEM. Yet this is their lives! There have been so many<\/i> attempts that Miril and Nelaid have had<\/i> to adjust, to make the new normal something they compartmentalize within their day in order to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, to survive. To not<\/i> react as Roshaun does here. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to suggest that Roshaun shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> behave as he does. Duane writes him in a way that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deeply relatable, and I do believe we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re meant to sympathize with him.<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another way Duane achieves that. In a sense, this is a very<\/i> common trope within fantasy literature concerning magic: What happens when a kid doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the same magic as their parents or their siblings? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a generational and familial anxiety most of us have probably seen before in the genre, but has it ever felt quite like this<\/i>? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a dual stress working with Rho: He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worried about the path of his life and<\/i> his lack of magic. All of that collides in front of him as his parents calmly and politely talk about their day! Again: the contrast is just so immense<\/i>, you know? It makes sense, then, that Roshaun feels a chasm growing between himself and his parents, one that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to cross or close. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want this future, and yet here they are, telling him that this is what life has in store for him, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way to change people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s minds. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot<\/i> to deal with if it was the only thing he had to accept.<\/p>\n
SO HOW DOES HE FINALLY GET WIZARDRY??? Oh, I just want to know so badly! How is he offered it???<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/AizRXYwJH8g<\/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 second part of the first chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Roshaun,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Roshaun simmers with the trauma of watching an assassination attempt on his mother. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-4505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interim-errantry-2","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505","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=4505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}