In the second part of the eighth chapter of The Book of Night With Moon<\/i>, Arhu has a sobering lesson in entropy. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Feline Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extended conversation about homelessness and poverty, mental illness<\/b><\/p>\n
I never doubted it, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming increasingly clear that Rhiow is the best-suited teacher for Arhu, and this entire section is evidence of that. Take the first conversation after the split point! Arhu expresses a very understandable frustration with himself over his behavior in the Downsides. He believes he froze up and then didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t contribute at all. Rhiow, is a very practical character, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lie to Arhu, but instead, gives him some beautiful honesty. He may not have intended<\/i> to help, but he still did. His visionary warning to the group most likely motivated Saash to operate more quickly, and they probably survived because of him. Not every positive act is a fight, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something Rhiow has to understand. Still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nice moment between the two of them and a great sign of how his education is progressing.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So while this was Rhiow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance to reflect on something that had happened in the past, what happens immediately after this is something that is occuring presently<\/i> that Arhu gets to reflect on. It is an incredibly sad scene, one that hit me particularly hard because I have a history with homelessness, both as a teenager and in my early 20s. Did it manifest like this? Not in every way, and not in either bout of them. There are still similarities, and I felt that Duane did a fantastic job of both portraying Rosie as someone deserving of sympathy and understanding while also being honest about certain elements of this experience. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sad, yes, and being<\/i> homeless is a sad thing. It comes from both sides!<\/p>\n Rosie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story is real in other regards, and as our world further tips into despair and financial ruin, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing more homeless people than ever in dire need of services, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in terms of housing, health services (physical and<\/i> mental), financial help, with substance abuse problems, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even addressing all the homeless people who exist because they were escaping<\/i> something, like I was in my case. I fled homophobia and abuse. How many others were fleeing as well? How many other narratives are there? The common one\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the one I encountered the absolute least when I was on the street, when I was couch-surfing and living in different places from night-to-night\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis that people just choose<\/i> to be homeless without any extenuating circumstances. Those people exist, and it would do a disservice to homeless activism to ignore that. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a prevalent one that I constantly had to fight against the notion that I was lying about what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been through or the reasons that left me without a home. The second time it happened, it was financial, and rather than have people help me, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get lectured about all the poor decisions I made (many of which I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> make, but when people are certain about your life, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just ignore what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re telling them). That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a frustrating thing, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad Duane completely avoids it.<\/p>\n In fact, Duane doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even delve into the original impetus for Rosie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homelessness, and in the end, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter. I mean, it always<\/i> matters, because we need to be conscious of the reasons people are pushed to homelessness. Rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that Rosie is a sympathetic character in an extremely sad and realistic situation, and it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter how they got there. They need help, and they deserve<\/i> help.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If I have anything here to say that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even slightly negative, I did feel like Rosie was a bit of a lesson rather than a story. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really bother me, mind you, and I think that if Duane had written such a convincing portrait, I might have had something meatier to say. I REALLY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T. Yes, Rosie is a lesson in entropy for Arhu, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treated so tenderly. Rhiow promises to get food for Rosie and helps clear out his lice, and she even immediately counters Arhu when he comes in with some low-key boostrap nonsense about solving problems by yourself. So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear in the text that Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behavior isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t acceptable, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all I could ask.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/ua83bPHtAz8<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\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 eighth chapter of The Book of Night With Moon, Arhu has a sobering lesson in entropy. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Feline Wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[547,548],"tags":[513,549],"class_list":["post-4639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feline-wizards","category-the-book-of-night-with-moon","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-feline-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639","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=4639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}