{"id":4646,"date":"2018-08-17T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4646"},"modified":"2018-08-12T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T15:03:09","slug":"mark-reads-the-book-of-night-with-moon-chapter-9-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/08\/mark-reads-the-book-of-night-with-moon-chapter-9-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Book of Night With Moon&#8217;: Chapter 9, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second part of the ninth chapter of <i>The Book of Night With Moon<\/i>, I will get my revenge on all of you. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Feline Wizards<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Trigger Warning: For body horror, gore<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Why? Why are you doing this to me? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?<\/p>\n<p><b>Sue<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Look, at least there is SOMETHING good in this chapter that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not dread and destruction. I have come to really enjoy all the asides with Mike and Sue, so much so that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m invested in Sue getting a new job. She is overworked! She is stressed out! She has a chance at happiness! SOMEONE IN THIS BOOK DESERVES THAT, OKAY??? The scene where the two share the maguro sushi that Mike didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to eat is so tender and lovely and I am glad that there are nice things happening amidst all the direness. In a way, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reminder of what these wizards are fighting for: love and companionship, for a world where people care for one another.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Inevitable<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This book just <i>keeps<\/i> ramping up the tension, dialing it down but not eliminating it, and then ramping it up even further, and the entire lead up to The Thing is just un-fucking-real. We already knew to brace ourselves because of Thom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tone when he summoned Rhiow, but once the feline wizards get to Grand Central, Duane uses a new means to create suspense: she puts this scene during the morning rush hour in Manhattan. I know rush hour is, generally speaking, fairly similar around this country, and most people experience it through cars. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a time of the day in which freeways and streets turn to parking lots as people all try to make it to work and then, later, to home while thousands upon thousands of others do the same thing. I thought I was more or less ready for rush hour in NYC because I know what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like on the Metro in Los Angeles and I dealt with it on BART in the Bay Area. For the most party, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not <i>that<\/i> different. You still get super packed trains that are uncomfortable and generally too warm. The platforms can be so crowded that you have to vie for space before you even get to vie for space on a train car itself.<\/p>\n<p>But in New York City, there are just <i>so many<\/i> more people, obviously, but there are also way more folks who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t own cars and who only rely on the train. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the things I found appealing about the city long before I moved there. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never owned a car, never got my driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s license, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve only driven a handful of times. I have little interest in ever doing it except for being able to drive on road trips or in emergencies. So, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve long gravitated toward cities that allow me to get around only on transit. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just not used to being somewhere where the majority of the people I know are the same way! Add on top of that the crumbling MTA infrastructure, and you get an unwieldy maelstrom of awful: packed trains, packed platforms, and an ungodly amount of delays. It puts people on edge, many of whom are ALREADY anxious and nervous and stressed out. Can you imagine how volatile a group of people might be <i>without<\/i> dinosaurs interrupting their morning commute? (I will say that the current MTA disaster has provided me with a beautiful silver lining: I bring a book or my Kindle with me whenever I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking the train. I have read nearly 75 books this year alone that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for Mark Reads. THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME MY CASUAL READING BACK TO ME, MTA.)<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Knowing what the transit hubs in the city are like in the morning meant that I was UNBEARABLY NERVOUS during the entire sequence in which the wizards all wait around for something to happen. This is a very public space full of tons of people, and if anything went wrong, I knew that there would be some sort of collateral damage. Plus, how the fuck could they hide anything from the general public? How would they prevent this from turning into a bigger disaster? Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, <i>something<\/i> was keeping the gates open from the other side, and the wizards couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t close them!!! THIS IS A VERY, VERY BAD THING. Duane pulls together so many of the little clues into this chapter, referencing some of Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prophetic statements, and then teases us with whatever might come through those gates. I assumed it was the Wise Ones, and yet? Did it help? Was I ready?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You must claw your way to the heart,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to the root. I hear the gnawing. Too long have I heard it, and the Tree totters\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah, no, Not at all, especially not when Arhu is saying creepy, creepy shit like this!!! The Wise Ones, led by the Lone Power, are probably trying to destroy the Tree itself. Right? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what this means, right???<\/p>\n<p>Oh, wait, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even more awfulness:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, you brought it up, so: how many?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Almost all of them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Saash said.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rhiow stared at her, astounded. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Eighth?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she whispered. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ninth?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ninth.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>See, Duane keeps doing this <i>thing<\/i> that impresses me because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes for good conflict and suspense: she has given us <i>multiple<\/i> things at stake. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just about saving the world, though that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an important one. At this point, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dealing with: 1) the general public in the station; 2) Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s abilities and their creepy affect; 3) Sue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happiness; 4) Carl is missing; 5) the gates were forced open on the other side; 6) Saash is on her final life; 7) if any of the team dies, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll all be trapped in the Downside; and ANY ONE OF THESE THINGS could tip this over into a disaster. So what does Duane do?<\/p>\n<p>PRETTY MUCH ALL OF THEM AT ONCE.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Invasion<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I am <i>still<\/i> reeling from this sequence. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a weird sense of catharsis to it. Duane has been leaning heavily on the dread for so long in <i>The Book of Night With Moon<\/i>, so when the horror finally comes, there was almost this weird relief in me? I was finally discovering what was going to come spilling into the world, which I also feel answers what came through at the opening of the book. (Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 perplexes me. If that was a saurian in the beginning of the chapter, then <i>where the fuck did it go<\/i>? OH NO.) But that relief was short-lived, because once the tension broke, CHAOS REIGNED. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, how do I even <i>react<\/i> to this? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so violent and bewildering and one of the wildest things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read in this entire fictional universe. At this point, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know <i>how<\/i> many saurians broke through, whether they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re below the station, whether the wizards below were able to stop the saurians like the ones aboveground. Did any humans get hurt? Has anyone <i>died<\/i>? WHAT THE HELL?<\/p>\n<p>I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a <i>thrill<\/i>. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny how much this scene is one of the coolest things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read in a long, long time. I love dinosaurs from an intellectual stance, as a way of examining science of history, but guess what? Dinosaurs fucking shit up is also <i>ONE OF THE BEST THINGS, TOO<\/i>. Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it??? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why <i>Jurassic Park<\/i> was so fun, too, because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this idea in that film that nature is getting revenge on humans for fucking with it. Here, though, this is\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really the best word I could come up with it\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan <i>invasion<\/i>, the Lone Power\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way of introducing entropy through violent, horrifying means.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And then Arhu BLOWS UP A TYRANNOSAUR. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I get to type that sentence, but the gory scene was so unexpected, and I LIVE FOR IT. Hell yeah, Arhu! I have no idea how you did that (or even knew how), but oh my GOD. Dinosaurs. Blowing. UP.<\/p>\n<p>I AM HERE FOR THIS.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/uYV-KCSTxEk<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/AngerIsAGift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the second part of the ninth chapter of The Book of Night With Moon, I will get my revenge on all of you. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Feline 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":[547,548],"tags":[549],"class_list":["post-4646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feline-wizards","category-the-book-of-night-with-moon","tag-mark-reads-feline-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646","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=4646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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