In the final part of the final chapter of Games Wizards Play<\/i>, the future is now. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
THIS WAS SO FULL OF JOY AND POSSIBILITY. So much of it! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a happy<\/i> ending in most respects, and I have a lot of thoughts about it.<\/p>\n
Penn and Mehrnaz<\/b><\/p>\n
The only thing here that left me wanting more was in the resolution of the Invitationals. On the one hand, I understand the shift in focus. The return of Roshaun is a HUGE deal for this whole series, and I needed<\/i> to know how Dairine was gonna react to this. I needed to know if this had an immediate affect on her, you know? This was also a book so heavily rooted in the struggles of Penn and Mehrnaz, though, that their resolution feels dashed. We only spend a few paragraphs on Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Invitational display; Penn only briefly talks with Kit and Nita about his internal passenger; we learn of the results of the Invitationals from a third party and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even get Penn and Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to it. How have their lives changed? What did this journey mean to them?<\/p>\n
I suppose I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much to say on this if this book weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as long as it was and<\/i> if the main source of tension for them wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rooted in their unresolved plots. So, take Penn for an example! Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s monstrous behavior does<\/i> have precedence within the series. We know that Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passenger\u00e2\u20ac\u009d absolutely affected his moods and his attitude, so it does<\/i> make sense that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be a similar thing within Penn. However, attitude problems or bouts of anger and confusion don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give rise to misogyny<\/i>. And I was doing that thing where I wanted to wait until the end to see how Penn was going to be dealt with before I commented. Now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that this explains it enough for me. Some of this has to come from his own upbringing, as Nita notes:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I guess some<\/i> of your trouble\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been secondary to having a frustrated Exhalation stuck inside you. But I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame her for everything<\/i>. She had to have some raw material to work with\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which is a very necessary point, but I felt like the story just dropped off from there. Penn says he is a jerk, he says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sorry, and then he just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 goes home? What about his grandfather? What did that scene actually<\/i> mean? I guess that Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theory is supposed to be the true one, so that man knew what his grandson was going through but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 no one ever said anything about it?<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have quite as strong feelings about Mehrnaz because Duane dealt with the ramifications of Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success on the page itself. We saw both Mehrnaz and Dairine confront the TERRIBLE Farrahi aunt, and it was cathartic and<\/i> helped to fully explain why Mehrnaz behaved as she did throughout the book. Still, having her performance be so short when compared to Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s was a bit disappointing, and I really<\/i> thought we should have seen her reaction to getting second place. How does her family treat her now? Are they really now on board with calling out Mehrnaz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aunt just because someone else did?<\/p>\n Roshaun<\/b><\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying this because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want Roshaun back or don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even think this shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been the resolution. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that Roshaun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story eclipses Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, which is unfortunate because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a necessary and cathartic plot twist. Duane does an incredible job of showing us just how happy<\/i> Dairine is now that Roshaun is back, and it also works as a metaphor for how we can persevere in dark times. Because there certainly have been moments since Roshaun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disappearance where Dairine nearly gave up. But it was Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s support that helped Dairine push on, and I LOVE THAT THIS ENDING IS ABOUT SISTERLY LOVE. Plus, in terms of limiting what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on page, I thought it was smart that Roshaun doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to say much. He needs a NAP. And food. Food is probably real important to him. AND QUIET TIME WITH HIS FAMILY!<\/p>\n Planetary Futures<\/b><\/p>\n I did find myself pleased with the resolutions for Kit and Nita, too, though I think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still overdue for a VERY long conversation about their relationship. In particular, though, this book looks ahead. It asks us to consider a future for the series and specifically for Nita. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to be a teenager that much longer, and there is a world out there that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still got to discover. Her visionary talent has grown immensely, but this ending gave Nita the first real chance to ask herself what she wants to do when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no longer a young wizard. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a scary question, and when Pluto presents that idea to her in the form of being a Planetary, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s overwhelming to Nita. How can she even conceptualize being a Planetary<\/i> when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, a wizard?<\/p>\n But I adore that this makes her think larger than herself, while also acknowledging that she must be pretty special for Aidoneus to tell her that she might make a great Planetary some day. Nita has the potential! I believe in her! I WANT THE BEST FOR HER!!!!<\/p>\n So perhaps that is what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to come. Perhaps Nita is going to actually start pursuing this. Or perhaps this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen next because DID CARMELA ACTUALLY UPLOAD VIDEO OF WIZARDRY TO THE INTERNET??? Excuse me if I am absolutely taking this in the wrong direction, but what if this was the event that opened the world to wizardry? <\/i>What if wizards couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> stop the spread of this video because it went viral? PLEASE TELL ME THAT SOMEONE WROTE THIS FANFIC.<\/p>\n Anyway, even though this is the last Young Wizards<\/i> book I am doing for the moment, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not done with the series yet! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m moving on to the On Ordeal<\/i> stories next before the KITTY WIZARD books. ONWARDS!!!<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/9zr1EYPwwZE<\/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 final part of the final chapter of Games Wizards Play, the future is now. 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-4499","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":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}