Games Wizards Play (Young Wizards, #10)
by Diane Duane 

4 out of 5 stars

Kit and Nita are invited to be mentors to a young wizard presenting a new spell design at the Wizards Invitational Competition. But their mentee, Penn, is a flamboyant jerk and they find it difficult to be patient with him.
Dairine is mentoring a shy Indian wizard, Mehrnaz, who has a brilliant design for a spell to stop earthquakes, but Mehrnaz has very low self-esteem due to her overbearing family. Dairine encourages her to have self-confidence, but Dairine is distracted with her own problems trying to locate her missing friend, Roshaun.

As the competition heats up, all the wizards will face new challenges and problems that might have a deeper impact on their world than they realize. Nita has been having prophetic visions that she can’t understand, but she begins to realize that each person has their part to play if they can only find the right path.

As Kit and Nita navigate their new romantic relationship, the subject of sex comes up from peer pressure at school and from serious parental talks about being careful. Their classmates speculate on whether on not Kit and Nita have a sexual relationship and tease them about it. Kit and Nita talk about it a little, and Nita is struggling to find her balance with these new possibilities between them. In the end, they only kiss, but the subject of sex is discussed with different characters throughout the book, including a gay character and an asexual character.

I really loved the exploration of interpersonal relationships in this book as each character is tested in different ways throughout the competition. It was interesting to see how Kit, Nita, and Dairine react when they have to deal with very difficult people. I kept wondering how the plot was going to bring all these different people together, and it was more about how each experience changed Nita or gave Dairine a certain insight that later allowed them to react appropriately in a crisis situation and find the right answers in the end. Really brilliant writing!

I love that this author always deals with heavy subjects – sacrifice, and honor, and the meaning of truth- but there’s also much light-hearted fun in her books.

This book has been screened for sensitive content on the Screen It First website. https://screenitfirst.com/book/games-wizards-play-young-wizards-10-300920