As a person living in Russia, I will talk about our books here, because it is interesting to know what books are read in other countries. And I've already talked about "My Best Enemy", and now it's the turn of the trilogy of "Syntonyms" by Medina Mirai.
How many pages do you think a fantasy book should have? Probably somewhere 420, and in the sequel much more. But in these books, the number of pages does not reach 300. I'm not kidding, they're so short.
Covers
This is the best thing about them, because they are very beautiful, even if they depict only characters.
Lore
People have superpowers, or rather the powers of the elements from Avatar: The Legend of Aang. People learn to use them, at first theoretically in schools, and practically in universities. There are also Syntonyms, people without abilities, and they are the most dangerous, because you can put any ability into them.
During the reading of the first and second parts (before the wedding) it seemed to me that the abilities were added here only because the main character was in something special, because it does not feel at all that there are superpowers in this world. Everyone lives as usual, nothing indicates that this is a fantasy world. And lore is not revealed at all until the third book.
Plot
Angela Erar finds out that he is a Syntonym and now he needs to hide it.
In the first book, he first appears, for one chapter, then in the middle for another chapter, and then the last 20 pages with the plot. And the chapters here are short, 11 pages each. Most of the time this is the daily life of the characters, where nothing happens. That is, there are 15 percent of the plot here. So he still manages to be full of idiotic and unnecessary moments, such as trying to find code that will not be needed later.
In the second part, everything is worse. Half of the book is just the daily life of the characters, where sometimes something happens, and the second is like a big epilogue. There are 20 pages in the middle here. And this book is smaller in terms of the number of pages. There was another conflict that quickly came to naught.
Only by the third book does the plot take up the entire book, although it is bad. Predictable enough, the characters were lucky every time, and the end is too sugary, but it's for the whole book. Now the heroes must destroy the evil corporation. That's all.
Characters
All, except one, are terrible. Angela Erar was useless for all three books. He didn't do anything important, on the contrary, others did something for him, in the second book he acted selfishly towards his relatives. He also had to be rescued all the time. Raiden Krass is just a guy who is so gloomy, who does not watch Disney cartoons because: "Everything always ends well in them" (this is a quote from the third part). And in the second book, he generally behaved like an asshole who was angry at everyone, especially at his fiancee, who, even though she had a nasty temper, did not deserve to be yelled at.
And you don't believe in their friendship because not even a day has passed since they are best friends.
The only one I liked here is Aaron. He started out as a typical villain in the first part. But in the third, he has character development, he tries to be a good guy, even though he's crazy, and he was also funny.
The rest are so boring and cardboard that there is nothing to say about them at all.
Text
He's bad. The descriptions are too dry and boring, and it is also graphomaniacal, because there are so many detailed descriptions of what the characters are wearing, even if they are ordinary trousers. But by the third book, the author began to write better and the descriptions became much more pleasant, and there were fewer moments with clothes.
Result
The first and second parts are terrible books, and the third is just average. Terrible characters, the absence of most of the plot and bad text. And this is the trilogy of "Syntonyms". Next time I'll tell you about a good Russian book in YA.
by mystery5009