ageless > Recent Status Updates

In honor of this book being re-released for an adult audience, I’ve decided to try and read it again.
So far, I vehemently disagree with the choice to publish it for adult audiences. The writing is so juvenile and shallow. There isn’t a lick of subtext or any tangible depth. It’s full of bland characters and even blander info dumps about the world which lacks any real substance.

The way everyone talks about McCaffrey had me convinced I was in for a treat, but instead I find this book to be extremely poorly written and that the story and tropes have aged horribly with little to no in-world reason for the blatant and vile misogyny.
The dragons and the sci-fi world is cool, but that’s the only compliment I can muster at this moment in time.

I’m liking this a more and more as I read on.

The descriptions are still not as vivid as I would like, and I don’t really feel immersed within the details of the story, but I like that as Wei has learned how to read, her first person narration to the reader has gotten more and more complex and she is much better at explaining her feelings and thoughts! It’s a very beautifully done and subtle shift.

So far, I feel like this story lacks a lot of depth and complexity when considering prose, character, and dialogue (and I’m hoping these will improve)—but despite these gaps, I think the foundations of the story are decent. The plot is solid, and the characters, while very one-note, are not stupid or particularly annoying to follow.
It thankfully does seem to be subverting romantasy conventions which is nice.

I read the sample of this and didn’t love it, but I’ve decided to try it again because a podcast I like to watch and I usually agree with loved it.

I still don’t like the prose style, it feels a bit juvenile. And I hope the pacing mellows out. It’s going so swiftly I feel like we don’t care or know enough about her family and village to ground us enough in the story.

I know we did not just make a Warrior Cats reference…







Ava Reid count your days. This shitty ass book. This shitty ass love story. And then a WARRIOR CATS REFERENCE??? We have got to be joking.

I simply do not believe that Liuprand and Agnes are so deeply in love and even less do I believe they are so intrinsically in tune with one another that they can read each other’s minds like this.
It’s so dumb. Also what tf is the plot, I thought we wanted to bring necromancy back but we are nearing the half way mark of the book and we seem to have abandoned any such notion entirely. I’m BORED.

This book has been rather boring thus far, but I think it’s finally might be getting interesting.

I do not care at all about the prince, he’s deeply annoying, and I especially do not care for their little romance subplot (ik book is not a romance).

I’ve heard such good things about Ava Reid’s prose and it’s so blandly predictable and not captivating in the slightest. I’m pretty disappointed.

Guys I’m alive🧍🏻‍♀️✨

Tell me what you’re reading and if there’s any bad books I should inflict upon myself!

I’ve been continuing reading through the Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb and I’m now on the Tawny Man Trilogy.
I’ve also started reading the Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio. I’m on book 3 and really enjoying it!

So expect four (positive) reviews from me soon!!

Everyone on my tiktok fyp keep talking about how “literary” Alchemised by SenLinYu is and it’s really pissing me off because I KNOW that stupid ass DRACO/HERMIONE fic is not of any palatable quality…
And Dramione fans seem to think that calling something “dark fantasy” makes it immune to criticism?

In other news, my library has Alchemised should I bother wasting 1000+ pages worth of my time?

Have you guys heard of “The Age of Scorpius” by Audra Winter?
It’s the current book buzz of BookTok but not because it loves the book, but because it allegedly got 6,000 pre-orders and yet currently has a 1.96 star rating on here?? I’ve never seen a book so poorly rated😭 I kind of want to read it lol

Hey guys, I know a lot of people I’m friends with on here are writers/authors!

I’m currently working on paying back student loans, so if any of you want writing feedback, advice, second eyes on first chapters, paid beta reading, or query letter writing, etc. I’d love to offer my services and get general experience!! Maybe like $16 a chapter or something (price is definitely negotiable lol)

EVERYBODY READ ROBIN HOBB RN!!!! I HAVE NOBODY TO TALK TO ABOUT THIS😭😭

Chat you didn’t hear this from me, but ALLEGEDLY, Direbound by Sable Sorensen (a romantasy that’s popping off on tiktok rn) is AI generated (again allegedly, but from trusted sources) and it just got a traditional publishing deal🤮🤮🤮

Guys how do I even review Silver Elite idk even know where to start😭😭

I’m so disgusted?? What the fuck did I just read?? Why won’t goodreads let me give a book 0 stars 😭😭

IM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS DOGSHIT🤮🤮


THANK GOD.

THIS WAS THE WORST BOOK I’VE EVER READ AND AS WE KNOW I’VE PUT UP WITH A LOT OF BULLSHIT🫶😭😭

I’m sorry??? Cross and Wren are just going on a cutesy little date adventure rn????

HER FRIEND (A DARK SKINNED WOMAN ACCORDING TO THE BOOK) HAS BEEN IN A LABOR CAMP FOR TWO MONTHS and Wren is just running around going on dates with the son of the man that started the labor camps?????!!!!!!!

SHE SENT HER BEST FRIEND TO A LABOR CAMP.

Her friend (a woc I’m pretty sure) and her friend’s father just got sent to a labor camp because Wren argued that it would be better than getting executed. 🧍🏻‍♀️ you actually can’t make this up. Dani Francis, whoever you are, you are not seeing the gates of heaven☺️🫶

“His voice is rough as he says, “Are you still thinking about what happened?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll make you forget.”

CONTEXT: she just killed a person for the first time and her weirdo freak commanding officer just shows up to fuck her randomly. This is the most they talk about it.🧍🏻‍♀️

If you like this book do not come to my town. Stay away from me😭😭 this shit is abhorrent

Every encounter they have that is supposed to read as “hot” can be summarized as Wren telling Cross not to touch her, or that she’s not interested in him, and him ignoring that.

And we, the reader, know she thinks he’s hot, but Cross, as far as we know, can’t read her mind. He hears “stop.” “You’re hurting me” and “I don’t want you.” AND KEEPS TOUCHING HER AND PINNING HER TO THE WALL.

Wren has been purposely trying to flunk out of military training but now in the span of one singular chapter, the Uprising (that ignored her all book) has told her to try and get into the Silver Elite and she just agrees and is now randomly excelling at everything she does.

Like guys you don’t understand she’s so talented at everything!! And she’s mad people aren’t paying attention to how good she is.😐

Ew Cross (Wren’s love interest AND commanding officer) just grabbed in her from behind in a dark hallway and pinned her to a wall?? 🥴
He tries to say that he did it to keep her from stumbling but she wasn’t off balance at all?? This is so gross.

There’s literally a scene earlier in the book where she explicit told him not to touch her without consent. And his response in that scene was “Or what?” 🤮

Lmao this book is so boring I literally fell asleep reading it???

Also Cross (the love interest) is so deeply problematic and a truly vile person? How the fuck does anyone find him hot?
He sends people to labor camps, he forcibly conscripted the mc, he conscripted a rapist and put him in co-ed barracks, and makes use of slaves in the training program? That’s not even the beginning of his long list of crimes.

There’s 7 different powers: telepaths, mind readers, projectors (whatever that is), inciters (mind control basically), healers, empaths, and precogs (can see the future).
None of it is well explained or developed lol.

And Wren, the protagonist has 4 of the 7 so far: telepathy, mind reading, projection, and inciting. Why tf did we give her FOUR different abilities 😭😭 Mary Sue ass bitch.

Chat, this is just fourth wing but no dragons and Xaden and Violet got gender swapped.

This book reads like it was algorithmically written. I won’t go as far as to say AI, but it was definitely engineered to include every single booktok slop trope possible. It’s an amalgamation of every popular romantasy book of the last 10 years. Powerless, FW, ACOTAR, Divergent, Red Queen, etc. you name it, it’s here.

Oh wow she gets forcibly conscripted into the military by her love interest. How romantic 🥴

All of the reviews about this book complained about it having a ton of questions, and I got curious so here’s some stats:
This book has 2,474 questions and 528 pages.
That averages to 4.6 questions on each page of this book.

One reviewer mentioned this book having a TEN question long monologue. 10 in a row.

I open the book to the first page and what does it start with? A non-dialogue question.

She’s being interrogated and keeps talking about how hot🥵 the people that are interrogating her are. (They’re apart of the military of the faction that JUST killed her father figure right in front of her btw)

Only 7% in and she’s already the very best at shooting and the very best at telepathy, plus she’s super hot and she’s definitely not looking for anything long term. Not even with that super hot mysterious stranger she ran into 🙄


Do we not get tired of recycling the same damned plot over and over again???