Am I too picky with my books?

I started reading again as a hobby late last year and it's been a godsend for my mental health. After years of nothing I find myself back shopping in a market that feels weird now that I'm grown up. When I was young there were so many cool books to read! I loved Fablehaven, Redwall, Series of Unfortunate events, and the numerous series that fell into that fantastical realm of "young child person does incredible thing and also we don't acknowledge logic."

However, as previously stated, I'm reading again and reading books more tailored to the adult readers out there. But good grief the book recommendations are not fantastic. I followed the suggestion of a small youtuber that I love and picked up Tender is the Flesh, a dystopian novel that examines capitalism and the meat industry through the lens of cannibalism. It was amazing! Short, sweet, and chilling. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who struggles with graphic violence in books but for people who like disturbing reads I'd totally recommend it. I mistakenly thought that maybe this means more books suggested by my online spaces would be good and I was so wrong!

The books I keep getting recommended are written with such a strange air of superiority. There's a sort of train-of-thought writing style that gives me such an icky feeling in my bones. The leads I keep getting are annoying, the plots are predictable, and the themes I love seeing are just not hitting right. Why can't women be written in any way that's nuanced and multifaceted? It seems like only the main lead woman gets to be nuanced and complex. Why can't the men be more than just cardboard cutouts that take themselves too seriously?  In short: if your lead is giving the same energy as the Y/N from a deviantart era creepypasta x reader I will actually combust when reading your book.

Lets not get this confused: I love almost any well written lead of any gender or orientation. BTW I totally recommend Bury your Gays by Chuck Tingle. It's an easy read IMO but it's so fun and campy. Otherwise, the only recent book I can think of where I loved the voice of the lead woman was A Certain Hunger and the book was highkey ruined right at the end by the absolute destruction of the lead woman's entire MO.

So if I take a bunch of recommendations and I think they suck then maybe the problem is me? Maybe I'm putting too many expectations onto books. Few reads recently have been true hits with me and I'm starting to become discouraged.

If one needs more fodder for my dispair: I've been reading "Pallet cleanser" books between my more dark and disturbing reads. I love a graphic scary book but it does weigh on my mental health at times. After putting the brakes on my last read (Maeve Fly by CJ Leede) I've just been reading my pallet cleanser: Twilight.

I'm so mad that I'm having more fun reading Twilight of all things over the many other books I've been reading. Sure, it's cringe and incredibly problematic, but the main leads like each other and I can't believe that's where the bar is. Reading Twilight as an adult feels like being a teacher watching elementary schoolers roleplay as warrior cats. Its two incredibly dumb idiots taking their weird highschool relationship way too seriously. But come on! Twilight?? Is my reading taste so fried that I resort back to teen fiction?

It just sucks so bad that I can't find anything to read that holds my interest that isn't a wildly campy vampire teen romance from the 2000's. I'd love some good recommendations or even silly bad recs from anyone at this point. I've considered using this space as a blog for my reading reviews because having someone to chat about the book with helps get me through it but IDK how well that would land.

Any advice would be deeply appreciated! Thanks!