Reading as an adult is hard
When I was in elementary school, we had to independently read 25 books throughout the school year. I regularly read 3-4x that many. As an adult, it is so much harder to find time and the mental energy to focus on a complex story. I also find that I'm just not as interested in stories anymore. So many novels feel derivative or weirdly preachy.
One author that I have enjoyed recently is RF Kuang, but so many of her works have a very on-the-nose ideological bias that takes me out of the story. It's like, here's an interesting historical fantasy, let's inject some 2020-style conversations about racism and sexism. Ideology doesn't generally bother me, tons of great writers have explored issues like race, gender, class etc, but as soon as the dialogue starts to sound like an HR training, I am out.