None heh. The pandemic was the biggest reading slump of my life. I did find a lot of comfort in a macabre mansion puzzle based on edgar allan poe’s stories though. Not sure what that says about me.
Edit to add a link for the curious: https://www.mercari.com/us/item/m26132756533/?sv=lg
I was SO glad that Romantasy was split from Fantasy. It’s the first time I got excited about the awards after seeing that. I have nothing against Romantasy, but it has been a huge bummer to watch the awards always go to Sarah J. Mass (and this year to Fourth Wing) while the really good fantasy books that are coming out just get ignored year after year after year. I’m just glad that some of the fantasy that came out this year actually stands a chance for a change.
I recently had this experience with Wuthering Heights, but that book is divisive so ymmv.
I use a weird grading system, but it is mostly for me. I don’t post my ratings anywhere outside of my reading journal.
A’s are books that are trying to say something serious and say it successfully (eg Brave New World) and it doesn’t matter how much i enjoy or don’t enjoy it as long as it made me think deeply about something.
B’s are for “i had a good ol’ time with this” regardless of literary merit (eg the night circus)
C’s are for “it was ok” (eg neverwhere)
D’s for anything I find myself thinking “i want my time back” about.
Some DNFs are Ds others are soft-DNF I mean to revisit later on, usually cause I think it has potential to be an A but I have to be on a different mindset.
I find this helps me think of literature and reading for fun in a more organized way. Cause Bs aren’t necessarily worse than As, they’re just different buckets. Sometimes I adore the classics I read and I rate them A+/B+ and sometimes i haaate a classic with a burning passion while also admitting that it was good at what it did and give it an A anyway.