Being Honest With Myself

There comes a time when for most people, your reading style and preferences change. You start to like what you previously enjoyed less and less, and find yourself gravitating towards reads you might have never given a second glance to before. You find former favorite genres frustrating, and gain new appreciation for ones you previously thought boring. For me that time is now.

After DNF-ing my 5th or 6th high fantasy YA this year (An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson), I'm slowly being more honest with myself that this genre is just not for me anymore. I don't get the enjoyment I once did from discovering completely new worlds. Instead, I now find this difficult to follow and too time consuming to grasp, often leading me to misunderstand the plot simply because there is too much other information I need to comprehend.  While this will sadly leave many books and series on my shelves unfinished, I'm learning that I would much rather spend my time reading things I enjoy vs trying to fight through books I really don't want to be reading. In the long run, this will benefit me more and make me a happier reader.

Will I come back to high fantasy in the future? Maybe, who knows. Maybe I'll reach a point in my life where that elaborate escape is necessary and I take comfort in new worlds and ideas. But for now, it's not needed. In its place, I'm really loving adult mysteries and thrillers. I still have my love for YA contemporaries and literary fiction. Even low fantasy will continue to be a regular read for me. I just need to stay away from the high fantasy hype for a while, and if this genre and I are meant to be, it will find me again some day.

What is a genre you have grown away from? What has replaced it for you?