There are some awesome self-published works. There are a lot more tolerable self-pub works that are great if they hit your buttons exactly--and that's much more likely with self-pub than through the mainstream. But they are exceptions; you have to like crawling the slushpile to find them. (I love crawling the slushpile; it's endless entertainment.)
You can look around for recs of self-pub works, especially for new works by traditionally-published authors, whose writing skills are well-developed, and who've decided to skip giving an 80% cut to someone else for the life of the book. While some authors flounder when you remove corporate editorial control, others flourish without the restrictions, and write better stories that way.
BookViewCafe is self-published authors--most of the books are formerly-mainstream published where the author has reclaimed the rights; I think some are newer ones, like sequels that the mainstream publisher wouldn't take because the first one didn't sell well enough.