^ agreed with everything Rev. Bob has said. And especially "don't judge a genre based on one book". And
especially don't judge the writing quality in an entire genre based on just one book in that genre.
(For the record, I like YA but I haven't read the
Mortal Instruments either, as the description never really appealed to me, I've heard enough about it that I have a pretty good idea that it's not my thing, and I tend to stick to books that sound like I might like them. But a lot of people, young and less young, love the various series Cassandra Clare has written in that universe, and I'm happy for them!)
That said, yeah, we all have entire genres we're not keen on. I don't read romance (of any sort, including historical or paranormal) or erotica. I do read books that have romance in them - I've gone through a period of reading a lot of chick lit, which often has some focus on relationships, and many books in any genre have
some romance included - but
genre romance is just not what I'm after, not because I look down on them as somehow less good, but largely because I'm more into action/adventure/mystery plots, and not the least because I have rather specific, picky tastes in fictional men and love stories and it's incredibly rare that I find a male love interest appealing enough to want to read a romance-focused book.
But of course then I also enjoyed
Pride & Prejudice (not as much as
Sense & Sensibility though, which remains my favourite Austen book) and didn't find it too difficult, in spite of reading it first as a 17-year-old non-native English speaker, so my tastes
are clearly deserving to be judged.
Thank you for clarifying. I do get that feeling (and now I understand that you meant it in the sense of
you feeling wistful about others enjoying genres you don't!) - I'm still planning to give a good go and tackle some epic/high/non-urban fantasy I've heard a lot of good things about, also because I want to know what I'm missing.
My plan (and yes, I keep putting it off) is to try at least a handful of books in the genre that are a) as different from one another as possible, b) written in different styles, so that I won't, say, write off the entire genre as something "not for me" when I've tried, say, only
Mistborn or only
The Blade Itself or only
The Belgariad. I'll write it off only when I've read all of those + some other highly recommended more recent fantasy books that also sound like they're something that
might offer something of interest to me.
If you're
really feeling wistful about missing out on entire genres, and wish you could enjoy more books, I'd advise you to try at least a handful of books in the category (I don't really want to call YA a genre - it's a category that includes YA UF, YA fantasy, contemporary YA, YA romance, YA mystery, YA action/adventure etc), making sure that they're pretty different from one another.
Since you've tried UF and YA UF with female protagonists, try UF and YA with male protagonists? They tend to be grittier and more plot-focused, with a little less romance (I'm aware this is a generalisation, with plenty of exceptions, but in those categories, books written by male authors and featuring male protagonists do tend more towards gritty than romance-oriented). Perhaps that might suit you better, at least to start with. But of course if it still doesn't work, it's just not your thing, or at least not at this point in your life, and that's perfectly fine.