Sad but true, and I'm in the same boat. I'm sure you and I will miss a few gems of contemporary fiction, but wading through so much garbage and over hyped mediocrity just isn't worth it. The dreck of the past is mostly filtered out for us already, simply by the passage of time and the survival of quality.
I mean this is why things like the LRB and the Nobel, Booker, Pulitzer, and Hugo awards exist. Denying yourself the likes of Hilary Mantel or Zadie Smith or Colson Whitehead on the basis of chronology is the antithesis of what being a lover of literature is about.
Not that I like Goodreads — I don’t even have an account — but I always check the rating. Anything above 4 out of 5 with thousands of reviews is usually worth reading.
It’s very easy to filter out the weeds: read the classics and any book that breaks through the noise with consistently high reviews. We don’t need to waste time on low-quality literature or AI-generated slop.
If you're giving up on art and cultural movement, even if things are bad, it still reflects on you.