The same is true for teen books for girls, where like half of the bestsellers are romantasy, with many of them going into the softcore territory.

I am no pearl clutching moralist, but having the mainstream publishing industry push softcore smut onto young girls and even virtue-signaling about how girls read a lot of books, is not something I'm comfortable with.

It's like selling cigarettes to kids, and bragging about how they seem to like them.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the height of literature, but I wouldn't say it's harmful.

That said, I don't have a daughter of reading age, so actual parents might have better takes on this.

It's not the genre, it's the writing. Just because sausages are usually sold at a hotdog stand doesn't mean it's only a street-food level ingredient; there is always a place for some Michelin star gourmet bangers and mash or whatever.

There is an obvious retort about Narnia being an isekai, but I feel a more appropriate comparison would be Ascendence of a Bookworm, which is an actually well written Japanese isekai literature (written by a female author and featuring a female protagonist, ironic given the main topic) that explores the clash of Earth based norms and customs in a society where gods actually exist, and nobles are literally superior beings, since only their god gifted mana can turn a blank land into fertile soil. In such a world, what value does a mana-less peasant have?

But it does so in a narrative that's engaging rather than scolding; the MC realises that norms arise out of local conditions, and instead of going on some weird emancipation spree, mostly acknowledges local the situations, but still tries her darndest to change things given her constraints (with literal gods intervening, there is little she can do).

The story is titled Ascendence of a 'Bookworm' because her main tool of rebellion is democratising books and knowledge; by inventing the paper and printing press, she will (slowly) help peasants improve their lives over the next coming generations; they will never become equal to nobles who are literally god-gifted, but it's still an important ripple that will change the trajectory of the world.

It's an Japanese isekai, but it resists the urge to dabble in the other other tropes. Yes, Sturgeon's law still applies, 90% of isekai will still be trash and slop, but if you promote good isekai books, then there is still chance for future good literature, even in such a maligned genre.

it's isekai or tiktok, no in-betweens, take it or leave it

I replaced doom-scrolling and brain rot with reading Royal Road, and I feel much better.

Even if most of what's on RR is is slop, reading is always the better vice.

hey you! yes you! listen, come here.

Interested in some good ol' reading slop? maybe with a side-dish of a nice community? you like comments, right? you like discussions about a fast hard hitting chapter?

boy do i have a forum for you: https://forums.spacebattles.com/forums/creative-writing.18/

more and better fiction than two RRs combined!*

*terms and conditions apply, knowledge of Worm and Worm-related media required

I've heard of spacebattles forum, haven't delved into it because of the forum structure makes reading awkward, i prefer RR's presentation, not the best but atleast it's a damn website and not a forum lol.

as for worm... i read it a bit but dropped it because i arrived too late (iirc author had already moved to the third series when i heard of it) and the backlog was too daunting. That said, apparently there ia graphic novel coming up so might look into it.

spacebattles has a reading mode: https://forums.spacebattles.com/library/stories/

It's never too late for Worm. There is no backlog, it's a self-contained story. I'd recommend reading it before the comics (not graphic novel).

Every website has it's one winning story, RR has 'Mother of Learning', I guess spacebattles forums has Worm.

Any other recommendations?

Id rather people read anything over reading nothing

I wouldn't. There does exist trash that makes you worse off having read it. Reading words is not an inherent virtue.