As the title says, I stopped reading a long time ago (some time in high school) and I’m looking to restart, and am looking for some recommendations

I can’t really remember what books I enjoyed at the time, but having recently got back into films I think one of the things that made me fall out of reading is that in a lot of books nothing really happens - I like a plot where there’s a decently solid world, and I also don’t particularly like objectively happy endings, rather I really enjoy genuine moral conflict with no good options (instead the “goodies” either winning or being crushed by the “baddies”, I’d prefer to have no clear goodies or baddies and primarily just people, most of whom try to be good but are of course fallible), and while it’s possible for that to happen with most people being happy I think it’s likely more common without a happy ending?

I’m very into worldbuilding (both mine and others), but I don’t mind if this is sci-fi, alternate present, historical, fantasy, etc, and it doesn’t even need to be that different to our own world, eg I really enjoyed Dark on Netflix

I’m also fine with any horror/violence (and prefer some darkness) however I’m generally not that into relationships/sex in books, however it’s not a dealbreaker nor is the former required

I’ve been looking at either The Library at Mount Char or Sea of Tranquility to get started with, but am looking for either affirmation or alternative recommendations (and I’d rather not look too deeply into plots to avoid spoiling them, which makes it hard to find books from scratch when it’s the plot form that makes them interesting to me - those two are also both further from our current world than I think could be, so it could be interesting to see something set in an alternate version of the early 21st century)

Sorry this has been a bit rambling, but I look forward to any suggestions :)