Lol it is very true too

I am not a doctor and am instead just a clown on a computer, so, like, don't take me seriously. BUT Can you imagine other things in your life? Like, do you create pictures in your head at other times? If I asked you to picture your home could you 'see' how many windows it has in the front, for instance? What happens in your head when you hear a story? Because it's entirely possible you have aphantasia, which is an inability to create a mental picture.
Or it may be a lack of practice. I have heard that creating mental pictures while reading is tied to how well and often you read. So less fluid readers don't get lost in the story the same way others might.

This is interesting to me because I think we're in a great time for fiction. It's so much easier to find translations of books that would never have left their home countries before. More people are able to find audiences that might have otherwise been shut out of publishing their works for one reason or another.

Anyway, I'd say Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob or Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead might be considered up there. NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season, Clavell's Shogun would all be on my short list