I was also a lurker on those subreddits, although I mostly just used the r/visualnovels suggestions list to help pick what to read.
Recently I finished both Fate/stay Night and The Fruit of Grisaia after many months (years?) of on and off reading. Maybe not an achievement in the traditional sense of the word, but in the VN world it feels like one lol. I was a big fan of the characters and somewhat flippant tone of Grisaia, and despite the lack of realism I think it still handles its subject matter pretty seriously. Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion, but I was a bit more critical of FSN, and I probably wouldn’t recommend it unless you were already interested in the world-building from being exposed to the anime.
I’m new to lemmy, but I think we’re trying to make a VN community happen over at visualnovels@comfysnug.space . This post is the first I’ve heard of Jack Jeanne, but with it recommended twice already I might have to check it out, although I’m not usually much of a console or handheld player. It could be a good excuse to wipe the dust off the old Switch though lol.