Books application on MacOS is LAGGY ever since Monterey

Ever since upgrading to Monterey, the Books application has been slow and laggy. It takes a while just to open a book, and once the book is open, it takes 2-3 seconds just to turn a page. I contacted apple support about the issue and they were clueless. I had HOPED that since Monterey has been out for like 7-8 months now that there that this would be a KNOWN ISSUE with a WORKAROUND... especially since many, many people have reported this... but nope.

If any of you know of a fix let me know.