I teach an abridged version of the Iliad in a uni course. Since it’s translated epic poetry, it isn’t the same experience as hearing it in Ancient Greek. However, it is still poetry, an art form meant to be spoken more than read. Try finding a good recording to listen while reading. Librivox is a good place to look. The Poetry Foundation may also have some good suggestions.

I read them all but what really helped was studying the epics. This may sound sacrilegious but I would advise reading first the eineid first but in long text format. Regarding the Iliad, for me it was very difficult to read it entirely in high school programme. It will strike you as boring but it’s full of details. For me the Iliad only clicked when I started studying it (aside from reading). This entailed things like studying the following : Homer the format and rules of the epic writing (phonetics , structure, number of sylabs per verse etc) Plot Characters Mythology and its relation to each character Relations between characters Etc

The Iliad is not easy and reading it solely will not be much meaningful without studying it.

I hope this somewhat helps!

Ps: some words or names may be incorrect since I don’t know them in English