A rant on the 2024 GoodReads Choice Awards Winners

I hope you don't mind the surprise mini post, but I felt like it was too long to be on Notes

If you haven’t heard, the winners for the 2024 GoodReads Choice Awards were announced today (yesterday, depending on your time zone) and I definitely have some thoughts on it. This was going to be a post on Notes, but as I was writing it I realized that it was way too long to be a Notes post that anyone would read without breaking it up into multiple Notes, and potentially not have those Notes stay together in the Substack algorithm. So, we all get a surprise mini-post today where I just basically rant about everything that won in this year’s GoodReads Choice Awards.

Enjoy.

2024 GoodReads Choice Awards Winners

Credit: GoodReads

Best Fiction

Winner: The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This was one of the books I was surprised to see win because I legitimately thought Intermezzo by Sally Rooney was going to win. Everywhere I looked you would see people basically fangirl over the book and Sally Rooney’s writing, showing off their ARCs (for those big-time influencers who got them) or their regular copies of Intermezzo for the cameras and creating all these “aesthetic” content with the book front and center. Plus, the last time she was nominated for a GoodReads Choice Awards back in 2021 she pretty much blew her competition out of the water when she won.¹ So I find it a little ironic that The Wedding People beat Intermezzo by over 27,000 votes, pretty much blowing its competitors out of the water.

As for the book itself, I don’t really know much about it other than it was a Read with Jenna Book Club pick. Maybe I’ll come across a copy during my IRL book club’s bookish White Elephant game or simply borrow the book from my grandma so I can see what all the hype is about with this book.

Best Historical Fiction

Winner: The Women by Kristin Hannah

Let’s be real here, is anyone really shocked by this winning Best Historical Fiction? Do you know how many people would come up here (as in online bookish spaces) to rave about this book all day long? Considering how the GoodReads Choice Awards is almost pretty much a popularity contest, I don’t think there’s much to say about The Women winning in this category.

Best Mystery/Thriller

Winner: The Gods of the Woods by Liz Moore

Honestly, I was kind of surprised by this winning in Best Mystery/Thriller, especially when I constantly see people online talk about all the books written by Riley Saeger and Freida McFadden. But then again, a lot of people were hyping this book up all summer so I can’t be too surprised that it won.

Best Romance

Winner: Funny Story by Emily Henry

Nothing against Emily Henry, but part of me wonders if we’re ever going to have a year where she doesn’t win Best Romance. There’s a lot more to genre than just Emily Henry books and I would like to see someone else get the same recognition that Henry has been getting in these Awards for the past four years in a row.

Best Romantasy

Winner: House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

Out of all the nominees, this was the one where I instantly knew right away that they were going to win in their respective category. Enough said.

Best Fantasy

Winner: Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

I don’t know if I was that surprised to see Somewhere Beyond the Sea win Best Fantasy. However, it was a really close race between this and Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar², and I guess you can say that I was surprised that Klune was able to beat Bardugo in a race that tight.

Best Science Fiction

Winner: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Another book I’m not surprised to see win in their respective category since it was most talked about sci-fi novel (at least that I’m aware of) all year.³ I ended up coming across an ARC for this book last month, so at some point I’ll end up reading this to see if it’s worth the hype.

Best Horror

Winner: You Like it Darker: Stories by Stephen King

Considering Stephen King’s reign as one of the most prolific horror novelists of his time, I don’t think we should be surprised that it ended up winning in this category. Though, from a numbers perspective from GoodReads ratings, you would think something like We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer or Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman would end up winning this category.

Best Debut Novel

Winner: How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Do I know much about the nominees in this year’s Best Debut Novel category? No…

However, I do know that there was a decent amount of talk about this book among romance readers and the reviews seem mostly positive.

Best YA Fantasy

Winner: Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

Sure, it wasn’t the near-landside victory it received compared to the first book in the duology (Divine Rivals), but I’m not too shocked by this book winning. While I haven’t read either book in the duology, I feel like there might have been books in this category that should have won over Ruthless Vows, such as The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste or Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews.

Best YA Fiction

Winner: Heartstopper #5 by Alice Oseman

As much as I am a fan for the Heartstopper series, I don’t think a graphic novel should really be nominated/judged against a slate of traditional YA novels. There’s nothing wrong with graphic novels, but graphic novels and traditional novels are two distinct forms of storytelling and I don’t think they should really be compared against each other in order to see what was the “best” of YA for a particular year.

Yes, there’s no way GoodReads could get away with not nominating the latest installment of Heartstopper, but I feel like Heartstopper #5 being nominated in Best YA Fiction is just proof that GoodReads should really consider bringing back the Best Graphic Novels category.

Best Memoir

Winner: The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir by Kelly Bishop\

Now, I haven’t read any memoirs in the past year, but the only reason why I’m commentating on this is because I was surprised to see who ended up winning this category. To be frank, I’ve never watched Gilmore Girls and I don’t know what the all the hype is about with that show, but I haven’t seen that many people talk about this book in the past year. Honestly, I thought that it was going to be either From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough or Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten.

---

Hoped you enjoy today’s surprise post on me ranting about the winners for this year’s GoodReads Choice Awards. If you have thoughts/opinions that you would like to share about this year’s winners (or if you think a book was snubbed), feel free to share in the comments below.

And if you want some insights on what my thoughts were on the nominees for this year’s GoodReads Choice Awards, be sure to check out my reaction post I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

---

1. When I looked at the numbers, over 26,000 votes separated her from the second place winner in the category her 2021 book (Beautiful World, Where are You) was nominated in.

2. Almost 1,300 votes separated between the two.

3. The only other exception for this would be Orbital by Samantha Harvey since she ended up winning the Booker Prize.