Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

Goodreads Choice Award Challenge 2024

The group challenge is to read as many nominees and award winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2023 as possible.

Challenge instructions - Easy step by step instructions put together by Kristie:

Creating Your Shelf
To participate in the Choice Awards Challenge, you will need to have a special shelf dedicated to the challenge. To do this, go to your bookshelf (click on “my books” to get there). Below your list of bookshelves on the lefthand side of the page, click on “add shelf”. Chose a name for your shelf that will let you know it is your challenge shelf (whatever name you want), Save the shelf.

Adding Books to Your Challenge Shelf
Check out the nominees and award winners below and add the ones you want to read/read to your challenge shelf. There are a couple of ways to do this. Please note that you can choose to add the book any one of the three ways below, just choose the way that you find easiest. You do not have to do all three.

To start with, go to the books page. Then, from the book page:

* Click on the 'want to read' under the book cover icon, and then 'continue to tags', and then choose the shelf you've assigned to the challenge.

* If you have already read the book or added it to your “to-read” shelf, then below the book cover icon click on 'edit my activity'. This will take you to the review page where you can 'choose shelves', which will cause a drop down menu to appear and again you simply check off the shelf that you have assigned to the challenge.

*Alternatively, If you have already added the book to your bookshelf, you can search for the book in 'my books' and under the column titled “shelves” next to the book you want to add to the challenge, it will list the shelves that the book is currently on. Just below the list of shelves, you can click “edit” and a drop down menu to appear and again you simply check off the shelf that you have assigned to the challenge.


Joining the Challenge
Next go to the challenge page HERE
Enter your goal and the bookshelf to which you'll add the nominees and award winners (the one you just created above). Make sure to copy the shelf name exactly. Save again!


Participating
This is the best part! To participate all you need to do is read the books you have chosen! After you have read a book, make sure to mark it as read.

If the book is marked as read between January 1st, 2023 (yes 2023 is correct, because you already might have read some of the nominees / winners) and December 31st 2024 and you have added it to your challenge shelf, it will automatically count toward this challenge.

Trouble-shooting
If you read your book and it did not count towards your challenge, there are a couple of things you can do.

First, make sure that you have added the book to your assigned shelf.

Next, make sure that you have set the “read” date accurately. When you mark a book as read you can set the date. Usually, it will automatically assign the read date to the day you mark it off, but occasionally this doesn’t happen. If you’re having trouble, just make sure you set the “read” date to “today”.

2023 Choice Awards List
The winners will become this group's monthly reads.
The rest of the nominees will be voted by the group for additional monthly reads. Both winners and nominees will go towards the group's yearly challenge.

BEST FICTION - Winner: Yellowface

Big Swiss
Birnam Wood
Blackouts
Evil Eye
Family Meal
Hello Beautiful
Maame
Pineapple Street
Shark Heart
Someone Else's Shoes
The Bee Sting
The Celebrants
The Collected Regrets of Clover
The Connellys of County Down
The Five-Star Weekend
The Invisible Hour
The Wishing Game
Tom Lake
Wellness

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION - Winner: Weyward

Banyan Moon
Beyond That, the Sea
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Go as a River
Hang the Moon
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
Let Us Descend
Looking for Jane
North Woods
River Sing Me Home
The Covenant of Water
The Echo of Old Books
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
The House of Eve
The Keeper of Hidden Books
The Paris Daughter
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
The Vaster Wilds
The Wind Knows My Name

BEST MYSTERY & THRILLER - Winner: The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)

After That Night (Will Trent, #11)
All the Dangerous Things
All the Sinners Bleed
Bright Young Women
Don't Let Her Stay
Good Bad Girl
Happiness Falls
Homecoming
I Have Some Questions for You
None of This Is True
The Coworker
The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)
The Leftover Woman
The Maid's Diary
The Only One Left
The River We Remember
The Villa
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
What Lies in the Woods

BEST ROMANCE - Winner: Happy Place

A Long Time Coming (Cane Brothers, #3)
Final Offer (Dreamland Billionaires, #3)
Hello Stranger
In the Likely Event
King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2)
Love, Theoretically
Meet Me at the Lake
Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)
Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)
Pucking Around (Jacksonville Rays, #1)
Romantic Comedy
The Long Game (Long Game, #1)
The Right Move (Windy City, #2)
The Seven Year Slip
The True Love Experiment
Things We Hide from the Light (Knockemout, #2)
Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2)
You, Again
Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)

BEST ROMANTACY - Winner: Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

A Court This Cruel & Lovely (Kingdom of Lies, #1)
A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)
A Fire in the Flesh (Flesh and Fire, #3)
A Game of Gods (Hades Saga, #3)
A Queen of Thieves & Chaos (Fate & Flame, #3)
A Soul of Ash and Blood (Blood and Ash, #5)
Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1)
Bewitched (Bewitched, #1)
Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)
Rule of the Aurora King (Artefacts of Ouranos #2)
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror (Mortal Enemies to Monster Lovers)
Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)
The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)
The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)
The Foxglove King (The Nightshade Crown, #1)
The Hanging City
The Hurricane Wars (The Hurricane Wars, #1)
The Jasad Heir (The Scorched Throne, #1)
Throne of the Fallen

BEST FANTASY - Winner: Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)

A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos, #0)
Atalanta
Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)
Clytemnestra
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Starling House
Stone Blind
Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)
The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)
The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power, #1)
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
The Unmaking of June Farrow
The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
Tress of the Emerald Sea (Cosmere)
VenCo
Victory City
Witch King (The Rising World)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION - Winner: In the Lives of Puppets

Ascension
Bridge
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Children of Memory (Children of Time, #3)
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
Land of Milk and Honey
Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6)
Some Desperate Glory
Starter Villain
System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)
The Deep Sky
The Deluge
The Ferryman
The Future
The Great Transition
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
The Light Pirate
The Marriage Act
Translation State (Imperial Radch)

BEST HORROR - Winner: Holly (Holly Gibney #3)

A House with Good Bones
Becoming the Boogeyman (The Boogeyman #2)
Black Sheep
Dead Eleven
Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #2)
Her Little Flowers
How to Sell a Haunted House
Lone Women
Mister Magic
Monstrilio
My Darling Girl
Natural Beauty
Our Share of Night
Rouge
Silver Nitrate
Sisters of the Lost Nation
The Reformatory
The September House
Vampires of El Norte

BEST YOUNT ADULT FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION - Winner: Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)

A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #3)
A Study in Drowning
Blood Debts (Blood Debts, #1)
Bring Me Your Midnight
Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)
Delicious Monsters
Foul Heart Huntsman (Foul Lady Fortune, #2)
Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)
House of Marionne (House of Marionne, #1)
House of Roots and Ruin (Sisters of the Salt, #2)
Powerless (The Powerless Trilogy, #1)
Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone, #1)
Song of Silver, Flame Like Night (Song of the Last Kingdom, #1)
Spice Road (Spice Road Trilogy, #1)
The Scarlet Veil (The Scarlet Veil, #1)
The Stolen Heir (The Stolen Heir Duology, #1)
These Infinite Threads (This Woven Kingdom, #2)
Threads That Bind (Threads That Bind, #1)
What the River Knows (Secrets of the Nile #1)

BEST YOUNG ADULT - Winner: Check & Mate

Five Survive
Forget Me Not
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
Immortality: A Love Story (The Anatomy Duology, #2)
Imogen, Obviously
Never Ever Getting Back Together
Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)
One of Us Is Back (One of Us Is Lying, #3)
Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh
Reign (American Royals, #4)
Suddenly a Murder
The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)
The Davenports (The Davenports, #1)
Thieves' Gambit (Thieves' Gambit #1)
This Time It's Real
Together We Rot
Warrior Girl Unearthed
We Deserve Monuments
What Happens After Midnight

BEST DEBUT - Winner: Weyward
Adelaide
Banyan Moon
Beyond That, the Sea
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
In Memoriam
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Looking for Jane
Maame
Monstrilio
One Summer in Savannah
Pineapple Street
River Sing Me Home
Shark Heart
The Bandit Queens
The Collected Regrets of Clover
The September House
The Wishing Game - This has now been removed from the list, the following statement has been given by Goodreads.
"Following new information from an author that they had previously published under a pen name, one book was no longer eligible for this category and was removed."

BEST NON FICTION - Winner: Poverty, by America

8 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go
Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier
Butts: A Backstory
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma
Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good
Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
The Art Thief
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail
Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food

BEST MEMOIR & AUTOBIOGRAPHY - Winner: The Woman in Me

A Living Remedy: A Memoir
A Man of Two Faces: a Memoir, a History, a Memorial
All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear
Counting the Cost
Hijab Butch Blues
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
Love, Pamela
Pageboy: A Memoir
Paris: The Memoir
Spare
Tell Me Everything
The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft
They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us
Thicker than Water: A Memoir
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence
You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

BEST HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY - Winner: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
Elon Musk
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts
King: A Life
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
Rough Sleepers
Star Crossed: A True Romeo and Juliet Story in Hitler's Paris
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History
Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era

BEST HUMOUR - Winner: Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond

Alexandra Petri's US History: Important American Documents
America the Beautiful?: One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled
Black Friend: Essays
Congratulations, the Best is Over!
Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist
How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told
It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway: And Other Thoughts on Moving Forward
Leslie F*cking Jones
Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the '80s
Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera
Quietly Hostile: Essays
Strong Female Character
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!
The World Record Book of Racist Stories
Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You're the F-ing Worst
Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome
Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens
XOXO, Cody: An Opinionated Homosexual's Guide to Self-Love, Relationships, and Tactful Pettiness

As always, it's a lot of data to put together. Please let me know if I've made a mistake in any of the lists.

Woot! Thanks, Lynn! It's midnight here, so I'll post the challenge tomorrow.

Challenge is live here: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

In best history and biography, The Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill is listed twice. ,

Damn, and I can't fix it at now because the list has been taken away!

Ah well, I'll sort it when we get the full list back

Under YA Fiction Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is listed twice as well.

Good grief! This is all because the stupid pages refresh then it's a different order.

Ah well, I'll fix it once we get the full list back :)

Oh, yes. That is always frustrating. Whenever you click on a book the page reorders everything.

I mean, I know why they do it (to not show favouritism to any book) but it can be frustrating

Same. It makes sense for them to do it that way, but it still makes it difficult when you're going through the list trying to check out the books.

Great job as always Lynn!

Winners have been posted! https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

List updated with winners (and the missing books).

2024 calendar is being worked on and will be posted soon.

RE Debut Author Nominees

The Wishing Game - This has now been removed from the list, the following statement has been given by Goodreads.
"Following new information from an author that they had previously published under a pen name, one book was no longer eligible for this category and was removed."

That annoys me. I'm sure it's just an honest mistake, but I think they should have researched better. Anyone who voted for it just lost their vote. I actually voted for it, but also really liked another book and would have voted for the other if I knew this book didn't qualified. (Also, I now need to remove it from my challenge!)

Kristie wrote: "That annoys me. I'm sure it's just an honest mistake, but I think they should have researched better. Anyone who voted for it just lost their vote. I actually voted for it, but also really liked an..."

You don't need to remove it from the challenge, as it was still a nominee for the Fiction category

Ah well, that's good at least.

Lynn, thank you so much for putting this list together. Really appreciate it.