On December 4, 2023 Goodreads released the winners for their 15th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards. This year there were 15 categories with 300 hundred books nominated. The awards let readers pick their favorite books from each category that they have read this year. Here are the 15 Goodread Choice Award Winners:
Best fiction: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, and opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”
Athena Lui is a Literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody. Athena dies in a bad accident. June steals her unpublished manuscript and claims it has her own. She uses a fake name, Jupiter Song. However, evidence threatens June’s new life. How far will she go to keep her new life?
Best Historical Fiction & Best Debut Novel: Wayward by Emilia Hart
“There was something about us, the Wayward women, that bonded us more tightly with the natural world. We can feel it, she said, the same way we feel rage, sorrow, or joy. The animals, the birds, the plants, they let us in, recognizing us as one of our own.”
2019: Kate flees London to get away from her abusive partner. She ends up at her great aunt’s cottage that she inherited. She barely remembers her aunt, but she suspects she has secrets. Going through the cottage that has been there since the 17th century witch-hunts.
1619: Altha’s mother taught her magic when she was younger, the kind from deep knowledge of the natural world. Now Altha is awaiting trial for a local farmer who was murdered by his herd. Witchcraft has always been seen as dangerous, the witchcraft evidence is set out against her.
1942:As World War 2 breaks out, Violet is trapped in her family’s crumbling estate. She wishes for the education her brother receives and her mother who died long ago. The only thing she has left of her is a locket with a w on it and Wayward craved it on the floorboard of her room.
Three extraordinary women’s stories weave together over five centuries.
Best Mystery & Thriller: The housemaid’s Secret By Freida McFadden
“Instead, she made an incredibly bad judgment call. She underestimated an extremely dangerous person. Me. And she paid the ultimate price.”
Millie is having a hard time finding an employer who doesn’t ask too many questions. So when Douglas Garrick offers her a job taking care of his wife and their penthouse she can’t turn it down. However, she never does Mrs. Garrick, but hears her crying almost everyday. One day she decides to knock on the door, and everything is changed…
Best Romance: Happy Place by Emily Henry
“I want my life to be like making pottery. I want to enjoy it while it’s happening, not just for where it might get me eventually.”
Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple since they met in college. However, for some reason they don’t anymore. They broke up six months ago, and their best friends don’t know. Now they find themselves in the largest bedroom in Maine at the cottage their friend group goes to every year. To make things worse this is the last summer, the cottage is for sale.
Best Romantasy: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
“And when others are quick to stand in front of me, Xaden always stands at my side, trusting me to hold my own.”
Violet Sorrengail is supposed to be living her quiet life with books and History. However, the commanding general, aka Violet’s mom, has ordered Violet to join the candidates trying to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
Best Fantasy: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
“That was all there was in the world. No heroes or villains, just people you’d brave the waves for, and the ones you’d let drown. “
The second book in the series. Alex Stern is back and the ivy leagues are going straight to Hell. Steal a soul out of Hell. A simple plan, but people rarely come back.
Best Science Fiction: In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune
“You were made to bring happiness. You are soft and fragile. But you are complex and disturbing and sometimes foolishly brilliant.”
A home behind the branches of grove trees, lives there robots, Giovanni Lawson, and the human, Victor Lawson. They are a family. But, then they are found. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory. Victor goes on a journey to save Gio.
Best Horror: Holly by Stephen King
“She smiles. She dies. A world of words dies with her.”
When Penny Dahl calls The Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter. Something in Penny’s voice makes Holly not want to turn it down.
Best Young Adult Fantasy: Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
“In the meantime, I hope you will find your place, wherever you are. Even in the silence, I hope you will find the words you need to share.”
Iris Winnow just wants her family together. Her mother is suffering from an addiction and her brother is missing. She needs to win Columnist Promotion at the Oath gazeth. Iris starts to write letters to her brother. Roman kitt, Iris’ rival, finds the letters and anonymously writes back. They form a connection that will follow Iris to battle.
Best Young Adult Fiction: Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
“Galaxies pass through his black eyes, and I wonder whether this second could last a century. Whether the universe could be just me and him, understanding each other on a forever loop.”
Mallory Greenleaf doesn’t play chess anymore, not after it led to the destruction of her family. Her only focus is her mom and sister. However, she agrees to play one last torment. To her surprise she beats the world champion, Nolan Sawyer. This opens the door for better opportunities. Will she take the chance?
Best Nonfiction: Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond
“This is who we are: the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy.”
Matthew Desmond explains the history of poverty in the United States.
Best Memoir & Autobiography: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
“When I was alone with my thoughts, my mind filled with worries and fears. Music stopped the noise, made me feel confident, and took me to a pure place of expressing myself exactly as I wanted to be seen and heard.”
Britney Spears tells her story for the first time. Revealing the kind of things that have happened because of fame.
Best History & Biography: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by Davaid
“Empires preserve their power with the stories they don’t-the dark silences they impose, the pages they tear out.”
On January 28, 1742 a ramshackle vessel of patch-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Thirty men inside are barely alive. They were survivors of the Majesty’s ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England 1740. But then six months later, another one arrives on the coast of Chile. The men on that one said that the thirty men were lying, they were mutineers not heroes. Who would be found guilty? Whoever was found guilty their life was at risk.
Best Humor: Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond by Henry Wrinkler
“…because you really don’t know what you can accomplish until you try. All you have to do is try, and you will amaze yourself.”
Henry Wrinkler shares roles that make him who he is today. He shares how grateful he is for everyone, he wouldn’t be here without them.
