Goodreads Choice Awards for 2018

It makes Librarians super happy when most of the winners of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards are available at our local library. This means we are ordering great books that readers are really responding to. This is the only major book awards decided by readers. Congratulations to the best books of the year and check them out today at the Valentine Public Library!

FICTION WINNER 55,300 votes

Still Me by Jojo Moyes(Goodreads Author)

Jojo Moyes wins the Best Fiction award for her third book in the Me Before You series (the first book was adapted into a tearjerker of a movie). Here heroine Louisa Clark ventures to New York City to start a new life. This is the British author’s first Goodreads Choice Award.

BEST MYSTERY & THRILLER WINNER 62,170 votes

The Outsider by Stephen King(Goodreads Author)

Stephen King is no stranger to the Goodreads Choice Awards. And although fans may know him best as a horror novelist, this is his third win in the Goodreads Choice Awards Mystery & Thriller category (he also earned wins here for End of Watch in 2016 and Mr. Mercedes in 2014). This year he beat out the debut The Woman in the Window to take the title.

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION WINNER 61,702 votes

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah(Goodreads Author)

Kristin Hannah wins the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction, a category she also took in 2015 for The Nightingale. This family drama set in the wilderness of Alaska in 1974 captured readers’ hearts with its portrayal of crisis and survival amid an unforgiving landscape.

BEST OF THE BEST 68,489 votes

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas(Goodreads Author)

Fresh off her double Goodreads Choice Award win last year (and a critically acclaimed adaptation this year), Angie Thomas returns to claim the victory in our special tenth anniversary Best of the Best category, which had readers pick an ultimate favorite from 170 past winners. Her powerful debut, The Hate U Give, follows a 16-year-old who finds her voice after her unarmed childhood best friend is fatally shot by the police.

BEST NON-FICTION WINNER 46,472 votes

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara, Gillian Flynn (Goodreads Author) (Foreword), Patton Oswalt (Afterword)

Published posthumously, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is Michelle McNamara’s nonfiction account of her journey to unmask The Golden State Killer—a serial killer who wreaked havoc in California in the 1970s and ’80s. This book is meticulously researched, as McNamara spent years putting together the pieces of this tragic, true-crime puzzle that ultimately eluded her grasp. The silver lining? Her book created renewed interest in the case that may have helped lead to an arrest.

BEST MEMOIR & AUTOBIOGRAPY WINNER 57,938 votes

Educated by Tara Westover(Goodreads Author)

Tara Westover struck gold with her first book and first Goodreads Choice Award win for Educated. The memoir has spent more than half a year on The New York Times‘ bestsellers list and was heralded by Barack Obama as a “remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho who strives for education while still showing great understanding and love for the world she leaves behind.”

BEST DEBUT GOODREADS AUTHOR WINNER 70,984 votes

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi(Goodreads Author)

If you tuned in to The Tonight Show over the summer, you may have recognized Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone as the first reader-recommended pick for Jimmy Fallon’s book club. This West African-inspired YA fantasy conquered the Best Debut category, beating There There and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Already optioned for a film, it’s only a matter of time before Adeyemi’s heroine, Zélie, makes her appearance on the big screen.

BEST YOUNG ADULT FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION WINNER 68,782 votes

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas(Goodreads Author)

Keeping her crown in Best YA Fantasy is four-time Goodreads Choice Award winner Sarah J. Maas. Her reign began in 2015 with Queen of Shadows and continues today with Kingdom of Ash. The latter is the epic finale of her Throne of Glass series, which follows the adventures of the deadly assassin Celaena Sardothien. While Celaena’s journey has ended, Maas plans to return to Erilea next year with The World of Throne of Glass compendium.

BEST MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN’S WINNER 45,529 votes

The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan(Goodreads Author)

The gods have spoken. For the last eight years, the young demigods from Rick Riordan’s bestselling fantasy series have dominated the Best Middle Grade category. Scorching the competition this year is Riordan’s The Burning Maze, which is the latest installment in The Trials of Apollo series.