Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

2017 Calendar


January
Winner - Science Fiction: Morning Star (Red Rising #3)
Note: As the group has already read book #1 and #2, we will not be reading then again this year.
Book #1 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Book #2 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) 

Additional Nominee Read Mystery & Thriller - The Woman in Cabin 10

Additional Nominee Read Graphic Novel - Saga, Vol. 6


February
Winner - Fiction: Truly Madly Guilty

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) 

Additional Nominee Read YA Fantasy - Heartless

Additional Nominee Read Food & Cookbooks - Skinnytaste Fast and Slow: Knockout Quick-Fix and Slow-Cooker Recipes for Real Life


March
Winner - Historical Fiction: The Underground Railroad

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) 

Additional Nominee Read Humour - Scrappy Little Nobody

Additional Nominee Read Science & Technology - Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To


April
Winner - Romance: It Ends with Us

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) 

Additional Nominee Read Debut Author - Behind Closed Doors

Additional Nominee Read Poetry - Beautiful And Damned


May
Winner - Middle Grade: The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)

Winner - Memoir & Autobiography: When Breath Becomes Air

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5) 

Additional Nominee Read, Science Fiction - Dark Matter


June
Winner - Horror: The Fireman

Winner - Picture Book: The Thank You Book (Elephant & Piggie #25)

Series Read - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)

Additional Nominee Read, Fiction - All the Ugly and Wonderful Things


July
Winner - Young Adult: Salt to the Sea

Winner - History & Biography: Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man 

Series Read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7) 

Additional Nominee Read, Historical Fiction - A Gentleman in Moscow


August
Winner - Fantasy: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2

Winner - Non Fiction: Hamilton: The Revolution

Series Read - Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy #2)
Note: As the group has already read book #1, we will not be reading that again this year.
Book #1 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Additional Nominee Read, Romance: The Hating Game


September
Winner - Mystery & Thriller: End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)

Winner - Science & Technology: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Series Read - A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1)

Additional Nominee Read, Middle Grade: Pax


October
Winner - YA Fantasy: A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2)

Winner - Food & Cookbooks: Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat

Additional Nominee Read, Memoir & Autobiography: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Additional Nominee Read, Horror: Ink and Bone

Additional Nominee Read, Picture Book: They All Saw a Cat


November
Winner - Humour: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

Winner - Graphic Novel: Adulthood Is a Myth

Additional Nominee Read, Young Adult: The Sun Is Also a Star

Additional Nominee Read, History & Biography: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race


December
Winner - Debut Author: Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands #1)

Winner - Poetry: The Princess Saves Herself in this One

Additional Nominee Read - Fantasy: All the Birds in the Sky

Additional Nominee Read - Non Fiction: Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial

Looks great! Well done :)

Great, I will re-read Harry Potter with pleasure and perhaps even with my daughter's company, that could be a truly unique experience :)

I'm so excited about January.

Great list!

Ugh. I'm contemplating not reading the awards this year. So many books I have no interest in and I really can't do yet another King mystery :/

Oh, Janina. So sorry to see that. There are a few I want to read. I've also already read a couple and I really enjoyed the King trilogy.

Janina wrote: "Ugh. I'm contemplating not reading the awards this year. So many books I have no interest in and I really can't do yet another King mystery :/"

I'm with you. I'm counting on the group to vote for additional reads I actually want to read.

We are adding a nominee buddy read section this year as well, so even if the group doesn't vote for the book you really want to read you can hopefully find a buddy to read your choice with you. :)

Kristie wrote: "We are adding a nominee buddy read section this year as well, so even if the group doesn't vote for the book you really want to read you can hopefully find a buddy to read your choice with you. :)"

That is a great idea! Some of the best reads I had this year were the buddy reads on some books that didn't win and didn't win the poll. I look forward to doing it some more this year!

Glad you're excited about it, Vicki! I'm hoping there's enough interest so that there is plenty of discussion.

I looks very the idea of rereading HP. I've been meaning to do this for years. I need to get back into HP FF as well :)
If only it didn't mean complete failure for the fantasy category...

Glad no other big series this year.

Overall, I find it very frustrating that these awards revolve around the same (highly popular) authors every year (King, Maas, Moriarty, Riordan) and celebrities or animals for every non-fiction category as this appeals to those who tend to not be interested in non-fiction?

There are so many other (less known/popular) authors out there...

I'll likely skip history, humor, memoir and graphic novel this year and read a more interesting one of the nominees. Time is too precious to follow mindless masses ;)
I really wish they would combine biography with the memoir category and ensure that humor is humor (not a memoir) and graphic novel is a novel (not some Internet jokes or drawn humor).

Yay for schedule though!

Sorry can't edit. Looks = love. Silly autocorrect.

Janina wrote: "I looks very the idea of rereading HP. I've been meaning to do this for years. I need to get back into HP FF as well :)
If only it didn't mean complete failure for the fantasy category...

Glad no ..."

I've decided instead I'll be listening to the audiobooks this time.

Voting has started! https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

I have read so few of the nominees this year. There are more books that I don't even recognize than books I've read. So disappointing. Interestingly, the two books I'm reading now have both been nominated.

YES!!! Lets vote!!

Kristie wrote: "I have read so few of the nominees this year. There are more books that I don't even recognize than books I've read. So disappointing. Interestingly, the two books I'm reading now have both been no..."

I'm always like this, but I prefer it that way because it means I have more to enjoy the following year reading for the challenge :)

I’m not surprised by how many I haven’t read really, but by how many I wasn’t even aware of. You’re right. It should make for a good reading year next year. I’ll have to take some time to look into them and add to my TBR.

So true everyone!
This year I have not even heard buzz about most of them. I have only read 4 off the list.
Hoping that it will make a good year of reads for next year.
Once I really look, the TBR will expand again

Just remember more books will be added in the next round, by the readers, so you might know more then

I noticed that a lot of the books were part of the Amazon Prime Kindle First thing .. where you get to pick one book for free each month. So, I have them on my kindle, but haven't had time to read them yet. I wonder if that's driving the nominations since they are probably reaching tons of people this way?
Or are these chosen by actual people based on merit?

I have about 1 book per category (except for YA) most of which I liked, but who knows whether I might enjoy some of the others even more?

Once again, I am having to either write-in a book or not vote at all. And this year I made a concerted effort to read more new releases!

Oh, I had forgotten how that works. So the second round will have different titles, but not less titles? The second round will have the winners from this round plus some write ins?
When the winners are actually chosen, and there is the list of all the nominees, does that include every book that was on any of the lists?
(Yes, I realize I am making this difficult for no reason!)

Opening Round: Oct 31 - Nov 05
Voting opens to 15 official nominees, and write-in votes can be placed for any eligible book.

Semifinal Round: Nov 07 - 12
The top five write-in votes in each of the categories become official nominees and added to the previous list of books from the opening round. 20 books in total for each category.
Additional write-ins no longer accepted.

Final Round: Nov 14 - 27
The field narrows to the top 10 books in each category, and members have one last chance to vote!

Winners are announced on December 5th
The lists will then be put back together for ALL nominees which is 20 books for each category (including the winner). All those books regardless of whether they were write in, or removed for the final round will be part of official nominees and part of our yearly challenge.

Hope that makes sense!

Perfect Lynn!
Thanks.

So excited! Winners are posted tomorrow! We're almost there! In a few hours, we'll know what we're reading for next year!

Well. Results aren’t surprising. Yet another king, Hoover, Maas, riordan, pioneer woman, YouTube and other celebrities, as well as stick figure jokes in place of a graphic novel and a HP screenplay in lieu of an actual fantasy novel.

I fear that the growing popularity of goodreads is completely destroying these awards. I don’t think I’ll read any of the award winners next year. Which is too bad. But, I really don’t see the point in them anymore and there are truly wonderful books being written ... outside of popular mainstream.

Wow, did not expect the to be announced this early!

Looks like this is the worst year yet of people picking authors, not books...
Disappointing... Anyone that read will understand my frustration.

Janina wrote: "Well. Results aren’t surprising. Yet another king, Hoover, Maas, riordan, pioneer woman, YouTube and other celebrities, ..."

Absolutely agree. I've only read two of the winners and don't feel either of them deserved to win; there are three others on my tbr list but none of the others strikes me as anything with much actual literary value at all. There were definitely some far better options which didn't make it through from earlier rounds.

We'll just have to make sure we read plenty of additional reads and buddy reads :)

Well, even nominees were quite weird... but anyway. I have read three winners, interested in couple others and then booooring. I thought Clinton and Rowling were sure winners so not suprises. Yeah, another YouTube star where she shares the secrets to her stunning success, can't wait to read this.

I'm not completely disappointed in the winners. There's a couple I'd like to read. It certainly does look a bit like a popularity contest though. I'm disappointed in Sarah's Scribbles and The Pioneer Woman because I've read some of their other stuff and have no interest in reading more. Oh well. A couple of them I'm looking forward to.

I'm just going through the winners and adding those to my list that I had marked as 'I'll read if they win' ...... however I can't seem to add Before We Were Yours still.

It just sounds so horrific ... I don't want to read it!

I read that one and it was really good. Definitely some abuse triggers in it though.

I guess I'm in the minority. I like many of the winners. Of course, it's a popularity win for some of them (Rowling, king, etc. but it doesn't mean the books are bad). And there's always our additional read and buddy reads!!! ;)

There's definitely 9 books that I want to read / already read of the winners and a couple of maybes. It's not too bad for me.

There's also a lot of the nominees I want to read.

Oh, I didn't meant that winners are bad at all, I just saying that there was not so much surprises. I really tried to read so many new releases as I could afford and then hardly any of my picks were nominees. And when you haven't actually read any of them, it is easiest to vote famous writer.

There were some good winners, and some genres where I'm more interested in reading the nominees. I agree that it is a popularity contest, but I still want to read those books, so I'm good. I'm mostly amazed that the same book won two categories (debut author and YA fiction) - I didn't know they could do that!

Debut Author is the only one that can double up

The problem for me is that the less popular categories .. Graphic Novel, SciFi, Fantasy or any of the memoirs, nonfiction, etc .. end up with winners that are in no way deserving winners of that category because people voting in them either have only read that one book as they usually don't read fantasy/scifi etc or they haven't even read that one, but know the author. The other categories tend to work a little better, but still .. I don't read a whole lot of middle school books, but based on my daughters, there are other truly great ones out there that have not been written by Riordan (who is quite fun to read, but throws the same concept onto every single book which is really repetitive).
Same goes for King, Hoover or Maas ... They should simply eliminate authors from the nominations once they've won once ;)

Anyways .. I just love the idea of our group, but given the way these awards have changed in the past 2 years or so, I'll probably have to abandon the challenge. Which makes me sad. Even the nominees were skewed by #of ratings imo. I'd be very very interested in reading a selection of worthwhile books from genres I usually don't read .. but I'm not even sure the nominations are the way to choose these.

The 2018 group calendar is now up :)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Lynn wrote: "The 2018 group calendar is now up :)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..."

YAY!

@Janina: I understand your point. I'm sure there are so many great books out there that didn't even get that many readers, I'm not even talking about being a nominee.
In the middle grade category, I love the Lockwood and Co series but it only got 1000 votes compared to 34000 or something votes for Riordan's book! #sad
I think awards tend to be biased as a general rule but I find that I tend to like goodreads award winners better than pulitzer's winners. They are less literary but so much more entertaining imo.
You can always turn to buddy reads, they tended to be centered around nominees this year but there is no rule that prevents you from reading any other book with a buddy from this group if you feel like it. ;)
And of course, we have other challenges!
We also have a suggestion thread if you have any. Voilà! :)
I hope we'll still see your comments in the discussion threads :D

I absolutely agree. I do like to challenge myself occasionally to tackle something serious like Pulitzer/Nobel/Man Booker (though those are quite good imo), but often I just want to enjoy reading without putting too much effort into the process.
And, I think the awards work somewhat well for the mainstream categories like Mystery/Thriller, fiction, history .. maybe even romance (I enjoy romance, but read 99% mm which is just not mainstream). I only wish people who clearly have no interest in fantasy (the 77k people who voted for a HP screenplay) would either not vote in a category or vote for something they'd like to read. There is no way all of these people have actually read the screenplay, they just love HP and have no interest in the category itself. Same for the Weir novel etc etc etc

I'll stick around .. just won't set up a challenge :)