Goodreads Choice Awards 2024 – Reaction and Plans

I had a tiny sliver of hope – delusion really – that Goodreads might bring back at least the graphic novel category or maybe the middle grade category. When I scrolled down this list and did not see it towards the end, I was disappointed but not overly so since I did not get my hopes up.

I did notice that the humor category had gotten the ax. Everyone wanted this category to go last year instead of any of the categories that they did remove.

Once I noticed this, I scanned back up the list to see if anything else had been added in the place of humor and lo and behold saw that they added an audiobook category. As an avid audiobook listener, I appreciate the fact that this now has its own category although it does make me wonder how they calculate the “listens” and what makes a book eligible, especially since the classic 1984 made the list curtesy of an Audible original recorded by the actor Andrew Garfield.

Additionally, on a live reaction video I watched, someone mentioned that they would have much rather seen the audiobook narrators themselves highlighted rather than the covers of the book. I agree. The cynical side of me knows that Amazon won’t do this because this popularity contest is all about sales. People know book covers; they don’t recognize faces of audiobook voice actors.

Of the 20 nominated books, I have read four of them already: The Bullet Swallower, The Great Divide, The Women, and The Frozen River. (The check mark indicates that I have read the book.)
Of the remaining 16 books, I own an additional 5 – Shelterwood, The Lion Women of Tehran, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern, and The Storm We Made. (The lines with check boxes above and below the cover indicate that I own the book.)

As indicated by the blue arrow, if I voted right now, I would vote for The Frozen River which is one of my favorite books of the whole year.

When I look at the list itself, I have interest in only two of the books on this list – A Crane Among Wolves by Jane Hur and Death at Murder House by Maureen Johnson.

I know little about several of these books, aside from the the fact that most of them are romance, at least 9.

I have read one, The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson.

Aside from the romance books, there are four or five mystery/thriller, one contemporary, and two that I do not know the genre of.

I honestly do not see most of my students picking up most of these books. (That’s a whole other discussion that Ashley at Realm of KidLitComics on Youtube is much more of an expert in.)

I did not do nearly as well with this as I had hoped, as evidenced by the graphic. Of the 20 books, I read only four prior to the long list announcement – Defiant by Brandon Sanderson (the lone sci-fi), Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross, Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen, and The Prisoner’s Throne by Holly Black. I will say though, that reading through the previous years has put me in a better position than the first year I did this because I have read all of the prior books for all the sequels on this list: Wisteria by Adalyn Grace, All This Twisted Glory by Tahereh Mafi, Heir by Sabaa Tahir (technically this starts a series but you really need to have read the previous series), and Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez.

I also will not read the two books that I have marked with the X. Last year I chose not to read Powerless by Lauren Roberts. Thus, I will not read the sequel, Reckless, which I knew would be on the list.

The other book that I am choosing not to read is, Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew. This is her sophomore work. I read her debut, The Whispering Dark which many people enjoyed. It did not work for me at all. I will link my review here.

I have heard that this book uses many of the same techniques and has a similar writing style. Since both of those did not work for me before, I choose to not put myself through that for a self-imposed challenge.

Of the remaining books, I physical copies of four – Heir by Sabaa Tahir, The Darkness Within Us by Tricia Levenseller, Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez, Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier and have an eARC of one, For She is Wrath by Emily Varga.

Am I particularly excited about any of the remaining books? Not really. I do not have anything against them either or particular expectations except for one of them, The Darkness Within Us. I mentioned that I chose not to read one of the books because I knew that the author’s writing style was not for me.

Of the 20 books that made the long list, I have already read 10 of them – 50%! (I won’t list all of them here. Just check the graphic for reference.)
Although I really wanted this number to be much higher, I did significantly improve from last year when I had read only 5. Can I do even better next year? I’m not sure.

I also helped prepare myself well for this and put in a hold for The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman over a month ago.

Additionally, if I had had time, I would have also read The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. Voyage of the Damned by Frances White has also been on a couple TBRs.

Of the remaining 10 books, I have chosen not to read one, Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness. I do not know why that book is on this list rather than romantasy. Additionally, it is book 5 in its series and all the books exceed 500 pages in length. (Feel free to fact check me on that.)

For one of the books – Empire of the Damned, I will have to read an additional book – Empire of the Vampire. I am really intrigued as to how the sequel made it on the list when the first book did not. (I remember this quite clearly

Of the remaining books, I own just three of them: The Night Ends with Fire by K. X. Song, The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown, and Voyage of the Damned by Frances White.

I had hoped to see a couple different books on this list, primarily The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons (a definite long shot in my opinion) and Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wong (a long shot but more like a dark horse.) I have given five stars to both of those books.