Today, after tallying 5,674,480 votes, Goodreads announced the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards winners. Every year, Goodreads nominates 15 books in each of 20 genre categories and asks Goodreads members to vote for their favorites. Goodreads selects the nominees by analyzing statistics from millions of book ratings added throughout the year on their site, as well as any write-in nominations. To learn more about how the Goodreads Choice Awards selection process works, check out this Rioter’s review of the process.

A promising trend surfaced amongst this year’s winners. The 2020 Goodreads Choice Award winners feature eight authors of color, making up 40% of the winning authors. This provides a sharp contrast to the 2019 Goodreads Choice Award winners, in which only one author of color’s book won (Ali Wong’s Dear Girls in the Humor category). Let’s hope this trend continues.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

While reviewing the winners in each category, a few more notable voting patterns emerged. For example, in the historical fiction category, Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half won by more than triple the votes of any other nominee in that category! Bennett’s book received 102,626 votes compared to the runner-up’s 34,021 votes.

The race for Goodread’s favorite fiction pick, on the other hand, came close this year—as in, five votes close. Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library won by 72,828 votes while Frederik Backman’s Anxious People came in second at 72,823 votes.

To view the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards winners in each genre category, check out the list below. Don’t forget to browse the nominees too!

2020 Goodreads Choice Awards Winners

Fiction

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Mystery & Thriller

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Historical Fiction

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Fantasy

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Romance

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Science Fiction

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

Horror

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Humor

Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle

Nonfiction

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Memoir & Autobiography

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

History & Biography

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Science & Technology

A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough

Food & Cookbooks

Modern Comfort Food by Ina Garten

Graphic Novels & Comics

Heartstopper: Volume Three by Alice Oseman

Poetry

Dearly: New Poems by Margaret Atwood

Debut Novel

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Young Adult Fiction

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of Air #3) by Holly Black

Middle Grade & Children’s

The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) by Rick Riordan

Picture Books

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi, Illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky


Looking for more best of 2020 book lists? Check out this year’s top picks from The New York Times, Amazon, and of course Book Riot!

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