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.
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!
