Book nerds, you have some hard choices to make. The folks at Goodreads, the social networking hub for bibliophiles, have whittled down the field to 200 finalists — with 10 titles in 20 categories — for the Goodreads Choice Awards, voted on by Goodreads users.
In the Fiction category are some of the most beloved novels of the year, including Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker … and The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling? Rowling’s foray into adult fiction didn’t originally qualify for the long-list because it didn’t get the required 3.5-star user rating, but it earned enough write-in votes to become a finalist.
Another category to watch is Romance. E L James’ reps point to last year’s Goodreads Choice Awards as the tipping point that gave Fifty Shades of Grey a new level of recognition that eventually led to the phenomenon we all know about. Fifty Shades Freed goes up against Sylvia Day’s Bared to You and J.R. Ward’s Lover Reborn.
You can always count on Young Adult literature to generate enthusiastic online engagement. In the YA fiction category, the front-runner is certainly John Green’s wonderful novel The Fault in Our Stars. The #DFTBA movement should give him the win handily, although the dark horse might be Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which won a lot of fans this year. (It’s terrific). In the YA fantasy category, it’ll be a battle between Veronica Roth and Cassandra Clare to see whose extremely devoted followings will turn out in droves.
Go vote!
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