Every year now for the past three years I have made it a goal to read all of the Goodreads Choice Award winners (or close to). This means that I am reading books in 20 different categories as well as keeping up on books that are popular, which is important as a librarian.
Now I can’t always choose the winner as I may have already read it. I also made it a requirement that I can’t read a book that is already on my “to-read” list as I want to discover new books. Beyond that I make sure that I read one book from every category.
If you want to find out about all of my 2020 reading goals you can check them out here.
Here are the categories for the Goodreads Choice Award, the book and author I chose, as well as the rating that I gave the book out of five:
| Category | Book | Author | Rating |
| Fiction | Normal People | Salley Rooney | 3/5 |
| Mystery and Thriller | The Lost Man | Jane Harper | 4/5 |
| Historical Fiction | The Giver of Stars | Jojo Moyes | 4/5 |
| Fantasy | The Ten Thousand Doors of January | Alix E. Harrow | 2/5 |
| Romance | Things You Save in a Fire | Katherine Center | 5/5 |
| Science Fiction | Recursion | Blake Crouch | 3/5 |
| Horror | The Institute | Stephen King | 3/5 |
| Humour | William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls | Ian Doescher | 3/5 |
| Non-Fiction | Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed | Lori Gottlieb | 4/5 |
| Memoir & Autobiography | Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years | Julie Andrews | 4/5 |
| History & Biography | Before and After: The Incredible Real Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennesse Children’s Home Society | Judy Christie | 4/5 |
| Science & Technology | Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men | Caroline Criado-Perez | 4/5 |
| Food and Cookbooks | Antoni in the Kitchen | Antoni Porowski | 3/5 |
| Graphic Novels | They Called Us Enemy | George Takei | 5/5 |
| Poetry | Lord of the Butterflies | Andrea Gibson | 3/5 |
| Debut Novel | A Woman Is No Man | Etaf Rum | 4/5 |
| Young Adult | Five Feet Apart | Rachael Lippincott | 4/5 |
| Young Adult Fantasy | Serpent & Dove | Shelby Mahurin | 4/5 |
| Middle Grade | The Bridge Home | Padma Venkatraman | 4/5 |
| Picture Books | Sulwe | Lupita Nyong’o | 4/5 |
Now this was a great selection of books and while I did enjoy most of them there are a few that really stood out above the rest.
I really loved the Romance book I read, “Things You Save in a Fire” as it was fun, emotional, and full of great female strength as the main character was a fire fighter who moved to a location where female firefighters were not the norm. The romance was sweet and it was a book I really enjoyed.
The other five star read is very different, but a book that I think everyone should read which is “They Called Us Enemy” a graphic novel about Japanese Internment camps. This book is very sobering, but an important read.
Other books I really loved were:
A Woman Is No Man: Two generations of middle-eastern women navigate life in America dealing with family, dreams, and trying to find out who they are
The Giver of Stars: Packhorse librarians in the wilderness
The Lost Man: A mystery/thriller set in the Australian bush that really had me guessing
Now there are just a few months left until the voting for this years Goodread’s choice awards starts and I can’t wait to find out what books I am going to read next year.
fivestarredlife.ca 
I didn’t know this was a thing, and I guess I’m headed to Goodreads to check out their Choice Awards books now. Thanks for sharing!
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I loved The Lost Man and The Giver of Stars! A Woman Is No Man was already on my TBR list, but I’ll have to add a few more of these too, especially Thing You Save in a Fire. So much to read, so little time!!
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