Hello readers! It’s time for a LTB post. This one centers the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2025. I found this one as an interesting topic because I do happen to have a few opinions on the awards. So, let’s get into it!
Check out my Let’s Talk Bookish Masterlist for every post I’ve done.
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originated by Eternity Books and is currently hosted by Book Nook Bits and Dinipandareads. The accompanying thumbnail was also designed by Book Nook Bits. Each Friday, bloggers craft posts where they engage in discussions centered around the designated topic for the week.
December 12 prompts: The 2025 Goodreads Choice Award winners were announced on December 4th! Do you vote for or keep up with the awards? Have you read any of this year’s winners or nominees? The categories have also changed in recent years, creating some controversy: the Romantasy category was added in 2024, and the Children’s and Middle Grade category was removed. What do you think about these changes? What categories would you like to see go away or come back? Are there any other changes to the awards that you’d like to see?
2025 Goodreads Choice Awards
The Goodreads Choice Awards is something I look forward to every year. I really don’t care if it’s a popularity contest or if someone votes for books they haven’t read yet. It’s not the big of a deal to me.
However, I have become a bit dissapointed with GCA the past two years. I find myself increasingly not knowing any of the books on the lists. I may not be reading as much as I used to, but I do keep up with new releases.
I read five new releases this year and two of them appeared on a list. First was Bat Eater and the other was You Killed Me First. I actually read You Killed Me First after the first round was over (I think?).
Bat Eater was such a good book, even if I didn’t love the ending. I was happy to see it made it in 6th place in the horror category. I’m also shocked Stephen King didn’t win.
I think that we are going in the right direction for diverse representation, but I’d still love to see some more on the lists as well. However, this isn’t Goodreads fault, but the readers.
Category Changes
Category changes have been both good and bad for the GCA. I understood when they got rid of the picture book category because I assume most kids that young are not reading and rating on Goodreads. HOWEVER, I was really upset when they removed the middle grade category.
I have a person who really loves middle grade books, as you guys know. It’s really hard to come by recommendations or new list of what’s even coming out every year. Of course they published these types of lists and things like this Scholastic magazine, but I don’t get that as I’m not a school teacher.
I used to use this list every single year to find new authors to try and new books to drive. Of course, Rick Riordan would win every single year. But I still loved how diverse the nominees were. I think if it existed right now that Dog Man would be dominating the list. Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series is one of the biggest series for Gen Alpha.
I also could see the middle grade and even previously the picture book category being very helpful for people who have children. You don’t necessarily know about the newest releases in picture books. I wouldn’t even know where to find that information.
Adding the Romantasy category really made. a lot of sense. In years before that category existed many people would complain if these books ended up in the romance or the fantasy category. I don’t really feel like romance category should be exclusive to contemporary romance, but a lot of people do. There are plenty of sub-genres of romance outside of fantasy and contemporary. But, the fantasy fans would also get upset if Sarah J. Maas would win as well. Romantasy is also such a popular genre right and therefore makes sense to have its own category.
I am an audiobook reader, but I do not understand the audiobook category. I am a person that reads a lot of genres, but most people are not like that at all. Most people that I know of do not read broadly enough by genre to even i’ve read more than one book in that category. I had read any in that category (other than Harry Potter).
It’s completely different with like the debut author. Even though there’s lots of different genres there, it both gives new authors a second chance to win against a much more well-known author and helps bring awareness to new authors books.
A category I would love to see in the future is one for indie authors. Indie authors have very little chance of even making it onto the list, let alone winning.
Let me know what you guys think! There are always so many differing opinions on the Goodreads Choice Awards and I’d love to know yours in the comments.
Happy blogging and bookish adventures! 📚🦒✨
This post was created by Allison Wolfe for www.allithebookgiraffe.com and is not permitted to be posted anywhere else.
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