Goodreads Choice Awards

By Ashley Mertel

The Goodreads Choice Award winners were announced on December 4, 2012. Goodreads is a website that recognizes all different genres of books. They give reviews, synapsis, and have links to places readers can purchase the books.

This year, they finally released the fan-voted winners for 2012. For fiction, J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy took first place, after it received mixed reviews and harsh words from critics. This was the first novel Rowling’s released since her Harry Potter series. The Casual Vacancy has a realist atmosphere that depicts battles between family, colleagues, and class in the small town of Pagford. In second place was Emily Griffin’s Where We Belong, which is about the strong bonds of family and love. In third was Home Front by Kristin Hannah. Like Griffin’s novel, Hannah’s focuses more on family, love, loyalty and secrets.

As far as mysteries go, Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn crushed the competition with three-times as many votes as the second place winner, Celebrity In Death, by J.D. Robb. Gone Girl is a suspenseful story about a wife that goes missing, who left behind a shocking diary. Her husband is suspected of murder but demands his innocence. The mystery novel keeps the reader on edge with it’s fast pace drama and twisting plot.  Celebrity In Death is a mystery about a cop who finds herself at the center of a crime scene when someone drowns at a party she is attending. It is suspenseful all the way through, keeping the reader ping ponging between possible suspects.

It is no surprise Fifty Shades by E.L. James took the top spot for the romance category. After the trilogy became well known last spring, it outsold Harry Potter books on Amazon’s UK site, creating over $145 million dollars in revenue. When a young, naive college graduated finds herself as the object of desire of Mr. Christian Grey, a erotic relationship ignites, that transforms into a passionate romance over the course of the trilogy.

Bared to You by Sylvia came in second in the romance category. Like Fifty Shades, Bared to You is about a dominate/submissive relationship, but this story starts with two dark secrets that are revealed slowly throughout the novel. Bared to You is the first novel in Day’s trilogy; the second novel, Reflected in You was released this past October.

Other genres in the Goodreads Choice Awards include horror, fantasy, paranormal fantasy, science fiction, memoir & autobiography, history & biography, nonfiction, food & cookbooks, humor, graphic novels & comics, poetry, Goodreads author, young adult fiction, young adult fantasy & science fiction, middle grade & children’s, and picture books

To view a full list of winners or for more information about Goodreads go to www.goodreads.com.

Email Ashley at:

abm3087@live.esu.edu