Hi and welcome to this week’s Let’s Talk Bookish post! The end of the year is fast approaching and like every year, it’s time for the Goodreads Choice Awards. The winners have been announced on December 4, and unlike other years, I haven’t heard a lot about it. Not even controversy. Are these awards over? Who knows…

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, this meme is hosted by , Aria @ Book Nook Bits and since February 2025, Dini @ DiniPandaReads is the co-host. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

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?

The 2025 Goodreads Choice Award winners were announced on December 4th! Do you vote for or keep up with the awards? 

In all honesty, not really. I mean, I do vote, but only for the categories I’m interested in and for the books I actually have read. However, I wasn’t in the loop with the awards being around this year, so I hardly noticed when the opening round was. I think these awards don’t mean anything as they don’t give the author anything. With other awards, authors at least get something as recognition, often a certain amount of money they could use as investment for their future books. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t the case with the Goodreads choice awards. Moreover, I haven’t read a lot of the nominees each year. This year was a bit better though, but I still didn’t recognize most of those nominees.

Have you read any of this year’s winners or nominees?

As stated before, I did read a few of them.

Winners

• My Friends by Fredrik Backman
• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
• Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
• Sunrise on the reaping by Suzanne Collins

Nominees

• Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber (review to come)
• One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
• Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
• Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
• The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
• Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett
• The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by Carissa Broadbent
• Fearless by Lauren Roberts
• Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi
• The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith
• A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson

Okay, more than i thought actually!

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?

I think adding the romantasy category is a smart move as this genre has become increasingly popular. When looking at the categories that have been removed, I don’t have anything to say about them as I don’t read in those categories. Humor, picture books and graphic novels aren’t for me and I’m glad they are gone now. In my opinion, the current categories are the most relevant ones, apart from children’s books. I think that one deserves a comeback, although the target audience is not on Goodreads. But parents, teachers and other caretakers are, so they should be able to have a say in what’s the best children’s book of the year.

Are there any other changes to the awards that you’d like to see?

Oh absolutely! It’s getting better in becoming more diverse, but when looking at the winners, white, CIS gendered books are pretty dominant. This is not really representative of the whole literary landscape. Books by authors of color, neurodivergent authors or authors who belong to another marginalized group should get an equal chance to win as well. It’s good that they are nominated, but like every awards type of thing, this is just a popularity contest and quality doesn’t really matter it seems. I don’t mind the winners, but more diversity would be nice. Furthermore, why is Freida McFadden nominated with multiple books in one category? A bit unfair in my opinion as well. Otherwise, I don’t know what else I should change to these awards as I don’t let them influence my reading at all. I don’t really care that much.

What about you? Do you keep up with the Goodreads choice awards? What do you think of them? If you could make any changes, what would they be?