Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge recap

For my reading challenge this year, I chose to read at least twenty books from the list of 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards finalists. I ended the year reading twenty-eight of them.

The books I read were (in alphabetical order by title):

• Anxious People - Fredrik Backman
• Beach Read - Emily Henry  
• Confessions on the 7:45 - Lisa Unger
  
• A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik 
• Devolution - Max Brooks
• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson
  
• The Hollow Places - T. Kingfisher  
• Home Before Dark - Riley Sager
  
• The House in the Cerulean Sea - T.J. Klune 
• House of Earth and Blood - Sarah Maas
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab
• The Kingdom of Back - Marie Lu 
  
• The Loop - Jeremy Robert Johnson  
• Luster - Raven Leilani 
• Malorie - Josh Malerman
  
• The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
• Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy
  
• The Night Swim - Megan Goldin 
• One by One - Ruth Ware
• Oona Out of Order - Margarita Montimore 
  
• Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
  
• Solutions and Other Problems - Allie Brosh
• The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson
  
• Strange Planet - Nathan Pyle
  
• Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid  
• The Sun Down Motel - Simone St. James
  
• To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini  
• When No One is Watching - Alyssa Cole 

Of the 28 books, I rated 12 as 5 stars, 7 as four stars, and 9 as three stars. The average rating came out to be 4.11, which is higher than my overall average of about 4.0 stars for the books I've read and logged on Goodreads. It was also much higher than the 3.5 average from my New York Times Bestseller reading challenge in 2020. As far as reading challenges go, this one was a success. I read a lot of books that I really enjoyed, including some that will end up on my top ten favorite reads of 2021.

There were a couple of interesting observations from this reading challenge. First, the category winners didn't perform as well as the other finalists. My average rating for the books that won in their category was 4.0, the same as the typical book I read. The real gems were the finalists that didn't win in their category. I also found that I usually either really liked one of the Goodreads Choice Award finalists or thought the book was mediocre. As noted by the ratings above, there were more 5-star and 3-star ratings than 4-star ratings. This was unusual because normally, 4 stars is the most common rating I give a book.

Since this reading challenge went so well, I'm planning to continue it again next year, using the 2021 Goodreads Choice Award finalists. I hope I'll enjoy them as much as I enjoyed the books I read this year!