For the most part, it is the month of November that is associated with the Goodreads Choice Awards. However, it seems this year the party is getting started a little early, and I for one am fine with that. Time for readers to pick their favorite books of 2020 as voting will remain open through November 8th for the first round.
The Best Fiction category starts off strong with four DSNs making the cut. This category is always tough, and this year is no different with My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, and Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, which will appear in a post in late November. My pick is easily Russell's dark and unsettling My Dark Vanessa, which follows the story of a woman, now in her 30s, as she attempts to reconcile the relationship she had with her 42 year-old teacher when she was only 15. It is certainly upsetting, but Russell's writing makes it worth the trouble.
Best Historical Fiction also has some stiff competition, with Lisa Wingate's The Book of Lost Friends, James McBride's Deacon King Kong, and Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half. Though all three books are strong contenders, my personal choice will be Deacon King Kong. I love Wingate's ability to bring her readers into the past, while also linking it to a separate narrative set in the present. And Bennett's tale of two sisters dealing with the racism of a post-Jim Crow America is engaging as well as fascinating. But something about McBride's colorful characters in 1960s Brooklyn will always stick with me.
I am usually lucky to have one book in the Best Science Fiction category, and this year I managed to get two in there. Both The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez, and Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi are up for the award. Both are fantastic, but I must go with Jimenez. He presents a future where Earth can no longer support life, and space travel has been more or less conquered. It is one of those books that is just shy of 400 pages, but has so much going on that it felt like it was longer, and I still wanted more.
One title made it into the Best Horror category, and that is Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. When a young debutante heads off to a small town in 1950s Mexico to check on her cousin, it is clear that something is going on in the strange house she is staying in, and the family her cousin married into is certainly hiding something. It was not one of my favorite books of 2020, but I certainly understand the appeal.
I would recommend both Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett and Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford to anyone looking for a great memoir or autobiography. One is the story of a young man seemingly fighting against destiny to overcome his childhood of being raised by an abusive mother, while longing for the attention of his ex-con father. And the other is about a young girl's experience of sexual assault and the cover-up that followed at one of America's most elite boarding schools. As far as my vote for Best Memoir & Autobiography, I choose Hollywood Park, as Jollett's writing is both lyrical and haunting.
The post for Caste by Isabel Wilkerson will appear in early November, and I am so pleased to be able to vote for it in the Best History & Biography Category. Both eye-opening and upsetting, Wilkerson outlines how the U.S. operates like a caste system, with slavery as its foundation. It may be hard to believe, but through research, interviews, and personal examples, Wilkerson makes a solid case.
Robin Ha's Almost American Girl is absolutely delightful. This nominee for Best Graphic Novels & Comics tells the story of a young girl whose world is turned upside down when she goes to Alabama for vacation from her home of Korea, only to be told after she gets there that she and her mother are never going back. Confusion, anger, culture shock...it's all there, and Ha's beautiful illustrations and writing capture a tale both hopeful and despairing.
Russell's My Dark Vanessa makes its second appearance in the Awards, this time in the Best Debut Novel category, and I am all too happy to vote for it twice.
Oh young adult fiction, how I adore you. And the same can be said for the DSNs that made it into the Best Young Adult Fiction category. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson, and One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus are all worth picking up. But I have to give it Acevedo as she once again gives us a compelling story told completely through poetry.
And finally, we come to the last category with Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. It should be no surprise to anyone that both Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins have been nominated. And while I loved the former, I was pretty disappointed in the latter. It felt like an odd choice to have an entire book focus on Coriolanus Snow, the devious and plotting president from the first three Hunger Games books. And Adeyemi's follow-up to Children of Blood and Bone was pretty much what readers were hoping for, which for me makes it the obvious pick.
With 19 books across 10 categories, the DSNs have made a pretty good showing in the opening round of this year's Goodreads Choice Awards. And of course, when the second round begins, readers will see the write-in votes added to the mix.
Happy voting!
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