These Goodreads Choice Awards Winners Also Made PEOPLE's Book Picks

Mar. 15, 2025

Amazon

Goodreads just announced the winners of the 16th annualGoodreads Choice Awards— and the results for the 15 best books of 2024 are in!

These five Goodreads Choice Awards winners were also PEOPLE picks.Amazon

This year, over 6.2 million dedicated bookworms voted, and some of this year’s winners just so happen to be books that PEOPLE recommended throughout the year, as well.  We have a full winners list below, but first, here are the winning books that were also PEOPLE picks.

Riverhead Books

Liz Moore’sThe God of the Woodswas Goodread’s pick as this year’s best mystery & thriller. Set in 1975, the story follows a camp counselor who discovers that 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar, the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the summer camp, has gone missing. But she isn’t the only Van Laar who has disappeared before. Her older brother went missing 14 years earlier. As a panicked search ensues, dark family secrets are revealed along the way.

Earlier this year,Jimmy Fallon also selectedThe God of the Woodsas his summer 2024 book club pick.

Henry Holt and Co.

Taking home the best fiction of the year award was Alison Espach’sThe Wedding People. For years, Phoebe Stone has dreamed of a romantic getaway with her husband at the Cornwall Inn, a luxurious hotel in Newport, R.I. But when she finally checks in, she’s divorced and at rock bottom and has plans to end it all — after one last decadent splurge on herself. When she’s mistaken as a wedding guest and befriends the spoiled-rich bride, she’s soon swept into bridal service and the two become unlikely friends.

Goodreads describes Espach’s novel as “a propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.” It was also chosen as aRead With Jenna Book Club Pick.

Best historical fiction novel of the year went to Kristin Hannah’sThe Women. The plot follows a 24-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath. She follows her brother into the Vietnam War and finds purpose serving as a surgical nurse for the Army Nurse Corps. Her parents are less evolved, with her military father withholding a place for her on his Wall of Heroes.PEOPLE’s reviewnoted that the book is at its best when it focuses on the nurses in the evac hospital but doesn’t skirt the issues that plague military homecomings.

Penguin Random House

“Stranded in her ex’s lakeside hometown, Daphne becomes roommates with Petra’s ex, Miles, and despite their differences, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan to get back at — or with — their exes,” adds the official synopsis.

Not only didFunny Storyscore the best romance novel prize, but it’s also beingturned into a movie with Henry writing the script for the big-screen adaptation.

And last, but not least,Jonathan Haidt’sThe Anxious Generationwon the award for best nonfiction. The social psychologist investigates the epidemic of teen mental illness that’s affecting many countries across the globe and closely examines what he calls the “great rewiring of childhood,” as well as how technology interferes with the neurological and social development of today’s youth.

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Haidt’s book also made thetop 100 books lists of bothTIMEand Amazon this year.

Want to see if any of your favorite authors took home a trophy? Here is thefull list of Goodreads Choice Awards 2024 winners.

source: people.com