Every year Goodreads has its annual Goodreads Choice Awards. They’re voted on by users of the site in a number of categories. There are several rounds of voting to come up with the eventual winners.
I have a Goodreads account, but I don’t use it. The site serves no purpose because I track all my reading on my own, and I don’t care what others are reading or about their recommendations. But I saw the top fiction book and had to talk about it.
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.
Uh, what?
What a joke. The book has a rating of 3.34 on Goodreads. 3.4 on Amazon. 3.8 on Barnes and Noble’s website. So I’m struggling to see how this book has been named as the top fiction book of the year. The math doesn’t really add up. I don’t think there’s a conspiracy going on, but I’m just not seeing where all these people who voted for it have been. Or if they read the same book as everyone else.
Am I the only person who thinks this is a little odd?
Johnny Reads 
I’m with you.
I have read both books; the first one was most definitely better than the second one. If Watchman had been published soon after Mockingbird, within a year or two, I think it would have been better received and better understood.
How can they even vote on the books for 2015 when the year isn’t done yet?
J.R. Ward had a book released just this week which was much better written, had a more current message and was heaps more enjoyable. I didn’t have to bribe myself to finish Blood Kiss, I did Watchman.
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I haven’t. And won’t read it. And you’re right. But I’ve seen all the major publications releasing their own best of the year lists. Maybe the December books could be included in next year’s list? I don’t know. How did you bribe yourself?
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It was such an unimpressive book that nothing from that time sticks out. Probably chocolate or something, lol.
December’s books probably are listed with next year’s batch *SHM*. You’d think they’d wait a month or two, give us something to look forward to during the blahs and doldrums of a long, cold, yucky winter.
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Ha! I don’t see why they couldn’t just wait. But what do I know?
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I have to say that I’m shocked it won. Especially when there were so many other outstanding books.
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I KNOW there were dozens that were better. This is crazy.
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The idea of a ‘best of anything’ is odd really. A piece of art is interpreted on the basis of how you’re feeling, who you are, what your experiences are and sometimes even just what time of day it is. Go Set A Watchman is a news story, a public relations exercise. I’ve not read it yet, there are too many other books that are attracting my interest ahead of it.
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Yes. Yes. Yes.
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[…] This post was inspired by a conversation with fellow blogger, the bookish John Guillen at Write me a Book John […]
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I suspect releasing a list like this is done before Christmas in the hope we’ll all rush out and buy the books on the list for presents – always a marketing angle to these things.
And no, it makes no sense. I can’t say what should have one in its place, though I suspect that Harper Lee got the vote for Mockingbird – for writing what has seemed for decades a lone phenomenon, a book that sunk into global consciousness. And for still being alive to release another when no one ever thought she would.
It’s like being an actor, and getting the Oscar fellowship.
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Ooooh. Interesting point. You might be on to something.
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This was ridiculous. I think people were voting for a name and all the hype that went with it as opposed to evaluating the books and concluding that there were far better novels to choose from. I voted this year, and I wasn’t about to touch Lee’s book. I’m surprised it even made the finals list, honestly. But, again, I think it was a popularity contest, if you know what I mean, versus an honest understanding of quality fiction.
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I don’t doubt anything you’ve said. I’m declaring through the power invested in me that 2015’s list will have an asterisk next to it in the history books. 😂
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Oh please. A big fat asterisk. I beg you. I don’t really know how big of a deal goodreads is in the grand scheme of things, but there were so many authors slighted by that decision.
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Well theirs as the only awards voted on by readers. The only legitimate ones. So I think it’s a little big deal. But yes, I’m sure.
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