I love watching and reading people’s lists for this tag every year, so this year I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do the tag myself! It’s basically a list of all the awards at the Academy Awards, but for the books I read in 2018. I’ll be picking my winners from all the books I read in 2018, not just the ones that were published in 2018. So I have a total of 120 books to pick from and you can see my full list here if you’re interested. I’ve done my best to avoid selecting the same book for multiple categories, but in some cases I felt the same book really was the best pick for both awards. Here we go:
Best Male Protagonist (Best Actor)

Winner: Bitty from Check Please!: #Hockey
Reason: He’s a gay hockey player who loves to bake and make people feel good! What’s not to love?!
Runner ups: Prince Cas from Ruined, Radu from Bright We Burn, Cormoran Strike from Lethal White
Best Female Protagonist (Best Actress):

Winner: Morrigan Crow from Wundersmith
Reason: She is brave and perseveres though she is alienated at her school. She just wants to be accepted and be a good friend.
Runner ups: Kimberly from Girl in Translation, Felicity from The Ladies Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Maddy from Code Name Verity
Best Male Sidekick (Best Supporting Actor):

Winner: Axel from The Astonishing Color of After
Reason: He is so sweet and such a good friend! He is always there for Leigh and understands when she needs some personal time.
Runner ups: Mitch from Vicious/Vengeful, all the boys in Fence, Benji from Us Against You
Best Female Sidekick (Best Supporting Actress):

Winner: Kitty from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Reason: She has such a great personality and she loves her sisters. She made me laugh so much and I loved her energy!
Runner ups: Amari from Children of Blood and Bone, Sheilagh Fielding from The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Rosa from Rose Under Fire
Best Writer you discovered for the first time (Best Director):

Winner: K.A. Tucker
Reason: I read her newest book, The Simple Wild and fell in love with her writing, characters, and setting!
Runner ups: Alice Oseman (Radio Silence), Emma Hooper (Our Homesick Songs), Courtney Summers (Sadie)
Best Plot Twist (Best Cinematography):

Winner: Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
Reason: There are a ton of crazy plot twists and I didn’t see any of them coming! Blew my book club’s mind!
Runner ups: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager, The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
Best Action in a Book (Best Visual Effects):

Winner: Ruined by Amy Tintera
Reason: It is so fast-paced, it just throws you into the action right away and it never stops!
Runner ups: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, Vicious by V.E. Schwab
Best Book Cover (Best Costume Design):

Winner: The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan
Reason: LOOK AT IT! This is my first repeat, but I am just so in love with how beautiful this is and all the colours – I had to pick it!
Runner ups: Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper, The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker, Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Best Audiobook (Best Musical Score):

Winner: Joanne Froggatt in Wuthering Heights
Reason: Froggatt is an accomplished actress and she did a wonderful job with all the accents and drawing me into the story!
Runner ups: Kyla Garcia in I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Phoebe Robinson in Everything’s Trash, but it’s Okay, Rebekkah Ross in The Nowhere Girls
Most Unique Plot/World (Best Original Screenplay):
Winner: Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend
Reason: I am obsessed with everything about this series. I love the world-building, the plot, and all the characters.
Runner ups: Women Talking by Miriam Toews, The Poppy War by R.F. Huang, Sadie by Courtney Summers
Best Book to Movie Adaptation (Best Adapted Screenplay):

Winner: Love Simon
Reason: I actually liked this more than the book. The acting, storyline, and soundtrack were all amazing! Technically I didn’t read the book, Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, this year, but I did see the movie!
Runner ups: To All the Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han on Netflix
Best Graphic Novel (Best Animated Feature):

Winner: Fence by C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad
Reason: So much wonderful character development in this series! Somehow these authors succeeded in making fencing super interesting!
Runner ups: Saga by Brian K. Vaughan, Check Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu
Best Novella or Short Book (Best Short Film):

Winner: Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Reason: Unique storytelling that demonstrates women’s ability to find solace, humour, and healing in one another.
Runner ups: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, Songs of a Sourdough by Robert W. Service
Best Historical Fiction (Best Documentary):

Winner: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Reason: The writing, the setting, the characters, and the story are all so captivating and richly developed.
Runner ups: Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Best Standalone (Best Picture):

Winner: Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper
Reason: The writing is magical and transporting. I loved this mix of historical fiction and magical realism.
Runner ups: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker, Women Talking by Miriam Toews
I’ve read every book Ruth Ware has written and I will be reading this one too! I don’t think Ware is the best mystery writer out there, but I find her books so compulsively readable that I’m always thrilled to pick up a new one! Especially because this one sounds SO GOOD! It’s about a woman who takes a live-in Nanny job in the Scottish highlands, which she thinks is going to be a dream job and ends up being a nightmare that lands her in prison for a murder she didn’t commit! This sounds so intriguing and I can’t wait to read it! Goodreads says this book is coming out in early Sep, but Edelweiss is listing the release date as Aug. 6, so we’ll just have to wait and see!
Alice Feeney only has one other book,
Last year and read and enjoyed Riley Sager’s second thriller novel,
I’m cheating a bit on this book because I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC and I have already read it, but I’m including it anyways because it releases in March and fans of Lisa See will not be disappointed! The Island of Sea Women is set on Jeju Island in South Korea and takes us through 70 years of history – from the 1930’s to the 2000’s. Jeju Island’s culture is focused around women – where they are the core providers for their families and the men stay home and take care of the home and children. It tells the story of Young-sook and her friend Mi-ja, who are both part of the Haenyeo collective of divers who make a living diving for sealife in the fridgid sea.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo took Booktube by storm last year! I read it back in 2017 with my book club and also loved it – so I’m so excited to pick this one up later this year. Daisy Jones and the Six is about solo singer Daisy Jones and popular band, The Six. I’m not totally clear on the plot of the novel, but it’s set in the 70’s and is guaranteed to include all of the drama of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I loved how diverse Evelyn Hugo and how good of a story teller Taylor Jenkins Reid is, so I can’t wait to read this one too!
This is a lesser promoted novel that I stumbled upon on Netgalley and became immediately intrigued with. It’s by a Mexican author and has actually been published since 2015, but the English translation is being released in April. It’s about an abandoned baby that was found under a bridge and the impact he has on the small village. It’s set during the Mexican Revolution and the outbreak of the spanish influenza in 1918 and this setting is what really intrigued me about the book. I already have a copy of this from Netgalley and I’m looking forward to learning more about this period of Mexican history.
Romanov is a historical fantasy novel about Anastasia Romanov. It re-imagines history where instead of Anastasia dying, she was tasked with smuggling out a spell on her way to Siberia that might be the only thing that could save her condemned family. I don’t really know much more about the story, but I’ve always been a little obsessed with Anastasia and I pretty much only had to hear the words “Anastasia” and “fantasy” and I was in. In discovering this book, I also discovered that Brandes has another historical fantasy novel about Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the British government, Fawkes, which I must now also add to my TBR because that also sounds amazing!
This is another book where I read a really short description of the book and was immediately like, “I have to read this.” Sherwood is basically a gender-bent retelling of Robin Hood. In this version, Robin Hood is dead and his betrothed, Maid Marion is bereft. The people of Nottingham are greatly suffering, especially with the loss of their hero. In her desire to help her people, she dons Robin’s green cloak and is mistaken to be him. The people are desperate for a saviour and Marion decides to do her best to help them.
This one comes out today, so we don’t even have to wait for it anymore! I am totally shocked at myself for including The Gilded Wolves on this list because I strongly disliked Chokshi’s other book,
As with many of the books on this list, I’m excited to read this upcoming release because I read Acevedo’s novel,
I stumbled upon this new release on Netgalley as well and while I wasn’t approved for an ARC on this one, I’m really excited to read it when it comes out in February. It’s about two high school students who are frustrated with the status quo at their school and start a Women’s Rights Club. They get a lot of positive support when they start the club, but they are eventually targeted by online trolls who threaten their club and their voices. I’m here for any and all YA books on feminism so I can’t wait to read this. What makes me more excited is that the two girls on the cover are black and white, so I’m hoping this will be a more intersectional, feminist read than some other similarly plotted books that I’ve read in the past.
This is another book I’m a little surprised to include on the list because I read Ahmed’s debut novel,
This is a bit of a longer list than I usually make, but there’s just so many good books coming out this year! Lindy West’s new book OBVIOUSLY has to be on this list because just everything about it screams something I must read. I really like Lindy’s writing (along with Jessica Valenti and Laurie Penny) and I’m a here for a book about how the “patriarchy, intolerance, and misogyny have conquered not just politics but American culture itself.” It sounds like this book is going to cover a lot of topics, from the 2016 election to the #MeToo movement, I can’t wait to read West’s observations and critiques.
Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak was published 20 years ago and was monumental in discussing the impacts of rape and sexual assault. She has published many other books since then, although I’ll admit, Speak is the only one of her books I’ve read. Shout is going to be a memoir collection of poems and essays about sexual assault, the progress we’ve made, and some personal anecdotes from the author’s personal life. It sounds like a really great anthology and I’m interested to see what the author has to say 20 years after the publication of her ground-breaking novel.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐