7 Million Votes Later: These Are the 15 Best Books of the Year, According to Readers

Fredrik Backman is known for his heartwarming stories, and his 2025 release, My Friends, is no different. Winning over audiences with its quirky charm and reminder of the importance of friendship, you can’t help but love this book. It’s an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later. It’s also Backman’s first CGA win, and it’s honestly like watching Leo DiCaprio finally get his Oscar.

Is it really a Goodreads Choice Awards without a TJR win? No, no, it’s not. Her fourth win in this category follows Joan Goodwin, who, after a lifelong obsession with the stars, finally gets the chance to experience them firsthand as one of the first female scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. As she and her fellow astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. She begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

In her first adult mystery-thriller, YA expert Holly Jackson dives into the ultimate whodunnit, where Jet must solve her own murder, and she only has seven days to do it. On Halloween night, Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder, suffering a catastrophic head injury. Doctors are certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a fatal aneurysm. As her condition deteriorates, she reconnects with her childhood friend Billy, the only one willing to help her. With Billy at her side, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something: Jet is going to solve her own murder.

If you didn’t already know she was the queen of romance, Emily Henry’s fifth consecutive win in this category definitely proves it. Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. They’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of the daughter of one of the most storied families of the 20th century. Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story. But the problem is, there’s an inconvenient yearning pulsing between Alice and Hayden every time they’re in the same room.

After the insane hype for the Empyrean series’ latest installment, it’s no surprise that Onyx Storm is the reader favorite romantasy. After nearly 18 months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Now, Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Move over Twilight! In this vampire novel, we follow three different storylines. The first is in 1532, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where María dreams of an escape from her life controlled by men. Next, in London in 1827, a young woman is swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. Finally, in Boston in 2019, Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind to start college. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning everything, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers…and revenge.

Described as Love Island meets Black Mirror, The Compound follows Lily—a bored, beautiful 20-something—who wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams—but what will she have to do to win?

15-year-old Fern arrives at Wellwood House, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret and give them up for adoption, in the sweltering summer of 1970. Every moment of the girls’ waking day is strictly controlled by the adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But there’s always a price to be paid for power…and it’s usually paid in blood.

Thanks to its loyal fans, Alchemised won a landslide victory for Readers’ Favorite Debut Novel. According to Resistance records, Helena was a healer of little importance during the war. But she has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder if she’s really as insignificant as she appears. To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most ruthless necromancers in this new world. But her prison and captor have secrets of their own…ones she must unearth, whatever the cost.

No, you’re not seeing double. Onyx Storm is, in fact, bringing home two Goodreads Choice Awards this year. Whether you’re reading a physical copy or listening to the audiobook, one thing is for sure: readers absolutely loved this 2025 release.

Another landslide winner was the prequel to our favorite dystopian series following Haymitch’s games. When his name is called in the reaping, Haymitch can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight…and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

No one writes a YA romance like Lynn Painter, and clearly other readers agree. From play dates on the playground to sneaking into movie theaters, Dani and Alec were inseparable growing up. Until Dani moved away. Now, she’s back in Minnesota for her senior year. Dealing with the fallout of her parents’ devastating divorce, Dani wouldn’t mind a nerd-out with Alec. But teenage Alec is nothing like the kid Dani remembers. He’s a hockey star in a town where players are worshiped as gods. Dani is resolved to ice out her former best friend until they’re forced to pretend to be a couple.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry. In the years since that first visit, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable disease to also be the deadliest. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog—now the subject of a new Hulu docuseries—and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

In How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell, hosts of the popular Witches of Scotland podcast, unravel the grim yet absurdly bureaucratic process of identifying, accusing, trying, and executing women as witches. During the chaos of the Reformation, violence against women was codified for the first time in the Witchcraft Act—a tool of theocratic control with one chilling goal: to root out witches and rid the land of evil. What followed was a dark and misogynistic chapter in history that fanned the flames of witch hunts across the globe.