Revealed! The Best Books Of 2024

What a year! The Girlfriend Book Club — a closed Facebook group with nearly 100,000 members — has enjoyed a fabulous 2024 jam-packed with great literature. We've given away thousands of books. We've heard from many prominent authors, everyone from Kristin Hannah to Ruth Reichl to Fiona Davis. We've discussed many incredible reads. And, perhaps most importantly, we've made connections with others who love books.

And now I'm so pleased to announce the winners of the 5th Annual Girlfriend Book Club Choice Awards, the major book awards decided by members of The Girlfriend Book Club. Here are your picks of the year, in eight different categories. Congrats to all the winners and here's to another fabulous year of reading in 2025! (Also, I know many of your favorites are not on this list but in seven of the eight categories, we were only looking at books PUBLISHED in 2024 — I should have made that more clear.) The only category in which that wasn't the case was the category on which book you're most looking forward to reading in 2025.


Your Most-Anticipated Books Coming Out In 2025:

Winner: "Onyx Storm" by Rebecca Yarros to be published Jan. 21, 2025.

Runner-up: "The Stolen Queen" by Fiona Davis to be published Jan. 7, 2025.

Best Books Read By The Girlfriend Book Club In 2024 — (basically, we loved them all!):

Winner: "The Women" by Kristin Hannah

Runners-up: "The Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon/"All the Colors of the Dark" by Chris Whitaker

(I've included links above to the recordings of our author interviews.)

Best Authors Of 2024:

Winner: Kristin Hannah

Runners-up: Chris Whitaker, Rebecca Yarros and Abby Jimenez

Best Fiction Books Of 2024:

Winner: "The Women" by Kristin Hannah

Runner-up: "The Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon

Best Celebrity Memoirs Of 2024:

Winner: "From Here to the Great Unknown" by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

Runner-up: "The Third Gilmore Girl" by Kelly Bishop and Amy Sherman-Palladino

Best Nonfiction Books Of 2024:

Winner: "An Unfinished Love Story" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Runner-up: "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt

The Books That Made The Biggest Impact On Our Lives In 2024:

Winner: "The Women" by Kristin Hannah

Runner-up: "Go as a River" by Shelley Read

Best Cookbook Of 2024:

Winner: "Does This Taste Funny? Recipes Our Family Loves" by Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert

Thanks to all of you who voted and thanks for your continued support and contributions. Please invite your female family members and friends to join this special club.

I'm eternally grateful for this group of wonderful women.

Shelley

Shelley Emling
Moderator of The Girlfriend Book Club


What was YOUR favorite book of 2024? Let us know in the comments below.