2017 Best of... Reading Challenge Detailed

I mentioned in my Challenge post that I was hosting the 2017 Best of... Reading Challenge.  I'm not really hosting a challenge, per se.  It's simply a thing I've been wanting to try for a while.  What is this thing, you say?

I'm simply picking one of the Goodreads Choice Awards categories from the previous year, and reading all the nominees in the category.  I'll also get to see if I agree with the chosen winner.   Most people haven't read every book nominated and you can only vote for the book(s) that you've read. I have a theory that the winner of each category is more of a popularity contest, rather than the best book in the category and I simply want to test that theory.

You can try it if you are interested, I'd be interested to hear how this little experiment works out for different categories (or the same).

I've chosen the Best Young Adult & Science Fiction Category from the 2016 Choice Awards, which means I'm reading the following:



The difficult part of this challenge is that I have to also read the earlier books in the series of some of these. I guess I don't HAVE to, but it is how I roll (eyeing United as One warily  I'm kind of nervous but I really want to give it a shot.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments?  Do you agree or disagree with me about the winners of Goodreads Choice Awards?  If you were to take on this challenge, which category would you take on?