Here we are again my friends! Another year, another book journal tour! I loved book journaling this year, I fell off the habit every once in a while but overall I loved that I got to fill something out and write down my thoughts about the books I read. Let's dive into my 2023 journal!
Reading Goals
Like last year’s journal I started with my reading goals for the year. I really like doing this. I’m the kind of person who likes New Year’s goals. I love giving myself little missions, I feel like it helps me actually do the things I want to do. So for this year I decided on six goals. All of which I achieved, which is such a good feeling. My favorite of these goals that I completed was “read more/read 23 books for 2023”, I will actually have read 40 books by the end of this year. Reading does not always come easy to me, I have made such an effort to read this year because I love it so much but I often lack motivation to do it for whatever reason. Another favorite goal was to “explore outside the comfort zone”, which I feel like I really did. I read quite a few books outside my comfort zone, I didn’t like all of them but I did like most of them. Going outside your comfort zone is scary no matter how minor the situation seems, I’m proud of myself for stepping out and reading something new.
Bookshelf Tracker
My bookshelf page is my favorite page in my book journal. I actually have it in my book journal as well as in my everyday bullet journal because I love it so much. So satisfying to look at and fill in. I went with coloring in the books with the color I had assigned to their genres, which will come up later in the book. However, so many books fit into more than one genre. I tried combining colors but I am not a fan of how that looked. So in my bullet journal version I just chose the genre I felt like the book fit into the most, like what genre I would tell someone it is if I told them about it . I’ve seen that some people color code by their five star rating. Maybe I’ll do that for next year or I was considering just doing the ‘pick one genre it fits best’ idea that I did in my other journal.
Books Read List
I love having this listed out version of my book shelf. I can see all the basic info right away; title, author, when I read it, and what I rated it. Super useful when looking back at my reads, then I don’t have to flip through all the reviews at the back. It is a little unsatisfying that I ran out of room on this page and had to go to the back, however, that means I read more than I thought I would and I love that.
TBR and Books Bought List
Ok, friends. I cannot keep up with these two pages. My TBR is constantly growing and some things get taken off. I think the TBR is something better left to my Storygraph app in a digital format instead. Maybe I could do a TBR of books I already own instead next time. I like the idea of having the TBR page, but I need to get it to work for me.
Now, I did decently keep up with the Books Bought page but I don’t know if I like having it. On one hand it’s nice to see my buying habits and comparing that to how quickly or slowly I get to those books to read. But sometimes I didn’t remember to add books to this list so it could be missing something. I feel like I will keep doing it but have a goal to be more vigilant about it.
Stats
I love love love my stat pages. Just like last year’s journal, this page is essentially just a hand drawn version of what is on my Storygraph app. But I don’t care. I love statistic information, it’s so satisfying to fill out for myself. I will say that, similar to my Bookshelf page, I should assign books to their ‘main’ genre for my chart. OR I may make these pages bigger, making them a two page spread instead of cramming it all on one. I think I’m leaning towards the latter idea. If I do it bigger I can also add some more stats to keep track of! Perhaps number of pages per book and the books per rating.
Reading Log
The reading log fun but I think rainbow was the wrong choice for the pages per day denotation. Rainbow is kind of the through theme for the journal, but it’s so jumbled on this chart that it is not pleasing to my eyes. I think I might choose colors that compliment each other a little more for next time. I also would like to add a color for reading an entire book in one day, which I did a couple times this year and it’d be fun to see that on the chart.
Rating system
I still don’t think this one worked out for this year. I’m really struggling to make my rating system work for how I think about books. I feel like in my head I will easily jump to a rating out of five but it's based so much on vibes rather than actually fitting into a reasoning for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 stars. I’m going to spend a little time thinking this through for my 2024 journal. I did think that my rating scale for this year was decent, but it’s not quite right. Or perhaps I need to rate based off the system I choose and ignore the vibes rating but I think the vibes rating is more important to me. Because to be honest that’s what I would base me recommending a book to someone on. I liked that I added the little tear for books that made me cry and the lighting bolt for something spicy, I just wish I had kept up with it.
Favorite Reads Showcase
Love it! Now how my personal showcase works is that it is not necessarily 5/5 stars or the highest rated. More that these are the books that stood out to me the most this year and I think about them a lot. Some of them are my 5 star reads but a lot are 4 or 3. For example, Rivers of London, this was out of my comfort zone, I really enjoyed it, but it has it’s issues. I read the next one in the series as well. It’s such an interesting concept that I want to keep reading despite the clunkiness of the story. The same goes for The Cartographers, not a 5 star but very memorable with a cool concept.
To be honest, friends, once again did not set up this page until making this post! I’m awful, because I love this page so much and yet I don’t set it up until the end of the year. I think I will set it up completely for my 2024 journal. I want to put the heading on the pages and draw the placements for each cover. I think the idea of having blank spaces was holding me back, but that is something I just ended to let go. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Reviews
Here are a few pages of my reviews, I didn’t want to include all 20+ pages of them because that felt ridiculous! Each page holds two reviews which includes the cover art (which I add to a google doc then print on sticker paper and cut out), title, author, genre, start/finish dates, format, rating in writing and colored hearts, my thoughts on the book, and I had started out drawing little doodles I thought went with the book.
I liked doing the doodles but I quickly lost motivation to do them. But I do want to keep that going. I think it’s really cute and a helpful way to remind me of some of the themes or memorable bits.
Overall, I like my review pages. Its in a simple format that I can quickly draw out for the next book and I get all the information on the page that I would want to know. I don’t pressure myself too much with my thoughts on each book. If I have a lot to say then I write it down and if not thats totally fine. I find it’s better if I write my thoughts down within a few days of reading the book otherwise I feel like my review thoughts are less detailed.
Next Year:
I think I’ll be bringing most of my pages with me into my 2024 book journal. I had a lot of fun doing my book journal this year. Some things felt like a chore but the majority I loved doing it. I think my main problem is losing motivation to add things to the journal, which is an issue I have with my personal bullet journal as well. But when I do keep on top of both my book and bullet journals I feel so much better and more organized.
I think something I may try to add for the next one would be to decorate a little bit more. My bookshelf page and the first half of my reviews have a lot of doodles and color. I want to bring that through the whole journal, I think I may invest in some fun stickers or just simply try to decorate a smidge more. Bring out the fun a little more!
I love doing my book journal and I hope it helps inspire someone to do their own. There are a million ideas out there. Pick some things you like the looks of and go for it! Don’t put too much pressure on everything to be beautiful or perfect, this is something for you to enjoy and use; just like books!
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