Category: Reading Journal

2025 Reading Wrap Up

OK I know I’m a bit late posting this, but better late than never. 2025 has come and gone, and we’ve started the 2026 week – so let’s look over how it went in terms of books, for me.

First of all, I do have to say that I read far more this year than I expected and I think that’s because of a number of things. I joined an active book club, I kept a reading journal, and I was motivated and inspired by the books I had available. I also read a LOT of books from the library this year and that really helped to save money and keep costs down. If there was two ‘factors’ that really helped me read more in 2025, I would have to say it was the reading journal and the library. I’ll (of course) be taking advantage of both in 2026.

My goal was to read 25 books in 2025, and I read 51. I marked 5 books DNF because life is too short to read bad books (they are not included in the 51 books read). I avoided things like BookTok after attempting to dive in because it turns out that those types of books, those influencers, are NOT for me. That’s OK.

I spent around $300 on books this year, and read most of the ones I purchased (the rest I hope to finish reading in 2026). One of my biggest purchases was a 1-6 box set of Witch Hat Atelier, which came to $120 and I admit right off the bat this was for a ‘I want to collect it’ reason – though I did read and enjoy it a huge amount. I also saved more than $300 by borrowing books from the library, and this also afforded me the opportunity to explore authors I had not heard of before, along with browsing through a lot of Canadian authors which is something that I actively strive to incorporate in my reading each year.

In 2026, I want to be mindful of consumption. I’ve created some TBR lists and they include many books that I own that I have yet to read (a lot of them were gifts) and I want to continue to make use of the library. I am also participating in a few challenges this year, I’ve joined a second book club called Books Out of the Blue, (quite casual, I’m not too worried about the reads in this one) along with returning to the Goobers who Read book club. I love having communities of people to talk books with, and they are just good people.

My TBR pile has 11 books on it, a mixture of digital and physical books that I’ve had in my collection for a while. I did also pick up an art resource book, so I’m making my way through that. I am going to continue with my reading journal, though I haven’t quite gotten it set up the way I want, yet, that’s a future project. I did finish off the 2025 reading journal, and I really like how it turned out. I’ll also have to go and back date a bunch of posts for the December reading statistics and all of that good stuff. As far as ‘goals’ go, I’ve kept it simple. I’d like to read 26 books in 2026. I’m not sure if the 51 books read was an anomaly or not, but I also know that this is meant to be fun, and low pressure. I’m looking forward to sharing my 2026 reading journal once I get it all set up, and I’ll be sure to take some pictures and share more statistics in my 2025 one next week.

December 2025 Wrap-Up

A lot of books made their way to me this month, as I tried to round out the year. I picked up Throne of Glass by Sara J. Maas because it is constantly suggested to me, over and over again. On BookTok, on Facebook, on Twitter. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I had avoided it so far because I had a feeling that it just wasn’t for me, but I wanted to validate that feeling so that I wasn’t simply judging what might be a good book, on feeling.

Nope. I was right. This is not a book for me. It was awkward and difficult to read the first few pages, the story didn’t connect, I felt like we (the reader) was tossed into a book that was part way completed with no context. I feel good about my decision to leave this one in the DNF pile.

Along those same lines, a free book called ‘Dragon his Heels’ came to my TBR pile, and since I am a fan of romance, I figured why not.

Another DNF from me. There were some personal triggers within the first few pages that I was just not willing to see past. I’m sure this book is good for someone, it’s just not for me.

Two amazing reads for the month were ‘When Among Crows’ which is a trilogy that I hope to continue, and ‘Piranesi’ which is a stand alone novella. Piranesi in specific really caught me off guard, and I found it fascinating, I really enjoyed it (it was also a library read, yay). Automatic Noodle also came highly recommended by mutuals, and it was on sale so I picked that up (another Novella, I don’t imagine this one will take me too long to read). For Christmas I received the Art of Witch Hat Atelier, which is just absolutely gorgeous. I spent the day just lost in the images, it was so inspirational. I love the details. I did not make much progress on the Emily Wilde book, but that is not the fault of the book, I simply wasn’t in the mood this month. I hope to continue it and finish it off in January, but if not, that’s OK too.

Happy reading!

October 2025 Wrap Up

Another month passes where there wasn’t all that much reading going on – well, not exactly true, but looking at my stats, I only completed one book. Still, I did manage to get some reading done each day, even if it wasn’t much. What I tend to do is head to bed with my kobo for a few pages each night, instead of bringing my phone. That way I don’t spend the night scrolling. I do often fall asleep while reading, but that’s not a big deal.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was a fantastic choice for my October read, and I’ve got some great books by friends on the go right now, including Midwinter’s Heart, and The First Sin. I’m hoping to finish those up in November, but it will depend on how real life is going. Look here for reviews on all of these reads in the future!

Still Here – Still Reading

Despite the fact that I rarely ever make it to actually posting on this damn book blog of mine – I have been reading this year. A LOT in fact. I’ve even been keeping up with my reading journal for once (gasp). Which is what the picture above is from. It’s two spreads that I’ve included, one that shows new releases for 2025 that I’m looking forward to, and the other spread (well, now it’s outdated, but I’ll get to that in a moment) talks about all of the books that I’ve purchased.

BookOutlet.ca also just happened to have a $7.99 sale and it coincided with the removal of taxes (temporarily) on some items. Some items being books. So I purchased 7 brand new books for $50 total, including free shipping. I was incredibly happy when they showed up. Which books? I’ll have to talk about that in a future post.

In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of my reading journal spreads.

Another Day – Another Reading Journal Spread

There are a LOT of different ideas on reading journal spreads out there. When I want to relax, sometimes I just watch videos on YouTube that talk all about them. I wasn’t really happy with a few of the spreads I had put in my reading journal, but I also didn’t want to just start over in a new journal so I took a big piece of sticker paper, and started fresh. That’s where both of these spreads come into play.

On the left hand side is my reading Matrix. At the end of the year I’ll take the top 10 books (with the highest ratings) and then pit them against one another to figure out my #1 book of the year. So far I’ve only read a single book with a 5 star rating, we’ll see if that changes. I didn’t want to do monthly ‘favourites’ because what I read varies so much depending on my moods. It didn’t really seem fair, and wouldn’t be an accurate representation of my favourites.

On the right hand page is my alphabet reading challenge. That one is pretty self explanatory, I write down the titles of the books I read for each letter of the alphabet. I do have a few simple rules, like “they, all, them” do not count as words for this challenge. It’s just a silly little game, but I think it’s a lot of fun. While I don’t think I’ll actively go out and look for books that begin with those letters to try to complete it or anything, I do think it will be fun to see where it naturally leads.

Reading Journal Spreads

The next spread in my reading journal includes my BBBC (bulletjournal buddies book club) books which are selected monthly, and my series tracker. I didn’t like how I initially set my tracker up, and eventually realized I NEED the titles in there, so I re-did it and I added a tip-in, since I ran out of room! Of course I had to add my favourite stickers, chickens!

Reading Journal – BINGO

I decided that 2025 would be the year I started my very first reading journal – and I’m so glad I did! I don’t have all of it planned out yet, but I do have quite a bit of it done, and I am looking forward to sharing it with everyone. I already wrote about the TBR page along with my star rating system, and this is the BINGO card I’ve added to the center of the book. I’ve already read two books this month so I’ve marked off two of the squares (Book w/a country you’ve never been & Listen to an audiobook) and I can’t wait to see how long it takes me to complete a line in this bingo game. I’ve got more pages I’ve set up and I’ll be posting those later in the week, so stay tuned!

Setting Up a Reading Journal

I love making lists and tracking all of the things. For the past few years I’ve done this in a bulletjournal, combining all of my ‘stuff’ into a single book – however – for 2025 I’ve decided to go ahead and make a dedicated reading journal, just for books (well, sort of, it’s for books, tv shows, movies, and tracking things that I enjoy like knitting).

I figured I’d post a few pages here on the book blog to showcase how I’ve got it set up this year. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from other reading journals out there, and just customizing it a bit to suit my own needs / designs. In the picture above, is my TBR pile (to be read) for the year, along with my rating system. Whether or not I actually make it through all of these books will be another story. I plan on crossing them off as I read them (if I read them), and then of course further on in the book I’ll have the actual reviews written.

Since I’ve joined a book club, it will also give me space to track challenges and events with that. I’m excited! It’s nice to have it all in one place, physically, besides just keeping it around on GoodReads (which I have been trying to move away from a bit).

Do you keep a reading journal? Let me know in comments!