With one day left in the tax break for Canadians this year, I decided why not spoil myself for Valentines day, and I ordered a bunch of books for $7.99 each from Bookoutlet.ca. Excited?! Yes! I am. There was free shipping, and I can’t wait to get them and start reading. You can be sure I’ll post reviews as time goes on.
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.
One of the book challenges I’m doing this year is “A Year of Goober” from the book club that I belong to. The challenge is pretty simple, there’s two prompts for each month, and each one coincides with a flower. You can do either of the prompts, and at the end of the year you have a bootiful (beautiful, but Goober is a ghost, see?) bookuete (bouquete) of flowers. So far I’ve got January and February planned out, January is a Carnation “your favourite author” and I went with Holly Black, and then February is a violet, “continue a series” and I went with Iron Flame (I can’t wait to read the next book). On the left hand side I’m pasting the prompt along with the flower (I printed them out onto sticker paper) and on the right hand side I’m writing down the book and the author, but I think instead I might print out the covers and stick them there. This is my 2nd attempt at this layout, I had an earlier version that I just wasn’t loving at all. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s completed at the end of the year!
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!
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!
This was my second book by T. Kingfisher – and I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t absolutely blown away by it like I have with some of her works. It tells the story of fourteen-year-old Mona, who has a magical gift of – bread. She can make gingerbread men rise, and her familiar is a sourdough starter which I found hilarious. I think in the case of this book, I was simply not the target. The book was written for a younger audience, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I didn’t particularly like how Mona went and solved her issues, either. Things start off as a murder mystery but quickly develops into a coming-of-age story – and again, nothing wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I was looking for.
There are some young adult books I can read and forget that it was ever written with an audience in mind, and unfortunately this was not one of those books, for me. Still, it was a fun magic system and brought some unique features, so if you’re looking for something easy to read and quite cozy despite the murder happening, this might be a read you’ll want to look into.
3/5 stars
A very interesting book that had a lot of informational facts that I didn’t know. Alex Trebek led a fascinating life, and I loved the ‘just an ordinary man’ perspective that the book came from, but, while reading I personally found a lack of flow. It read like a book of disjointed facts that were about the same person but didn’t really fit together. Each chapter was a ‘fact’ and some were explained in great detail and others left me wondering. The first half of the book read much different than the later half when he started talking about his career. It was probably on purpose, it almost felt like he was uncomfortable talking about himself (he states numerous times that the game should never be about the host) and he spends a lot of time paying homage to the wonderful contestants he had over the years.
I feel like that could have probably been an entire book all in itself, and not in his autobiography where I was there to read about him. Still, the book was an enjoyable quick read and my first Canadian autobiography.
3/5 Stars
This was my first encounter with T. Kingfisher, and it certainly opened the floodgates! After enjoying this book so much, I quickly dove into several others by her. The premise of a “chicken possessed by a demon” immediately hooked me, and I couldn’t resist picking it up.
“How did you get a demon in your chicken?”
“The usual way. Couldn’t put it in the rooster. That’s how you get basilisks.”
I was not disappointed at all.
T. Kingfisher has a unique talent for crafting vibrant worlds that come alive on the page. Her characters are equally memorable. Take Bonedog, for instance—if you’ve read the book, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, I urge you to dive in! It was genuinely a pleasure to read, and I don’t often say that.
The story centers around Marra, the third-born daughter on a quest to rescue her sister, who has been married off to a truly terrible person. The first-born sister was married to the same prince, and let’s just say things didn’t go well for her. Marra’s journey is filled with twists and turns, and she encounters a Dust Wife along the way (no spoilers here, but trust me, that’s when things get really intriguing).
I’m thrilled that I discovered T. Kingfisher’s work. You can expect to see more reviews from me in the coming months, as I’m eager to share my thoughts on her other captivating stories. Each one has been a delight, and I’m excited to explore even more of her imaginative worlds.
5/5 stars
In the past, I used to power through a book even if I wasn’t enjoying it, thinking I had to finish what I started. However, that’s no longer the case. My time is valuable, and there’s simply not enough of it to waste on books that don’t bring me joy or satisfaction. Now, if I’m not engaged with a book, I have no problem putting it down and moving on to something else.
This shift in mindset doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on the author. Sometimes a book just isn’t meant for me; I’m not the target audience, and that’s completely fine. When I decide not to finish a book, I won’t leave a star rating. After all, how can I fairly rate something I haven’t completed? For me, the key to sticking with a book is a sense of enjoyment. I don’t need a masterpiece of literary prose, but I do need the story to flow well and keep me interested.
Occasionally, I’ll mention books I didn’t finish on social media, not to criticize them, but to share my experience with like-minded readers who might relate. It’s interesting how some of the books I don’t finish are quite popular, which makes me wonder if it’s just me who didn’t connect with them.
As a result, there are a few books on my GoodReads list marked as “completed” but without a star rating, flagged as DNF (did not finish). This is more for my own organization, so I don’t mistakenly add them to my to-read list again. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that it’s perfectly okay to stop reading a book if it’s not bringing you enjoyment. Life’s too short to spend on something that isn’t worth your time!
Note: The star rating is not for the story itself, or a reflection on her as a person. I did not enjoy the act of reading the book because of the layout / grammar / disjointed thoughts. Her situation is of course horrific, the author obviously went through some traumatic stuff that no one should have gone through. But it was a bad read. It was all over the place, and didn’t flow. I felt like I was reading a high school student’s diary – which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it was awkward.
She came off as a spoiled immature spiteful entitled person. That was the view I got going in, and going out. She repeats over and over on all the monetary things she does for other people, and at one point even says she dreamed of her family to bowing to her because of what she had provided for them.
Yes, parts of her life have been unfair. Her family were not the best people. She never ever takes responsibility for any of her actions or reactions to these things, and constantly places the blame on what everyone else has done to her.
I’m of course, glad, that her life is finally her own – the conservator should have never ever been a thing. She is perfectly right in the fact that she shouldn’t have been forced to perform for others while at the same time being told she was too sick to pick out her own food. That’s pretty messed up.
The formatting (or lack there of) and grammar of the book were hard to digest, but I’m sure fans will appreciate its simplicity. It was insightful to hear things from her own perspective, and I hope it brought her a little bit of closure to get it out in the world.
2/5 stars
The Nomadic Reader 