Category: Reading Journal

Reading Journal 2023: February Main Page Set-Up

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This year, I decided to create a reading journal in order to be a little more creative with how I track my reading progress throughout the year. Every month, I like to create a main page where I can track some of the books I wanted to read, some data on the books I am reading, and other important information (such as library due dates) for the month.

Below, I have a TikTok that I made which shows my February main page set-up:

@beautyandthebeanboots

February Main Page Set-Up 💕 #booktok #journalideas #goodnotes #books #preppy #greenscreen

♬ Ice Cream – BLACKPINK & Selena Gomez

There are several parts which I included on my main page for February.

TBR

For my TBR, I always include the books which I list on my blog’s monthly TBR. This month, Lore Olympus: Volume Two, The True Love Experiment, and Secretly Yours are on my TBR. Since it’s February, I wanted to pick some romance books which would be perfect to read around Valentine’s Day. I have already read the second volume of Lore Olympus and I’m currently reading Secretly Yours!

Reading Calendar Tracker

I included a reading calendar tracker on my January spread. I really liked seeing my pattern of reading. However, this month, I wanted to create more contrast between the different amounts of pages. Last month, the colors were very similar and it was hard to tell if I chose the correct color when filling in the calendar. I liked how using so many different shades of red helped me pull in different shades of red throughout the page.

Print/Digital Tracker

Typically, I read most or all of my books digitally during the year. However, this year, I have been making a point to visit my in-person library more often. As a result, I have been reading more physical copies of books. Last month, I had a tie between physical and digital copies of books. I can’t wait to see how this month ends up!

Library Due Dates

While this doesn’t include all of the books I’ve checked out from the library, I typically pick books for this list based on my first library trip of the month, or any books leftover from the previous month.

New Releases

The last part of this monthly spread is the new releases section. This section was hard for me to plan out and I redid it many times. I do like how the end result looks like a ring!

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Reading Journal: January 2023

BrittanyLeave a comment

This year, I decided to create a reading journal in order to be a little more creative with how I track my reading progress throughout the year. In January, I posted some of my set-up pages which I included at the beginning of my journal in order to give an overview of my year. Every month, I plan to give updates on what my pages look like for the month.

Below, I have included my video from TikTok where I showed all of the pages which I created in January:

@beautyandthebeanboots

my january book journal pages ☃️ #booktok #books #bookjournal #journalideas #goodnotes

♬ Cool Kids (our sped up version) – Echosmith

January Overview

Every month, I would like to do a monthly overview where I track different statistics, list books on my TBR, and document other important information (such as new releases). For January, I did a blue, mint green, and purple color scheme to go with the cold temperatures in January. While I really liked my calendar, next month, I plan to put a larger difference between the colors in the key so it is easier to differentiate how much I read in a day. One of my goals this year is to check more books out of the library, so I created a graph to document my progress.

The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas

I had so much fun creating my first book spread! The cover of at first, I was going to stick with my January theme colors throughout the month, but I decided that I liked it much better when I leaned into the colors on the cover of the book. The American Roommate Experiment is pink and blue, so those were the colors that I utilized. That being said, in later spreads, I started to include a song that I associate with the book, which I didn’t do for The American Roommate Experiment. I thought it would be fun to make a playlist at the end of the year. Even though it isn’t documented on the page, I plan to use Dancing Queen by ABBA.

Love & Other Words by Christina Lauren

With Love & Other Words, I started to develop some consistency. For each book spread. I want to include a synopsis, statistics, a review, and likes/dislikes. I feel like these mini-reviews and lists help me when writing longer reviews for my blog. With this spread, I decided to start including a song with the book. This song, like many others this month, is by Taylor Swift. My goal in February is to include more artists for my end-of-the-year playlist.

Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade

Ship Wrecked was one of my easier to spreads to complete. After finishing the first two layouts, I had a pretty good idea of the pattern I wanted to follow with Ship Wrecked. I also liked how the cover of Ship Wrecked brought in a different color palette than my previous two designs.

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

The Stolen Heir is probably one of my favorite spreads of the month. On this page, I started to experiment with more textures and different layouts. I also liked how this page had a different color scheme than many of my other spreads, which tend to be more colorful. For this page, it was hard to narrow down which quotes I wanted to use since Holly Black often has several stand-out quotes in her works.

Lore Olympus, Volume One by Rachel Smythe

My Lore Olympus spread is definitely my favorite for January. Like with The Stolen Heir, I started to experiment with a different layout and including more embellishments. I liked adding a flower theme because I thought it was a nice nod to Persephone, the main protagonist of the series.

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

Every Summer After was one of the hardest layouts for me to make this month! I had to keep moving around different parts of the layout until I came up with one that I liked. I was very excited to find pierogi clip art on Etsy to reference the restaurant in the book.

How do you document your reading progress?

My 2023 Reading Journal: Set-Up

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Recently on TikTok, I have seen a lot of videos of people on BookTok creating reading journals. Personally, written journals have always been difficult for me because you really have to commit to a layout once you start writing or gluing onto a page. However, I wanted to track my reading in a way that allowed me to be a little more creative rather than just stats on Goodreads and StoryGraph. As a result, I decided that I wanted to make my own reading journal using the GoodNotes app on my iPad.

Typically, I have used GoodNotes to write down ideas. I wasn’t super familiar with all of the tools and I wasn’t sure how people created such beautiful notebook pages. Before I started my digital reading journal, I watched many TikToks to see example book journals that people created digitally and on paper. Also, I watched videos on different tools in GoodNotes.

Finally, I decided to buy a few different digital supplies on Etsy to make it easier to layout my pages. While there are several digital book journal templates on Etsy, I wanted a little more freedom to make my own layouts. I will include links to all of the resources which I have used to create my reading journal at the end of my post.

Below, I have included a slideshow with some of my “set-up” pages for 2023.

Cover Page

When I was first creating my journal, I was deciding between two different themes. I decided to go with a bright, modern preppy theme. I created the cover for my journal using Stoney Clover-esque letters, which is clip art from Teachers Pay Teachers which I bought earlier in the year to use for my classroom. The binding on the side is a free image from Canva. The jean background is a free image from Pixabay. The Smiley Face Clip art was one of my purchases from Etsy. All of the images feature a pink background, which does not appear on my Goodnote (I uploaded the images to Canva to get a more rectangular image to post to my TikTok).

My Year in Books

The first page of my reading journal is a “My Year in Books” bookshelf. This was a popular design which I noticed when browsing TikTok for inspiration. On my bookshelf, I included 36 books, as this is my yearly reading goal. I figure that since my reading journal is digital, I can always copy and add a new page if I read more than 36 books. In addition to drawing the books, I added clip art of funs objects.

Goals

The next page of my reading journal is my goals page. All of these goals are taken from my Reading Goals for 2023 blog post. This page took awhile for me to figure out a layout that I liked. All of the images on this page are taken from different purchases which I made on Etsy. As you can see, I have started to fill out some of the sections which reflect my reading for the year so far. I like that this is a page that I will constantly be revising all year long.

24 Books to Read Before 2024

This page was inspired by my blog post, 24 Books to Read Before 2024. This page was also difficult for me to plan out. Since it was a list, I wanted to find a way to make it more visually interesting. I decided to separate the books into different categories and give each category a different color of the rainbow. I’m hoping this list will motivate me to read the books on my list.

Book Ratings of 2023

A page for book ratings was another popular design which I saw on TikTok. When creating this page, I made a “sample” page which I will be able to duplicate as I read more books. This way, I will have a template as I continue to read, rather than continuously make the page from scratch. I like the Book Ratings page, as it gives me a quick overview of my feelings towards books which I have read in 2023.

Overall, I am happy with my reading journal so far. Recently, I have been wanting to be more creative and this journal has provided the perfect outlet. If you would like to keep up with my reading journal throughout the year, I will keep making monthly posts to document my progress. Additionally, I will post about my reading journal on my BookTok, BeautyandtheBeanBoots.

Do you have a reading journal? How do you like to keep track of your reading?

What I Use for My Reading Journal: