Hello!

I appreciate it’s only November, but my book journal is almost completely full and we’re close enough to the end of the year that I thought it was as good a time as any to do a flip through of my journal! Giving some insights into what I liked, what I’d change and anything I plan to differently in my 2026 journal.

I love my journal so much and I’m so excited to start creating my one for next year so let’s look back before I start looking forward!

title page

I love green and foliage and mushrooms and, a year on, I still love what this looks like and I’m going to have to be convinced to do something different next year 😂

rating systems and reading goals

This page is exclusively functional, but I love the decorative tape and stickers. I’ve now started making my own star stickers which is definitely going to save me money on ordering new ones on etsy!

I didn’t have too many goals this year – the number of books, trying to buy less book (definitively failed that one), priotising reading my physical TBR (I actually did quite well at this!), and to read 5 non-fiction books… at this point I’ve read 2 but there’s still time!

I don’t know if I need as much space or more goals for next year, but that’s very much a decision I can make at the time.

stats

I tracked more information than I have before on this page and it was so interesting to compare the stats in previous months, especially in the number of pages and minutes read!

I don’t know why I like having my old reading goals on this page but I do, it’s nice to see the growth and progress I’ve made in getting back into reading. I love the design on this page as well.

I think this will look pretty similar in 2026 – I don’t think there’s any other data I want to track but honestly who knows.

25 books in 2025

When I first designed this page I absolutely loved it, but now that I’ve read and reviewed (almost) all of the books, I realise I didn’t actually leave enough space for the star rating stickers so I think next year I might incorporate the stickers into the design rather than just adding them when I finished. But then I feel like if I don’t manage to read all of them then it’s a waste of a sticker 😂

I did manage it this year and now that I’m making my own stickers that’s not so much of an issue. I just need to get over myself I think (lol).

alphabet challenges

Then we get to all of my passive reading challenges – the alphabet title challenge (which I’ve done surprisingly well in!) and the alphabet authors challenge with author’s surname. I just thought it would be really interesting to see how many letters I could get through without trying.

I think my letter stamps look really good on this page and I find with my highlighters they don’t particularly run or smudge the ink, though I definitely need to shake up the colours next year!

monthly reading log

In watching journal videos last year, I discovered what a ‘dutch door’ is (when you cut away some of the page so you can turn the page and still see an element of the previous page) and thought that would work really well so I didn’t run out of space to write which books I read each month. For most months this was fine but I did run out of space in September (oopsie).

I love this layout but I kind of want to do more of a log, like a library card with dates and ratings and such, but having both feels unnecessary so I’ll let you know when I’ve figured out what I’m going to do.

reading goal / books per month graph

I love these spreads and they’re so functional, but I think I want to reorder the pages so the more ‘data’ related pages are first and then the challenges so it feels a bit more organised.

The reading goal is coloured by the rating but considering the facing page is coloured by month it might be more cohesive if I did both the same. I love this bar graph – I got the idea from watching Rachel Catherine’s journal video and I love it and I’m definitely going to be using it again next year.

bookshelf

I love this spread, but I always struggle to get to the second page!

I know most people draw the book spines in advance, but my silly autistic brain worries about whether I’ll be able to fit the title in to a predesignated space so I just draw them as I go along. I think I might only draw 4 shelves per book case and see if I can get more comfortably on the second page? Perhaps adding a sticker to break up each month? Or maybe I need more ornament stickers!

This year I coloured the spines based on the month read which I much prefer to colouring them based on their rating because it just looks much more cohesive.

I also DNFed a couple of books this year (for the first time ever, really) so having two pages allowed me to have a DNF graveyard shelf.

5 star reads

I’ve used this design for two journals now and I’m absolutely obsessed with it – I love the cohesion of the colour scheme, I love watching the space fill with the covers and I think it’s going to look stunning at the end of the year. I won’t be able to fill it up, but I honestly kind of prefer that to running out of space!

book of the year

I feel like I’ve seen people saying they’re letting this concept die because it doesn’t actually really tell you your top three books of the year because it’s not like anyone really only has one favourite book per month. But it’s fun! The spread looks so fun and I will absolutely be doing it again next year in probably the same design as this one!

book club trackers

The wedding book club tracker I like – I love the way I’ve used colours and when all of the covers are updated and stuck in I think it’ll look so good… but then there’s the book club I had with my sibling which we stopped participating in only four months into the year.

Next year I’m planning to read a Horrible History book each month because we bought a box set for our wedding and I don’t really have any reason to read 19 Horrible History books (there’s 20 in the box, I’ve read one of them) so monthly challenges work well for me! I don’t think I’ll rate them but the pictures will look cute!

new buys

I think I’ll do this spread the same in 2026 – I only drew 57 boxes because it’s what fit, but I have doubled that number in books I’ve bought but I don’t want to encourage that. Having a list of books I’ve bought is good for my brain because seeing how long that list is makes me very aware of what the number is and holds me accountable!

It’s also nice to go back and highlight the books I’ve read – whether I read them before I bought them or after – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my spreads, just my spending habits!

preorders

This is another spread that hasn’t changed since I started making book journals – I pre-order a lot of books because it’s my way of proving (to myself) that I’m really excited about a new release and I will prioritise reading it as soon as it comes out. It’s also a good way to make a note of releases I’m interested in and, in the later half of the year, making a note of 2026 releases.

I like the design and it’s very functional – win, win!

reading bucket list

Another idea I nabbed from Rachel Catherine, though next year I want to call it a bingo board instead cos I don’t like the connotations of a ‘bucket list’! I’ll still intend to complete every challenge, but bingo board sounds better to me.

I will be removing the tiny post-it notes at the end of the year in favour of printing all the book covers (top tip: if you want to print square book covers, look for the audiobook covers! They’re almost always formatted in a square) but even just the coloured squares are really cute!

series tracker

Aah, the one set of spreads I will be doing very differently. It took me days to write all of these series out and for what? I was never going to be able to read them all in one year and I have a spreadsheet that lists all of the series I own!

So next year I’m going to list the series I’m currently in the middle of or only have one or two books left, maybe a spread for series I’m up to date on but aren’t finished yet, and then have a page for any new series I may or may not start throughout the year. I think this will be much nicer from a design perspective and much more functional I think!

monthly tbr page

This page has remained consistent throughout the year because it’s functional and it works, but I think I got a lot better at decorating as the year went on! January looks so empty in comparison to November! Even when November hasn’t been filled in properly!

I like having the calendar but I think I will be adding something where I can specifically track the pages and minutes I’m listening (because I currently do it in my bullet journal and I need to cut down the numbers of pages I use in there so I don’t run out lol).

review pages

These have stayed the same for two years because they work really well for me – I’ve got all the data details at the top, my star rating and format stickers and lots of space for a written review, which is my priority.

I think something I want to try next year is making a more visual spread with photos for my favourite, favourite books in more of a scrapbook style – I’m nowhere near the page limit in this journal so I think I can justify using more pages!

wrap up pages

These would either be a single or double page spread based exclusively on how many books I read in a month and whether or not it was an odd or an even number. These were less consistent because I didn’t always have the same amount of space to work with but I think it’s a nice bookend to each month and that’s the only function it really serves.

THE END!

The only pages I still have to do in this journal are the November wrap up spread, the December TBR spread, the December wrap up and whatever I come up with to fill whatever pages are left at the end – probably some annual wrap up, favourite books of the year etc!

I’ve only got about 40 pages left from where I am now with my November TBR spread so with the six books I’ve already read this month, the bookmark spreads and the books I review in December, I may have 20 odd pages left but I’ve got a bunch of scrapbook-y stuff I can stick in and I’ll find a way to use all the pages!

This post ended up so much longer than I anticipated, but I hope it’s been helpful if you’re in the process of designing your new journal! Or at least you could have had a little nosy at what my journal looks like if you’re not the journalling type.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx