Hey friends!
It’s been a minute since I’ve shared anything on my blog. 2024 was quite the year for my family, between moving across a continent and halfway across an ocean, and welcoming our rainbow baby, MJ into the world and bringing her home. But the year has ended and a new one has begun. Which means it’s time to start my reading journal for 2025!
My reading journal set-up for this year feels pretty minimal compared to past years. This is my 5th year keeping a reading journal, so I have a decent idea of what works for me and what doesn’t. I am also more limited on time these days while raising an infant, so I was especially picky about what was included this year. Of course, I can’t resist a nice, aesthetic journal, so there’s still some decoration involved.
There are a lot of spreads that are carried over from my 2024 reading journal set-up. However, I do have a few new spreads this year; there’s also a few from past years that didn’t make the cut. Let’s take a look!
2024 Reading Journal Spreads
The Notebook
If you read my 2024 set-up post or watched the YouTube video, this journal may look familiar. That’s because it is literally the same notebook: a B5 dot grid notebook from Archer and Olive with a green vegan leather cover and a gold debossed icon of a book stack.**
My book total for 2024 was the lowest number it had been in 4 years since I started book journaling. I also started minimizing the monthly spreads that were included throughout the year. Both understandable, given all of the major life changes that happened this year. By the end of the year, I still had about half of the notebook left, and it felt silly to start a new one when this one could be so much fluffier!
**Although this exact notebook is not currently in stock with Archer and Olive, they do have lots of gorgeous notebooks available, with more coming regularly. If you decide to buy one, or any of their other supplies, make sure to use my referral link, PLANNEDANDPLANTED10, for 10% off you order!
Reading Journal Cover Page
Like I said before, I’m trying to minimize some of the aesthetics in this set-up for the sake of time. I still think this page came out super cute, even though it is not nearly as busy or full as my cover page for 2024.
This page features a sticker and the Storybook washi tape that are both from Archer & Olive. I also used these letter stamps, which I use quite frequently throughout the rest of the pages.
2025 Books Read
This is always the first spread in my reading journal. It’s a dutch door spread with 64 squares marked among four pages. This is where I will paste small photos of the covers of the books I read, and add a 5-star sticker below with its rating. I lightly marked in the numbers on the squares with a Tombow dual brush pen so that I can easily see what number of book I am on for my reading goal.
The only change this year is that I have added a little tip-in on the side with a little reference key for the colors of my star ratings. Last year I kept forgetting which color went with which rating, and not all of them are uniformed, so this addition just made sense. These 5-star stickers are from Alicia Marks It.
Reading Goal Tracker & Daily Reading Tracker
This page is… kind of new, kind of not. I condensed a spread that previously took up a full page, my reading goal tracker, down to half a page, pictured here on the right. It’s pretty straight-forward – 64 squares with number written in. Each time I finish a book I will fill in a square, with each month assigned a different color.
The tracker on the left side of the page is brand new. It’s a take on the “Year in Pixels” tracker, and has a small square for each day of the year. Using the same color code from the reading goal tracker, the idea is that I will color in each day that I read at all. I was inspired by Rachel of @alltheradreads to also add a dot to every day I finish a book, as I think it will be interesting to see that data displayed.
This page also has a little tip in color key, though instead of star ratings this key signifies which color is for with month of the year.
Reading Bingo
As someone who is truly awful at keeping up with traditional reading challenges, a reading bingo spread is the perfect way for me to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to reading without the timeline and structure of a more formal reading challenge. It’s a page I have really enjoyed every year, and it does genuinely help me diversify my reading.
Here’s the prompts that I have for myself this year:
- Ace main character
- 600+ page book
- A classic novel
- MLM (men loving men) story
- An ARC (advanced reader’s copy)
- Trans/non-binary author
- Start & finish a series
- Been on your shelf 2+ years
- Graphic Novel
- A thriller/mystery
- A booksta/booktok favorite
- Greek re-telling
- Re-read a book from your childhood
- Translated book/story
- A poetry collection
- Hawaiian author
- A book on writing
- An anthology
- Published my birth year
- African author
- Parenting/motherhood book
- A book by Toni Morrison
- By an author with a disability
- Re-read a fav
Some of these are repeat prompts from last year that I either didn’t complete or that I wanted to include again because it’s a prompt I may not otherwise hit.
Then I left some blank space down at the bottom to notate which books I complete for each prompt.
Books by Genre
Everyone’s favorite spread! Including mine. Of course I had to include it again this year. Bookshelf tracking spreads in journals are quite popular, although everyone tracks different things in theirs. I like to see which genres I’ve read.
This year I did make a few changes to this spread. For starters, I didn’t include quite so many genres, as it was starting to look chaotic. I also ensured that the colors I selected were a lighter palette; the darker colors made it harder to see the title of the book on the spine once I wrote it in.
Instead of drawing all of the decor and doodles by hand, I also used some stickers from Archer and Olive as well as The Washi Tape Shop to save myself a little bit a time.
Format and Publication Year Tracker
This was a new spread last year that I really enjoyed! There’s three columns: one for audiobook, one for e-books, and one for print books. Each time I complete a book, I add a rectangle to the column based on the format in which I read the book. Then I color in the square according to the key on the right, which signifies which year the book was published.
I wish I would have followed suit from the books by genre tracker and included fewer date groups in this one; in reviewing my completed 2024 trackers, I realize there is only 1 or 2 books I read from before 2000! Although they had spaces designated already, I decided to just leave those spaces blank until I have a book that actually was written in one of those earlier years.
One additional issue I came across with this spread was which book went with which square. I tend to fill these trackers out once or twice a month, updating it with the 3-5 books I’ve read since the last time I filled it out. I spent SO MUCH TIME trying to figure out where I’d left off with this tracker, and I’m still quite certain a book or two got left out or marked twice.
This year, I think I’m going to add a number that corresponds to what number of book read it is into each rectangle after I color it in. I think that will save me a lot of brain power this year.
Books Acquired
Yes, yes, I know I misspelled acquired. It is what it is.
This spread is new for 2025, but not new for my reading journal. I had one in my 2023 journal, but since I didn’t keep up with it, I nixed it for 2024. However, I feel called to try it again this year. While I didn’t purchase many books in 2024, I did receive quite a few books in the mail from publishers.
It may end up not being used again, but I figured it was worth a shot!
Books Acquired
This is another spread that was condensed down for 2025. It previously took up a full 2 page spread; I was able to comfortably fit it onto one page, although I did have to rotate it so the chart is horizontal.
I’m tracking basically the same things this year that I did last: books read, number of pages, number of hours listened, library/owned books read, bipoc rep, queer rep, format, and fiction vs non-fiction. I did leave off “re-read” from last year, as I didn’t re-read a single book last year, and although it’s something I am trying to do this year, it doesn’t feel like an important statistic for me to track.
I believe this spread will be even more important and useful this year than it was last, because I’m officially doing away with my monthly reading recaps and statistic pages in my journal. I have hopes of still doing them quarterly, but it was something I naturally fell away from last year as life got busier.
Books Acquired
I included this page for the first time last year, although instead of it being vertical, it is not horizontal! This is where I add the covers of the books that I loved the most this year. I have this page in lieu of a book bracket, of which I love the looks and hate the logistics.
I like to separate these out by fiction and non-fiction, since the things that cause a book to stand out in each category for me are very different. I have 8 squares for each, but will be pretty shocked if I fill out all 16.
Hype Factor
This is a new spread this year that I’m so excited about! The page is split horizontally into 3 spaces: over-hyped, just right, and under-hyped. Every book I read, I will place a tiny cover into one of the 3 spaces based on its hype factor.
Since I’m influenced to read many of the books I read now via social media, I thought it would be fun to compare how I felt about the book to how often I saw it shared and raved about online.
I initially started this practice using shelves on Goodreads. However, I moved away from using Goodreads in 2024 (by the way… add me on The Storygraph!), so figured my reading journal would be the logical next place to include something silly and fun like this.
Hype Factor
Last but not least, we have our library savings spread. Between e-books and audiobooks on Libby (don’t ask me how many library cards I currently have there… okay, it’s 3) and checking out print books from the physical libraries, a LOT of what I read every month comes from there.
I like tracking just how much money I have saved by going to the library instead of buying a book new or even used. I typically only record the books that I actually read, although I may switch that up this year and log every book I checked out for myself, regardless if I read it or not.
Reading Journal Spreads I Left Out for 2025
- Any specific challenge trackers: Like I said before, I’m horrible at keeping up with challenges. Last year I attempted the Diverse Baseline Challenge, and abandoned it when my daughter was born and my reading slump hit.
- Read What You Own: Although I like having a list of all of the print, audio, and e-books I own, it’s too labor intensive to handwrite that last in my notebook. Instead, I’ll be using my Storygraph account to scan and log all of the books I have on my shelf!
2025 Reading Journal Set-up Video
If you want to watch as I set these spreads in real time (well, sped up a little), check out my YouTube video below! And make sure to subscribe to my channel see any future reading journal content, including a flip-through of my completed 2024 reading journal pages.
That's it for my 2025 reading journal set-up!
Thanks so much for checking out my blog. I hope this gave you some inspiration for your own reading journal. If you decide to re-create any of these spreads and feel like sharing, make sure to tag me on Instagram!
I hope your new year is off to a stellar start.
Happy planning and reading, friends!
