Tag: book bullet journal

MJ’s 2022 Book Bullet Journal Update #3: May and June

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            July has been a rough month, this was supposed to be out like weeks ago so I have a feeling that by the time you are reading this, it’s August. I just finished up book 70, that’s right, my original goal this year was 50 and then 75 and now it’s 100. Hyper fixation, how you be? 

            I feel like these posts are repetitive but at this point, I’m okay with it. It’s just May and June and you can get a more in depth look at what I read with what I read in May and June and my Book of the Month Books for May and June. I love linking posts, if you have been around for any length of time, you know that already. 

May: (I am for sure in my living room and my journal is in my office so I have to go grab that like an idiot.) 

Cover: Vines, I don’t remember what possessed me to do this pattern and if I would do it again, I would do it differently. I like the idea; the execution is a little rough. The quote is from The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab which was my top book of the first half of this year. Like it beat out A Court of Mist and Fury so you know how much I liked it. 

Books Read: May was rough, I didn’t read all that much, I only read 9 books, one was for school and I unhauled three. One that I should have DNFed from page one. 

Thoughts: I still love the condensed view of my thoughts on books that are sometimes different from what I say about the books in my blog posts. May was rough though, super rough.

Stats: I bought a lot of books, I haven’t bought many this month so that’s good but in April and May, I bought a bunch, most of them were from Book Outlet so I didn’t pay full price for many of them and books are my one thing at the moment. I didn’t have any five-star books in May either and reading felt like a chore throughout the month. 

Recap: Finally seem to have a color scheme I like and that’s about where we are. I also have decided to change my colors for next year in regard to my genre breakdown, I am not going to have a “free choice” slice I am just going to have them by genre. 

Book Stack: I wished there were more books here, and more books that I enjoyed this month. 

Between: Tropes, I could add so many more now, but I haven’t recently. 

June: 

Cover: Beach balls, I grew up on a Great Lake, we would usually go like once a year and beach balls are fun. The quote is Roald Dahl and that’s fun. 

Books Read: June was another rough reading month; I am being completely transparent about that. I unhauled three and DNFed one because I could not read it. I DNFed the whole series because of the first one. 

Thoughts: I had a lot of thoughts, so many thoughts. Some not so great about books that I didn’t enjoy. Again, the whole reason for my physical pre-planned TBR is to go through my collection and weed. You will notice some of my book covers are missing, that’s because they aren’t printed yet. I will get around to it eventually. 

Monthly Stats: 9 books, would have been 10 but I DNFed one, I didn’t buy a bunch which was great and I had two five-star books, I had some that I didn’t enjoy though so it balances. 

Recap: You can see why I want to do a different genre breakdown next year, actually moving forward this year because I don’t think that this one is working for me. I read so many paperbacks! 

Book Stack: I am starting to get the hang of doing it, it’s just a lot. 

Between: My top books to buy, I have a list on Amazon, I already bought both of these books because Barnes and Noble had a sale in April, I regret nothing.

            Well, there it is, May and June. If you want to check out part 1 or part 2 of this series, cool, you totally can. 

            I hope that until I am back (hopefully) later in the week with another post that everyone has a good week and stays safe, happy, and healthy. 

            -MJ

MJ’s 2022 Book Bullet Journal Update#2: March and April

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            Well, I am all the way on book 43, it’s insane. I hadn’t even read 43 by August last year. I also bought like a billion books in April because I hit the big sad for a few weeks. Let’s just say that having feelings are dumb and no one should have to deal with them. 

            In March I read like nine books and in April I read ten, two were Accelerated Reader books for school so I didn’t count them in my Bullet Journal, well at least not in all the places I count the other books I am reading that I own and have on my TBR.

            It’s really soggy outside today as I am writing this and it’s also state testing week and that means that we are all busy all the time. 

            So, this pretty much like January and February, just with new months, I know that’s such a revolutionary idea, but that’s about where I am today. Believe me, as I am sitting here my brain is trying to conceptualize a writing journal, which seems like too many journals. Way too many journals, because I have for sure already started my 2023 Book Bullet Journal, I had the time and wanted to avoid other things so here we are. 

            March, I for sure had some days where I didn’t read because we were on vacation for Spring Break and trying to read 100 pages a day in that situation is difficult, I want to read 100 pages minimum every day; some days are much more successful than others. There are also some days where I read a whole book, so here we are. 

            I considered making BookTok content, but that’s still something that scares me, that’s 100% not what this post is about though! 

March: 

Cover: I love lavender, and the quote is from The Love Hypothesis so it’s a super cute cover that I really enjoyed. Several of my covers this year are more nature themed and I probably will continue that into next year. Again, I went for simple, and it will remain that way.

Books Read: Shorter list than February because I took some time off this month reading, I was on vacation, it was a lot of driving, we went through seven states to and back in something like nine days. It was insane and did effect how many books I read.

Thoughts and Insights: This is very similar to how I write my book blog posts to be honest, it’s quick takes though, small little bullet points that say whether or not I actually enjoyed the books I was reading or not. Some of them were weird this month. Just my comments, because I don’t censor in my Book BuJo, A Court of Mist and Fury was amazing but it broke me. 

Stats: I love a good condensed statistics page and man do I love tracking stuff! It really does put into perspective though how much I read per month. 

Recap: I chose new colors and I like these ones better, so I will be sticking with them the rest of the year, provided that my markers hold out. I read more paper back than hard cover, I rated lots of books in the 4-star range, and I read like a lot of fantasy. 

Monthly Book Stack: Still going for the larger books, I accidently put the wrong name, I got a little ahead of myself when it came to the second book in the ACOTAR series because I’m dumb. 

The page between March and April is a book playlist, I have one song and that’s it. I need more but I wrote that one in here last December when I was reading Kingdom of The Wicked and Kingdom of the Cursed (I have preordered the third one because I have a problem!) 

April: 

Cover: Birthday month and I went with bubbles; I think that this one could have been executed better but the A Court of Mist and Fury quote was amazing and I needed it in here. 

Books Read: 10 this month including one for Battle of the Books at school. It takes ten books to fill up one column, at least this month. That is my one problem with this journal and why I switched to an Artist’s Loft for next year, the dots on this one change from month to month so spacing is weird. 

Thoughts: I had a lot of thoughts about the books I read this month, including two where I thought that they were going to get thrown across my office, I had a fear of a trope that is for sure a giant ick in my life. I was glad that I was wrong both times. 

Monthly Stats: I bought a lot of books, don’t judge me. I also didn’t read a 5-star book this month and that’s the first time that’s happened this year. I like having five-star books, but here we are with just an okay reading month. 

Recap: Likes of 4-star reads, a few 3-star reads (you can see my rating system if you want to, I did a whole post about it because of TikTok earlier in the year.) I read more hardcover than paperback, which for me is a little odd, but here we are. 

Book Stack: I want to see these stacks hit the top of the page, this one got closer than last month. I really should color them in, but maybe that’s something that I do next year. I don’t know, I don’t want to have it be too complicated.

The page between April and May is my Best Book of the Year Bracket, next year it’s two pages because I needed that in my life, the formatting on this one for me is a little weird, I am enjoying filling it in though. 

            Well, there you have it, my March and April Book Bullet Journal update. I like writing about my Bullet Journals, it’s fun for me even if it doesn’t matter to anyone else. 

            I will be back later in the week with another post, but until then I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy. 

            -MJ

MJ’s 2022 Book Bullet Journal Update#1: January and February

.Reading time 10 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            I don’t know how we are already in March; I have no idea how that happened, but here we are. I also did not expect to read as much as I did in January and February, but again, here we are. I want to be able to go back to beginning of 2021 MJ and tell her that I have read like 20 books in the first two months of the year when last year I only read like eight books in two months. I blame BookTok and the fact that I have now trained myself to want to read 100 pages a day. It’s better than snacking or spiraling while overthinking because I do that more than I would like to admit. 

            Doing a book bullet journal this year has scratched an itch in my brain that I didn’t know that I had, it makes me happy and that’s really what’s important to me at the moment. I like making lists and crossing things off or updating things, if you have followed me for any length of time you know that. 

            I did post an overview of my Book Bullet Journal in December, so if you want to see the beginning pages, go ahead, there was nothing about my monthly layouts there so that’s always fun. 

            Let’s dive right in though, I like doing updates because it holds me accountable to actually doing it and that’s what I need at the moment, accountability. 

            All of my months are set up the same way and I know that I will make changes next year, I already have a list. This year is a learning year, a year where I can do proof of concept to see if it is sustainable, I did the same thing with my regular bullet journal and so far, so good. 

January: 

Cover: Simple like ringing in the new year and a quote from one of my favorite books from last year The Starless Sea (if you like fantasy, I would recommend it). Also, the highlighted days are days that I finished reading a book, it was just a last-minute thing that gave me a visual to see the number of books and how quickly I was reading them. There is no color on this one, I just kind of forgot to color in the gems, maybe I’ll do that later, who knows.

Books Read Page: Just a condensed visual of what I read, who it was by, and the dates that I read it. I track that through GoodReads too and several other places. I track a lot of things more than once because that’s just who I am as a person. 

Thoughts/Insights: I saw this layout on TikTok and I was like “yep, this is for me.” Text and visual is how I like to learn and how I like to see things so here we are and in January because I read nine books, eight fit here and one had to go in the back. (I am going to have more thoughts pages next year for sure.)

Monthly Stats: I started out with just the first column which is books read, books bought, genres I read, author breakdown, pages read, average rating, and # of five-star books. As well as the Book of the Month as well. I ended up adding Average page count, average reading time in days, and # to unhaul very late in January because I love stats and I am genuinely curious about all the things that I am tracking on a monthly basis. 

January Recap: I messed up on this one, oops. I don’t really like the colors so I am going to work on that as the months go on to make that standardized, I want all of them to look the same and I kind of dislike the colors on my ratings chart for sure as well as my format chart, the colors just make me a little angry and that’s just me. 

Monthly Book Stack: I have a yearly as well, I like the monthly as well though and I for sure made them bigger in February because these ones are too small and again, it was January, this is a building year for my book bullet journal. 

            Between each month I have an extra page so between January and February I have the covers of my Book of the Month books. 

February:

Cover: I liked the idea of stuff hanging, I chose hearts. My covers for my Book BuJo are super simple because my regular Bullet Journal is really detailed and I needed to not do that in two separate things, I would stop to be honest, I would just not do it; I know my limits. Also, a Princess Bride quote, because duh. 

Books Read: There are a lot more this month because I read 15 books in February (yes, that’s right, 15) In all honesty and fairness only about half of them were on my TBR, the other half were BookTok made me buy them. This month was a lot. 

Thoughts/Insights: So many books so little space. I will for sure being doing four pages instead of two when I do this next year. Yes, I am color coding the stars to the month I am reading them in. I love to color code.

Monthly Stats: Carbon copy of last month just different stats. 

Recap: Again, carbon copy of last month just with different stats. I know that’s a little repetitive and lame, but I like this one better. 

Monthly Book Stack: They are so much better than January and I really like the larger book style this month that I didn’t do in January. 

            This months between month page is my Book of the Month ratings, I didn’t subscribe to BotM until after I started my Book BuJo last summer so I had to add them in, next year they will just get their own pages at the beginning in the front. We are working on it y’all, working on it. 

            Well, that’s it for this update, I think there are enough updates in this post and pieces so here we are at the end and I will be back in April with another update, because I have a problem. 

            Until then though, I hope that everyone has a good rest of the week and you all stay safe, happy, and healthy.

            -MJ 

2022 Book Bullet Journal Intro

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            So TikTok made me want to do this and here we are. I made a Book Bullet Journal so here we are with another Bullet Journal to add to my list of things to update daily. I just need something else to work on, right? Well, here we are and I am doing a book Bullet Journal. Thanks, TikTok, I don’t even remember the username of the person who inspired it and I feel bad about that, I have seen it from a bunch of people though and everyone does it different, so I am rolling with what works for me. Like my regular bullet journal what works for me might not work for you and also this is my first year doing it, next year this format may not work for me either.

            I am just going to go over the front pages and then my overview of January, I’ll do recaps next year so we are going to roll with it. I went with really simple theming this year because I don’t have the time to do two overly complicated themes. I also don’t have the time to do a lot of work so here we are and I am mostly done with 2022 and I will learn things throughout just like I did with my Bullet Journal. 

            So, pages, let’s talk about those. 

Genre Breakdown: It’s a list for all the genres I plan on reading this upcoming year. I already have most of my books pulled for this so that’s exciting. I just wanted to have a full list of what I was going to be reading in each category. 

The Game Plan (the books I am actually reading): I have this in sections, fiction I have all of the books on my To Be Read list listed in each of their sub-genres. Then non-fiction, which I am not planning on reading many because non-fiction is not my scene. Free choice is of course a large portion of my list this year, like it always is. I have a lot of the books filled out here, but not all because I am not really sure about the other few that I will want to read next year. Final category is my Book of the Month books and I am excited to fill these out next year. 

Ratings and Genre: My plan is to read 50 books next year; I will probably read more which is always fun. This will only be the fifty books on my TBR, I will probably have another page later in the journal for all of my extras that I end up reading when and if I finish my TBR. 

Reading trackers: I messed up on the first one so day 31 is on the top above the rest because I am an idiot. It’s just did I read and then how many pages I read. It’s just a good way to keep track of how many pages I read in a day since some days I read 10 pages and some days I read well over 100. There are also days when I read an entire book and I feel like I need a color for that too. (An idea for 2023, right?)

Stats and Stack: Yearly stats, there will be monthly stats as well in each month which will be a lot of fun. The second is my book stack, I do one every year and I will have one every month as well which will be a lot of fun with that too because I want to have the same information in multiple places because that it how my brain works, lists on lists on lists. 

Top 10 of 2021 and 2022 5 Star Books: I mean, I love a good top ten and I have read some really good books this year (you can check all of those posts out if you want to, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5, part 6 will be out later this month and if I remember I will update the link here so you can check it out) so I will have a place to record those. 2022 five stars, it’s pretty self-explanatory, I’m going to record my 5-star books. 

Get the Picture: Tiny book covers, I just want to have a few pages of fun little book covers. I have so many book covers to print for all of the pages I need them for. 

            I was going to show my monthly pages for at least January but I am thinking that I will leave those as a surprise for when I get around to writing the updates as the months go on, because why not. I really enjoyed making this journal and I am hoping that this year teaches me new things as I move into doing this again in 2023. 

            Well, I will be back later in the week with another post, so until then I hope everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy! 

            -MJ