hello friends, it's Kayla. I think
everybody knows at this point how much I love tracking my reading and sharing stats and
keeping track of everything, like physically. I love the physical act of writing stuff down.
I don't like to track my stats on the internet, I don't love using spreadsheets, I don't even
keep an online calendar- like I have a physical calendar agenda that I use every single day.
I've kept a bullet journal for years and years; there was one year where I really went hard with
it and did like, full out designs, which isn't really something that I even enjoy keeping up
with, but I did it for a short time in my life and it was fun. Right now the way that I use my
bullet journal to track my reading is just I have this one big spread that I color in the books as I
read them, and other than that I just have really boring pages where I write out a little bit of my
review and then like, track stats on other pages. I've never had a proper reading journal before
but I've always been very intrigued by them so I thought in this video we would try four different
reading journals- and I've actually already tried them over the last four months. I used one for the
entire month of each month and then I vlogged the experience and let you know what I thought- my
initial impressions and then my review for each one at the end. I wanted to do this for myself to
find reading journals that I enjoy. One of my very first videos on this channel ever was a video
where I talked about all of my favorite like, activity journals. I love them, I've always loved
filling out quizzes, I've always loved keeping a physical journal and writing notes and all that
stuff. So I was on the hunt to find the perfect reading journal and also I thought it might be
helpful to some of you because it'll help you know the quality before you buy, or even the insides-
because a reason that I never picked up a reading journal is I feel like the online listings
often don't show you the inside much at all, and sometimes you don't really know what you're
in for. So instead of reviewing books today I'm reviewing reading journals. The four
I decided to pick up are “My Bibliophile,” “Bookaholic: a reading journal,”
“Bookmarks: a reading tracker by Book Riot,” and “Reading Planner by Owlcrate,” and I would
love to hear if you use a reading journal let me know in the comments below what you thought
of yours if you enjoy it if you found one you like if you found ones you hated. And now we will jump
back in time four months ago where I just blabber more about my love of reading and journaling. It's
January and the first one that I want to get into is one of the OG reading journals it's called My
Bibliophile a reading journal for book lovers. This originally came out in like 2010 so
it has been around I found it on indigo for 15.99 and then without my like black card
that I pay for every year to get free shipping it would have been seven dollar shipping for
a total of almost 25. I already see some pros and cons with this one I feel like I'm gonna
lose a lot of people right off the bat because my pickiness when it comes to the structure of
notebooks is a lot so first of all I don't love that it's hardcover, I feel like I'm not going
to be able to fully open it and spread the page the way that I would like to. First let me show
you my two preferred notebook things that I go for. These are not reading journals but when it
comes to structure and binding the LEUCHTTURM1917 bullet journals in the slim version
are my favorite, the way you can fully open it up and lay it perfectly flat. I enjoy
the paper quality. I like that it's a soft cover but not like super bendy. And then this
is what I get every single year as my like pocket calendar that I can slip into my bag
this is the Orange Circle Studio and this has a much softer cover but it still has a really
good structure to it and this is my preferred binding I guess, where it is a really bendable
spine and this one you can lay perfectly flat as well. In the bullet journals I use you
can see that it's a little more separated from the spine and this one also has that so I
do enjoy that I'm definitely most curious about the paper quality it feels a little
glossier than I would like for the pens that I prefer to use. Some paper is more
conducive to pens and some is more conducive to pencils. I like to use these equally and I think
I will want to use both of them in a reading journal so I want to see how the pens perform.
I do quite enjoy the size of this. There are five opportunities for a book review and then
there is like a fun page, an activity page, and then there's five more reviews. Each review
is an entire spread so it's two pages. On this one you can write the information about the book and
then this one you can take notes. I can already tell you I don't like that the stars are red
because then when I fill it in with a black pen I have to actually try to stay inside
like the already established lines, while if it was already black or it was
like slightly less of an opacity then I have the chance to like make my own lines. But
depending on your style you could get like messy with it and you could go outside the lines or you
could just fade it in however you want. I feel like I'll want to drive home this a bunch of times
in this video but these are all MY preferences and hopefully by learning my preferences and what I am
going to care about it'll help you determine like which one is going to work for you. Because what
is interesting to me may not be interesting to you. For example um I do not care the date that I
started AND finished a book, I think just having one date on there would be fine. I don't like
the categories. The categories are fiction, nonfiction, memoir, biography, or other. And I
feel like if it just had a line to choose your own category from the get-go that would make more
sense, but if you are somebody who traditionally reads a lot of non-fiction (which I feel like
memoir and biography ARE non-fiction?) all of these are going to be for a very specific type of
reader. Like this page where you get to fill in your favorite authors and your favorite books and
then after that it also asks you your favorite young adult books or your favorite children's
books- it’s already assuming that your favorite books and your favorite authors are not going
to be of the young adult or children's variety. After that it says “my favorite places to read: in
a cafe, at home-” first of all did they not know the pandemic 11 years ago? Points taken off! I'm
not reading at a cafe or a library or on the train right now. It makes it more of an activity journal
as opposed to just a reading journal which is definitely something interesting. But everything
in here is going to be pretty limiting just because it only gives you so many options- with it
saying “inspired me to learn about these subjects” it's appealing to a certain type of reader who
is probably reading more nonfiction, memoir, and biography, so you can talk about what you learned
from the book and what you want to continue learning. So let's count how many reviews fit in
here. I don't see it listed anywhere but it might be in the description on the website. I think it's
50. For me I read like 140 to 180 books a year- I would have to purchase three to four of these
books if I wanted to write down every single book that I read. So I would have to be strategic about
how I use it because spending a hundred dollars a year on a reading journal like this where the
sections that are activity-based would end up then being repetitive ...like that doesn't make
the most sense for me. This one passed the pen test better than I could have imagined, I couldn't
see it going through any of the pages. It didn't smear. I still don't love the paper but it was fun
there were some different quizzes and I couldn't fill out like any of them because I hadn't read
the books listed and then the last like 30 pages is all full of book recommendations. Final
thoughts from My Bibliophile- don't take my rating to be the rating that I give it for just
like general use the average consumer. For me this is like a one out of five for my purposes. I don't
personally need a two page spread for my reviews, I don't prefer the hardcover, I think it was good
to test it out but I don't like it. It doesn't get as flat as I would prefer when I'm writing on it.
I also don't like (I know this doesn't matter to like normal people) but I don't like the color. I
feel like all reading journals are going to have some colors inside but especially when the
inside is red and beige it just doesn't work for me. Like I said before there's not
enough things to actually fill out and I don't like that I have to pick from a certain
genre, and like yeah I could write in my own, yeah I could give more categories down here,
but I just don't love how this is all laid out in general. The pages in between the
reviews are just not what I'm looking for, they don't lean towards the type of books that I
pick up. This is for somebody who really wants to dive into what they learned from the books that
they're reading somebody who takes reading really seriously and who has read a lot of classics
in their life, that's who this is perfect for, and that's not me. Though it does pass that “does
it fit in my purse?” test so there's that. At the end of this whole video I'm gonna compare some
specific things between all four journals side by side like what it has to offer but that's
just who I would recommend this for. Cool. It is now February and my book selection is this
one from Owlcrate. This was a $19 journal with I think $15 shipping. I think this is maybe the
type of item that you can buy separately from them but if you already have a subscription with them
maybe it can be like included in boxes I'm not sure how that all works, but the price makes sense
because it's not like mass produced. Like this is a company who is working with somebody to create
a small amount so that's something you always have to keep in mind when you're ordering like, paper
products- is the more that a company is able to like mass produce the cheaper it's going to be for
them to create, and the cheaper they can offer it to you. So not that this one was exorbitantly
priced but just something to remember. And honestly I was expecting less quality, so I'm
pleasantly surprised. I don't think that I prefer the rings but I won't know until I'm
actually using it. This feels like the type of agenda that I got in high school, it
has this soft cover. I like the size of this I definitely wouldn't want it any bigger
and the pages inside are colored but like slightly. Like in a nice muted way. You can
tell they have like a specific number of colors because a lot of times when you print
you're paying per color, basically you only have a certain number that you're going
to want to stick to. I haven't looked at this at all but I saw the first page which is exactly
what I do with my current bullet journal, and this is one of the pages that I think is really cool
and if I were to ever create a reading journal I would want this. And the number of books here
is appropriate which I love because the page still looks cute even if you can't color them all in,
and I think that's important. And then it seems to be also just like a calendar which is cool.
Something about this is I don't know that this is something that they have long term, or if they're
planning on continuing creating these, or how it really works. I know that they sell a
lot of items that they might have included in their boxes, but then you can also buy them
separately so I have no idea like the timeline of something like this. But I saw it in my
instagram feed and I just had to order one. And then you've got a monthly TBR and then a
weekly planner. I like that there's a to-do list because if I was using this as a video planner
and book planner like all of my bookish stuff- it could all fit reasonably in here. So after a
month and then all of the weeks there are sections for book reviews. So there are 15 slots per month
and then there's fun little things you can fill out like favorite quotes and then a little wrap
up, and then it starts over. It doesn't give you extra activities like lists of books that you want
to read in your lifetime or your favorite classics or whatever. And then there's a spot at the end
for your best books and worst books of the year, so this is cool because the calendar and the weeks
aren't labeled so you can label them yourself so you can start this easily in the middle of the
year you don't have to have it run the entire year. I don't feel like this note section is wide
enough to really write anything significant in it but I think it's pretty and I think it's fun and
I'm excited to use it and see how it holds up. So for the mini book reviews themselves, I love
how open this is. There aren't a ton of things to select, you get to write the genre yourself,
there's a space for the title, the author, your date started and finished again (which like maybe
people want,) also a spot for how many pages, and then three little lines for your thoughts,
and then you can also select if it's a physical ebook audiobook. And then the writing section
I really love the font they used in here, but I think the stars needed to be a little bigger or
a little clearer or something. And then probably my favorite page is the fact that they offer a
monthly wrap-up section where you can say how many books you read, all the genres you read, how many
pages, your favorite books, least favorite books, and anything you didn't finish. And they
definitely give you enough lines and enough space to put everything that you need. My final
thoughts on this one is pretty much as expected, I thought that I wouldn't like the loop binding
and I don't. But I didn't know for sure because I haven't used one like this in at least 10 years.
While it has benefits, the loops really hinder the ability to make everything look perfect. I'm
really glad I started with these two because they could not be more different. The My Bibliophile is
more of a “once you've read something- take down some notes,” and THIS is more of a preparation
BEFORE you read. I would recommend this most for who I think kind of was the target demographic
for Owlcrate, which is like bookstagrammars and booktubers because those are the
types of people who are buying Owlcrate, receiving Owlcrate, posting about it on social
media. It also accounted for how much we read, so there is room for 180 reviews in here. With
that said, it's split up to have three per page so they're a lot shorter of reviews, which works for
me because I wouldn't use this as something that I refer back to for years- it's kind of a “jot
down your thoughts so when it's time to review in a video at the end of the month you have a couple
key things to talk about,” you know? This did pass my pen test with flying colors but does not pass
my “fit in my purse” test. I really liked the page at the beginning where you could color in books,
though I realized that it says “favorite books” on it and like I don't have that many favorite books.
So I would just use it to track what I'm reading throughout the year, Although it is a little too
small to color in in like a really clean way with the type of markers that I traditionally
use in my bullet journal. Also it is split up by month so like those 15 reviews that you have
for each month are organized like IN the months, so if you read more than 15 one month and less
than 15 I don't know if it would bother anybody else to have to like just write it down in the
next month. That definitely wouldn't bother me. And I think that was the best way to do it
rather than having just like a whole chunk of sections to write your reviews. I like it
being in each month, there's so much space to plan what you're going to read how many pages you
read, a to-do list for like taking bookstagram pictures or filming videos. Overall I'm gonna
give this a three and a half out of five, I really do like that the text in here is black
so when I write with black or blue it like kind of fits in better, even though there is still beige
and red, there's also greens and blues and grays, so it's a nice mix of color. I think I would have
preferred all of the writing space to be white as opposed to some of its white and some of it's this
it's like a grayish. Pencil does not show up great on these pages and I really just can't get over
the binding. Like honestly that loses an entire star even though I will say I find this to be good
quality, I think it would hold up well as long as you're not like trying to bring it everywhere you
go, like this just so easily is gonna pop right out of the loops. The loops also make things hard
to stack if you want to do that. Another one of my issues with the loops is that the pages are always
going to be just like kind of all over the place, loops are just my nemesis- I'm sorry I keep
talking about them. And I did realize that the first journal that I did kind of has a page
like if you really wanted to have a page like this where you colored in the books as you were reading
them, it does have that on the inside pages if you really wanted to go for it. that's not
the point of it I'm sure, but you could do it. Okay I have March's journal right here it's called
Bookaholic a reading journal. I liked the black and the gold I wanted to check out a more
inexpensive one that's like more accessible. This one is on Amazon, it was nine dollars. Rob
has Amazon Prime. I hope it's clear that obviously when I'm talking about like affordability and
accessibility the most like inexpensive and reasonable option for the majority of human beings
is like to just use a notebook that you already have, or just like use loose leaf paper that you
already have, go to the dollar store and buy like a dollar journal and just like make your own like
kind of design. Something I really wanted to make sure that I was trying with some different
bindings, so this one is just like fully- (I don't even know what you would call
it,) surged? And I'm interested to see how it opens. I have- yeah- I have a thing about
it laying flat. So I definitely want to make sure that it's nice to write in. And in here we start
with a little “this journal belongs to….” page, and then it looks to be solely for book reviews.
So there is no extra content, there's no activity pages, it's a super straightforward design.
And we have a whole bullet journal page like every every other page, so you can do
anything you want here. You can draw things, you can make boxes, you can just write out your
thoughts... it has space for the title the author, you can say if it was paperback hardback ebook
or audiobook, and then fiction or nonfiction, and then there's a space for genre underneath
which is nice. I like this spot that says “recommended by” or w”hy I picked up this
book,” if you read a lot and you get a lot of recommendations from around the internet or
in your real life from like real human people and you like to keep track of that sort of thing,
that's fun! Date started, date finished- oh and then the ratings- it's not just one rating that's
very interesting. So you can rate things like the writing style, the characters, plot development,
originality, engagingness, insightfulness, comprehensiveness, impactfulness, and then your
overall rating. And then you can sum up the book in three words and put your brief summary.
Interesting! There's like- a summary of the introduction, development, twist, and conclusion,
favorite parts, new words learned, that's fun! And then you can put your whole review,
doodles, reflection, feelings, realizations over here. Great. Straightforward. I'm sure
it was less expensive to print because it is like a deep gray. I like the font they chose, the
only thing that I'm seeing right off the bat is you can definitely see through the pages. But I
think that's to be expected because you're paying less for a product, so my like number one thing
that I think of when paying more for a bullet journal is quality of paper. We'll have to do my
pen test and see how it goes. I like that it has the page number at the bottom so I don't have to
count the number of reviews you can fit in here. There's room for 54 reviews in here. So if you're
somebody who reads a book a week, you will want to purchase one of these every year, but it's
definitely a nice size for like stackability, or to sit on a shelf. And I mean, that comes
with thinner pages so you're gonna have a thinner journal overall, but since it's not divided
up in any other way besides just reviews you could use this one journal for like 10 years of
reading, or you can use four of these in a year, so that's nice. What I've been doing is each
journal I am only using for that month, but when I'm filling it out I'm putting that month’s
reviews in the section that it would be in the journal if I had filled out the journal for
the entire year. So like I'm gonna skip to review like 30 or whatever and start here, so at
the end of this whatever journal is my favorite I can begin from the beginning and fill it
out fully for the entire like four months, and then continue using whichever was my favorite
for the rest of the year. I think I pretty much covered everything that's inside it. I like the
sections where you get to talk about values, themes, ideologies portrayed, and I like how there
are shaded sections and it kind of breaks it all up. But overall this isn't a reading journal
that I would use, and I realized that my rating scale is a little bit skewed already because I
gave that other one one star even though like, if you take everything into account quality wise,
and all of the insides, like it's not a one star objectively. But would I use it? No, I wouldn't be
perfectly happy using this as my reading journal for all time. So I gave it a one which means I
also have to give this a one because I wouldn't use it. It's no doubt more simplistic than
any of the other ones and I think that's nice, and it's straightforward and you know what you’re
getting into. But for my purposes, I like a little bit more of a mix between reviews and something
else. So if some of the ideas from this or this were implemented in here, even though I didn't
love those two anyway- then it could be something that I use consistently moving forward. But I also
just can't get over the paper quality. It's fine in a pinch and I recommend it, but it's not ideal.
But one star seems really harsh and I know that and I acknowledge that and I'm sorry/ I've messed
up the the ranking, the rating, everything. Next up is the reading journal from Book Riot it's
called Bookmarks: a reading tracker. I think they actually have two- I don't know if one is old
and one is newer. they're like for two different intents, but this one was twenty dollars Canadian.
I got it from indigo, and right off the bat, like I expected this to be the highest quality
because of the price and because it's from Book Riot which is a website I really enjoy, I get
good book recommendations from, they have a lot of different like endeavors, and I want to like how
it looks but I don't. Really none of the reading journals have been like my perfect taste. This
one I like the color scheme and I like the idea, I like the illustration but it's not like what
I would go for if I were purely picking out like a cover that I wanted. But this one has a lot
of promise, it has my favorite binding of all of them, um it has the little strings to mark
your place, and it looks like half of this- whoa, no- more than three quarters of this
is a bullet journal. So that's definitely appealing I think to some people, but could be
a turn off for some people. So let's start from the beginning, “from the library of..” very
cute. Again it has a specific color scheme on the inside so if you don't love greens
and blues and it doesn't go with like the pens that you're gonna use, you might not love
it. But most of this it looks like is intended to be used as a bullet journal, so it has light blue
dots and I think it'll be fine. So it starts out- it's kind of uh... does it say anywhere? It
looks like a “guided journal” so it has these little title pages and like explanations of how
to use each section. “Literary holidays,” and then it says “Templates: the following pages contain
some of our favorite ways to set up and use your journal. start by filling them out when you're
done copy the template over to the blank pages and keep going.” I think this is a great option for
so many people because it's like a build-your-own reading journal, you pick what you actually want
out of the reading journal. It gives you examples so there's like a reading log or there's book
reviews or longer book reviews or longer book reviews, and then once you decide what you
like and what you want to use it for you can build your own in the back. So I think this
definitely works for people who like, already find bullet journals the perfect way to track your
reading, and then it gives you like some examples. For me, somebody who's super neurotic... um
no matter how hard I try to set up my pages they're never gonna look exactly like the ones
in the front and that's gonna drive me nuts. So that's tough. I really do enjoy the idea and I
think it makes a lot of sense. So I can't really talk about the pages that they offer and like how
good their offering is, and like how many options they have for what to fill out for each book….
because it's not like this is all they're giving you. They're giving you a guide and then you can
take it wherever you want. So for here it says “author stats” and then you're meant to fill it
out for like, all the nationalities that you're reading from, and then check off as you go, but
then you can only fill it out... like...you can only read from six authors before you filled it
up, and then for “gender” and for “age range” and for “year of publication,” for “genre” there
is a different amount of boxes for all of them, so like I know it says like once you fill
out these pages you can go create your own, but like I'm gonna run out of space to fill how
many female authors I read way before I, you know, fill out all of my check marks for whatever
highest genre that I read. It gives you title, author, publisher- ah publisher that's a good one
to include! publication date, format, discoveries, like where you learned about it from, uh date
started and date finished again, these stars are too colorful and small for me to like be
happy with how they're gonna fill in. But again when you do your own page you can choose however
you want to draw the star to fill in. Oh there's a book bingo! “Challenge yourself to read different
types of books throughout this game of bingo.” This is definitely fun, and then this says
“favorite shelf” so it wants you to color in the books. I think that's great inspo for future
pages as well. A spot for favorite quotes, there's also a word bank and a lending library, so you can
keep track of books you borrowed. A whole page for doodling characters, and then this is an example
of what a book club page would look like. There's a page about how to start your own book club, so
it's definitely cool. And there's stuff in the back too... hold on. Okay so there's a chunk at
the back as well that isn't bullet journal pages, my bad. This is the Read Harder reference page.
I think Read Harder is the Book Riot like reading challenge, so this has a list of challenges,
and then um Book Riot suggestions which is nice. There's a lot of different genres covered here,
even cookbooks and poetry. And that's it! And then you can tear this out and it's a bookmark,
that's cute. These pages are super thick, I don't anticipate anything bleeding through
and also I feel like you would only ever buy (maybe I'm wrong) but like one of these. Like
once I got introduced to these and I learned which example I actually wanted to use in the bullet
journal section... after this like, I'm just using an actual bullet journal. So as
expected this one ended up being my favorite but I still don't completely love it because
I think it's more for like the artistically inclined. I know I have had a bullet journal in
the past but I don't currently have the time or desire to really build all of my own pages,
which is what this inspires. Which I think is really awesome. The pages lay really flat.
I do find that there's a little too much text in these sections, like you can't go from
edge to edge of the page because there's always going to be something there, or
at least for most of the pages there is something there. I think this is great for
inspiration, I think this was a probably likely a response because I know that they had
um Book Riot had a reading journal in the past I might actually be able to pick that up and try
that out and we can do a whole nother round of this because I'm having fun. But maybe it's more
just like book reviews. and that's the whole book. And to have a little bit more freedom perhaps they
offered this second option. that's what I feel might be a thing. Both of these last two don't
quite pass the purse test but are almost there. And overall I really really love the quality
the feel of this one. I don't know if we really need any final stats but I'm gonna do them anyway.
We're gonna start with the nerdy kind of overview, so here's all the reading trackers laid out
side by side and the price point for each one. Here are their dimensions in case that's something
that you care about. I give each of them a quality rating: this isn't overall, this is like the
actual physical quality of the item. So My Bibliophile I gave a “B” because the hardcover
has started to crack and if you want to open it up far enough you're completely breaking all
of the spines and you're losing a bit of the integrity in order to write on it properly. I
also gave the reading planner by Owlcrate a “B.” These are good quality ratings just not great. So
with the loop it's not perfect and the paper is prone to tear through the loops if you're not
careful. Bookaholic reading journal I gave a “C,” I think for pretty obvious reasons. And then
Bookmarks a reading tracker by Book Riot got an “A.” It feels like a very sturdy and well
made product. I wanted to put up the number of potential reviews as well in case you missed
them, so My Bibliophile and Bookaholic both have the potential for about a year's worth of reading
if you read a book a week, and the Owlcrate reading planner has the most potential reviews
with 180. Bookmarks is hard to say because with the entire thing almost being bullet pages the
number of potential reviews is truly infinite. For the number one benefits of each journal
I said My Bibliophile with its activity pages and thoughtful prompts it helps you stay engaged
and makes you think and gives you things to do. For the Owlcrate one I love that it can double as
an agenda. and the plenty of reviews is definitely a plus for me. The Bookaholic journal is the best
price point, there are so many different prompts and things to guide you with your reviews, and
then the bullet pages is definitely useful for doing whatever you want with. Those obviously also
exists in the Bookmarks one but I also added that all the inspirational prompts and designs is
cool to see, and it is the most aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. For downfalls I put My
Bibliophile is out of date. There are certain things in the back regarding book prizes that
are old old names old winners also some wording and different things are just a little out of
date. In my opinion it has a little bit of a lack of design, and you wouldn't necessarily want
to repurchase this because there are so many pages that you would just be writing the same thing you
wrote in the last one. If it had the potential for like three times the amount of reviews I think
it would be fine but this isn't something that I could see somebody buying like for each year.
For the Owlcrate planner obviously the binding. The beige pages just are limiting for what type
of stationery you can use, and then some of the sections are a little too small, a little too
skinny, and don't have enough lines for fully formed thoughts. Especially if you are somebody
who writes relatively largely. For Bookaholic the paper quality is its biggest downfall. Some of the
spacing between letters (the kerning) is something that might drive people a little nuts because it's
not completely consistent throughout the page, and there is a little bit of wasted space with
the explanations of what the reviews want from you. I think this could have benefited from a
couple pages at the beginning like we've seen in the Bookmarks one where there's a guided page
at the beginning to tell you what some things mean in future pages- that could have saved some space.
And then in the final one I just think it has such a specific audience, it's the most difficult to
recommend broadly. And it's the least traditional reading journal which is beneficial for something
unique, but it is a bit of a downfall if you're buying this expecting a traditional reading
journal. And for me its biggest downfall is the consistency and organization. I love all
the guided pages and I love the instruction, I love the inspiration- but it just feels
so chaotic, because it gives you all those pages in the beginning and then like you have
to decide one of the designs to take forward or we're going to take multiple designs moving
forward so there's just no organization. And it doesn't have a consistent look
throughout it which won't bother some people but definitely is not for me. So those
are the facts about each journal and now who I think- it's like- who is this reading
journal for? Who would I recommend it to? So the fact is I didn't find my perfect reading journal.
After all of this so we're gonna have to do around two. Let me know what other reading trackers
you know about and I'll pick them up and test it for the both of us. I would most recommend this
one for bookstagrammers, booktubers, people who want to track and do things outside of just their
reading stats. And also people who are relatively artistically inclined, but like me have a hard
time just starting, and coming up with your own inspiration. This is definitely something I could
see gifting somebody. So if like your child is just getting into like bookstagramming or reading
a lot, or maybe they're doing bookish TikToks, this would be a fun gift. I think the other one
I could see gifting is this one and this is more for an academic in your life. Maybe that's also
your child, but I picture this as something that I would gift like an Aunt or cousin who I know
is reading with more of a purpose, rather than the people that I tend to surround myself in my
reading community. But if your reading community is like, the classics readers and the analytical
readers, the mostly non-fiction readers, those who are reading for school- like this would be a fun
gift for sure. Now I know that I'm being like... I know that I'm taking my own perspective and not
really thinking about anybody else's preferences, but I just couldn't see gifting these because they
aren't the same quality. Even though I find this to be objectively good quality I can't get over
it, I'll never get over it. I'm sorry, this just feels more like a school supply and not something
conducive to giving to somebody as a gift. Just like I would never gift a book that was bound
like this. If you yourself are a bookstagrammer, booktuber, Booktoker etc., I could definitely see
picking this up for yourself. And then this one just does the job if you are on a little bit more
of a budget. It definitely accomplishes what it's set out to do and though it's not the highest
quality and isn't going to hold up forever, there are some good merits about this. Like I
think the person who designed it did a good job of organizing it and doing the bullet journal page
and also you can get a whole bunch of these for cheaper so they stack well and they don't have
a lot of fluff, so it would be I think a normal thing to have a whole set of these throughout your
reading life journey. I really thought that there was going to be a dud in here and a clear winner
in here, but if you combined all four of these it would be my favorite reading journal. This is
the best structured. If you took this binding, and this whole size, integrated this content, and
this cover, and honestly this font and this whole star rating system- then it would be my favorite.
As far as which one I'm going forward with- I don't think any of them. I think I'm gonna
try some more. I don't want these to go to waste though so I am going to be donating these
three because I think that I can remove the pages from here that I used, and then for these two
I think you can still get a lot of use out of them even though a couple pages are filled
in. So I'm gonna stick like a little post-it in the front page just hopefully the person
looking at it will see that it is like a little filled out and they get a little bit of a warning.
I don't think I can do that with this one because I used up like all of the unique pages so I will
just use this as my bullet journal for as long as it takes me to fill it up. Let me know what you
think about anything that I talked about in here, again any ideas for other reading journals that
you would like to see reviewed. I'd be so happy to do that and I will see you later. Thank you so
much for watching and hanging out with me- bye!
