New Reading Journal Template | Reading Update 1.14.25

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog!

This year I'd love to be more consistent with my reading updates on here, since last year I think I only managed to do 3 reading updates...yikes. I'll push myself to do at least one per month, but we all know how I am when I try to set myself rigid goals. Hopefully I can at least do more than last year. I don't see how I can't, but you never know, right?

Despite it being half-way through the month of January already, I've only managed to finish one book. Who am I? This is entirely due to the book I'm still reading, which is Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk. It's almost 700 pages, and the pages are large and the font is tiny. It takes me a hot minute to read a single page. This book takes place on an imaginary island in the Mediterranean called Mingheria, in 1901. It's part of the Ottoman Empire and is struck down by the plague. It's full of political intrigue, romance, and even a murder mystery. I'm truly fascinated by the story, but damn, I wasn't expecting it to take so long to read. I started this book on New Year's Day (New Year's Eve, technically, but at night so I just counted it as my first 2025 read) and I'm not even half-way through yet. If I can finish this book by the end of January, I'll count it as a major win. 

I have plenty of books on my January TBR though, so I better get moving if I want to read them all. 

My book clubs alone might take up the rest of the month's reading. For Emma's World Tour book club, I have The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, which I had to purchase since I couldn't find it anywhere else. For Carolyn's Well Read book club, I have Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, which I can't start until my copy comes in from the library, so that one is out of my hands at the moment. And lastly for my IRL book club that I go to with my mother, I have The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. Since this book will be a reread for me, it's lowest on my priority list, but it has been over 4 years since I've read it and I'd love to get a refresher. My mom is reading my copy right now, however, so that one is also out of my hands. 

The one book I've managed to finish so far was The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. This was just a random library pick, much like Nights of Plague. I knew I wanted to read the book before I watched the movie, since I'm a big baby when it comes to horror movies and need to know the plot beforehand (as well as have my bestie Angela next to me to point out jump scares and trigger warnings). I truly wasn't expecting to have such a good time with this book! I ended up giving it 4.5 stars, which was a massive surprise for me. There were parts where I was genuinely scared. I can't remember the last time that happened to me with a horror book.

This year I'm approaching my reading journal differently. In 2024, my reviews for books were short and not really informative, so often times if I looked back on what I read months later, I still couldn't tell you what I really thought about the book. Also, aside from a small cutout of the book cover, there wasn't any decoration and it looked really boring. So this year I've decided to take a more creative approach to my book reviews. Here is what my review for The Woman in Black looks like:

I'd advise anyone who hasn't read the book and wants to to not look at my actual review that closely, since there are spoilers. It was honestly so fun to put this together. I looked up fancy cursive letters to write the title, and of course the best part was finding pictures that matched the book's aesthetic. For this book in particularly, I was able to just take stills from the movie.

I'm hoping to do this for each of the books I read this year. It's entirely possible that I'll get tired of it and want to stop, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it I suppose. Until that happens, I'll be having fun with my new aesthetically pleasing review template.

That's all I have for today. Until next time, friends!