Happy Friday, friends! This weekend (yes, Fridays are considered weekend where I am from), I have another fun prompt from Let’s Talk Bookish, a weekly meme created by Rukky from Eternity Books and now hosted by Aria from Book Nook Bits.
This week’s prompt is a fun one. It’s about tracking your reading progress–if you even do it, how you do it, and why you do it.
Prompts: Do you keep track of the books you read? If so, do you use Goodreads? Storygraph? Another platform? Has the way you keep track of your reading changed since you started blogging? What are the pros and cons of tracking your reading?
1. GoodReads
When it comes to tracking my reading progress, I almost always use GoodReads. Admittedly, the website GoodReads itself is quite problematic, and its UX/UI is too outdated. Not to mention, it often takes hours to load. But since I have been using GoodReads from 5th Grade (which is when I finally got access to the internet from my parents), it’s has become habit to use GR to track my reading my progress.
2. Readerly
Recently I was introduced to Readerly by one of my favorite book bloggers, Kal from Reader Voracious. You can check out here detailed review post about Readerly here. I joined Readerly when it was still in its beta phase and absolutely loved it! The UI is so modern, the concept of “gists” is unique and overall, I have had an amazing experience with it.
4. Journaling
I have been bullet journaling since I was 2017, but even before that, I used to keep a list of books I’d been reading in my personal diaries. Every month, I always have one reading spread in my bullet journal to keep track of my reading progress.
So that’s pretty much how I track my reading. It’s not exactly sophisticated, though it may seem a little bit all over the place. One thing I do want to clarify here is that even though I usually track the books I have read after I am done reading them. This is because I am a very moody reader, and I never really end up going along with the TBR list I set for myself every month. 😂
Now it’s your turn? Do you like to track your reading progress? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and if you are participating in this meme, feel free to add links to your posts too! <3
I agree the Goodreads site is outdated. Personally I don’t even like using Goodreads on my phone, I’ll only go on the site on my laptop because its easier to view that way, but in 2022, most people view things on their phones… so it is a bit of a problem.
Good old pen and paper is still my all time favorite though haha!
The Goodreads phone app is just terrible lol! I do use the site on my laptop regularly, but you know sometimes you just want to update your reading progress on the go, so that’s when an app could be really useful!
“I never really end up going along with the TBR list I set for myself every month.” I’m feeling called out over here, haha I’m exactly the same way! I’ll read maybe 1-3 books from my TBR lists, but I always in some way abandon it.
I’m the same with Goodreads as well – I’ve had it for ages and it’s just become a habit even though they really could do better with the UX/UI. I do think they’re trying to work on it slowly but surely since I keep getting dumped into their beta, which… I’m not sure how I feel about it.
I used to have a reading journal way back in the day before book blogging, though now I use a different app that’s similar to Bookly (since my bullet journal seems to have died an unpleasant death).
I am kind of annoyed by their beta too! It feels a little too glitchy, and while the UX/UI is new it doesn’t exactly look…modern if you know what I mean.
I also use and love Readerly! The UI is so sleek and modern and I really love how it does away with ratings in favor of whether or not you’d recommend the book. Thanks for linking to my post about it!
ALSO THE GOODREADS BETA IS TERRIBLE. I *finally* was pushed the new UI the other day and it’s… weird??? I don’t know how to describe it but it’s not an improvement and makes me even less likely to use the site other than begrudgingly. Storygraph is my main now, with Readerly on occasion.
Yeah it’s not exactly friendly, the call to action buttons and the alignment are all on the wrong place. The only reason why I keep coming back to it is out of habit, and also because I have such a loooong history there.
I personally prefer Readerly better than Storygraph, but Readerly still has a lot features to come in. I really look forward to seeing the platform grow more.