In 2023 I set a goal to read 555 books. I didn’t make it. I read 391 books. Now, I know that part of that is because the books I read average out at about 312 pages, but in 2023 I read the Zodiac Academy series by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti. That series averages out at 733 pages, with the shortest being 436 and the longest being 1242. Worth it, but didn’t help me reach my goal.

I lowered my goal to 420 books for 2024. I also decided to do more to track my reading. So far I have relied on Kindle (which doesn’t have a great way to look back at the books you’ve read) and Goodreads (which could be more accurate).

This year, I added StoryGraph. We’re only eight days into the year, but I’ve got to be honest. I am not super impressed with the amount of work that goes into tracking on this app. I am busy, and I read a lot. Some days I read more than one book. I need something that works with what I’ve already got. Or, at the very least, is intuitive. Like, if I say I am reading book one in a series, I would like for it to be easier to find the next book in that series once I’ve marked it read. “Hey, we see you’ve finished X, are you going to read Y next”?

Before starting this post, I finished the fourth book in a series and downloaded the fifth. I had to fight with StoryGraph to find it, then I went to double-check that Goodreads was up to date and found it missing four of the eight books I have already read this year. They hadn’t just not been marked as read, they hadn’t even been marked as reading.

I will give both a chance to keep up this year. Hopefully, it becomes second nature. I do like that StoryGraph offers me more insight into the types of books I am reading.

I may be looking for something different by the end of December.

How do you track your reading? Are you a paper or app person? Do you have a tracking method you believe I should ABSOLUTELY try?