It’s time to reveal the monthly theme for my reading journal in June, and if you already guessed that it’s Gay Pride, then you’re right! I will also be reviewing the first half of the year in reading and how my reading journal has changed by habits.

I filled my journal with brightly colored rainbows and read books by and about LGBTQIA+ people. I’ve already written about the Thirty Days of Gay challenge which I took part in on Instagram. Here, you can see the results of that challenge and some other books as well.

It’s so bright and colorful! I just love how it turned out. There is a variety of sticker and washi designers featured here. The rainbow sticky notes are actually Post-Its that I found at Target. But everything else is from small business owners who actively support the LGBTQIA+ community. There are issues when certain corporations slap a rainbow logo up for a month because Pride is ‘trendy’, then ignore gay rights for the rest of the year. This is one reason why I am turning more to independent artists who are active members of our communities, not just viewing us as customers.

Wonton in a Million (Cynthia) designed the Pride parade stickers and the black-and-rainbow washi. River and Ink (Sierra) made the large decals, including the beautiful rainbow unicorn. The other washi is from Simply Gilded (Irene). All of these women are amazing! I’m happy to support them.

You may also see that I’ve started putting a strip of washi on the side of the page. This makes it easier for me to flip to the month that I want in the journal, now that it’s getting longer. I went back and did this for previous months, so now there are colorful edges peeping out of the journal.

Here is the June monthly review. I read all thirty days in June! I finished ten books for a total of 2819 pages.

And if you look at the monthly overview for the first six months, you’ll see that I’ve read more every month since I started tracking it in this journal. I get excited to write about each book as I finish it, and it’s nice to write down my thoughts while they’re fresh. Online, it can take me weeks or months to write a review, so I sometimes have trouble remembering what I thought of a book. This journal helps me capture the ideas sooner.

I can’t wait to keep filling up this journal as the year progresses. And I’m already thinking about things that I might want to do differently as I’m learning. For example, I’ve noticed that despite the thick paper, I’m still seeing ghosting on the next page from some of my pens. I will look for a notebook with thicker paper for my next reading journal. I chose this book in part because of the length because I was afraid of running out of space. Maybe I won’t use all the pages in this one, so I know I can choose a lower page count the next time. I will be able to evaluate that at the end of the year.

Also, I will move my list of books that I read from the beginning of the month to the end, where I can pair it with the review. Instead, I’ll use one side of the monthly cover to write a quote or place a picture that goes with the theme. I’m already trying out this change in July, so stay tuned to see how it turns out.

The other layout that I really love is this bookshelf spread. It’s a good thing that I saved two pages for this, because one side is almost completely filled out. I’ve switched to using a little bit lighter colors for these books most of the time because the darker ones are hard to read. Still, it’s impressive to see all these titles lined up together!

I really love how this journal is progressing. At the end of the year, it will be something to show off and I can’t wait to show it to you when it’s finished. I hope you’re enjoying these posts. If you have a reading journal, share it with me on Instagram or somewhere else so I can see it!