Lesson 9 of 9 · Running it
Your year in reading: goals, wraps and a year-end review
What the apps give you at the end of the year, and a simple review you can run yourself.
Best Book Tracker Apps editors · 10 September 2026 · 3 min read
Goodreads runs the yearly Reading Challenge and has published a Year in Books since 2014, Fable makes monthly Reading Wraps, The StoryGraph charts moods, pace and genres over time, and Bookly supports daily to yearly goals. Whatever app you use, a one-hour review at the end of the year, with an export of your library, tells you more than any single wrap.
Contents
What kinds of reading goal do the apps support?
The classic goal is a number of books in a year. Goodreads' annual Reading Challenge is the best known, and since March 2026 a did-not-finish book with a read date counts toward it. Other apps go finer. Bookly supports daily, monthly and yearly goals, Basmo lists daily and yearly goals, and Fable's free tier has goals and streaks, with weekly, monthly and multiple goals in Fable Plus. Our guide to reading goals compares them in detail.
What do the end-of-period views show?
- Goodreads: Year in Books, published each year since 2014, alongside your Reading Challenge total.
- Fable: monthly Reading Wraps you can share, and stats on the free tier.
- The StoryGraph: charts of moods, pace, genres and ratings over time, which is why it scores 10 on stats and goals.
- Bookly: reading speed, session stats and calendars built from your timer sessions.
How do you run a one-hour year-end review?
- Export your library as a CSV file, so the year is saved somewhere you control.
- Count finished books, did-not-finish books and rereads separately.
- Look at the spread: formats, genres, lengths and how many books came from recommendations.
- Find your three best reads and write one line on why each worked.
- Look at your did-not-finish list for a pattern you want to avoid next year.
- Set next year's goal from this year's real number, not from a round figure.
How do you keep your stats honest?
Stats are only as good as the log. Mark books did not finish when you stop, rather than leaving them in currently reading. Record start and finish dates, since most charts are built from them. Keep one progress unit per book. And if you read across two apps, for example a tracker and a place-keeping app like Magic Bookmark, remember that only the tracker counts toward your stats: Magic Bookmark does not log finished books.