Book Box Club - July 2019

Theme: I Love UK YA

Items: 

• Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood  
• Heartstream by Tom Pollock
• Clubhouse Invite
• I Love UK YA Notebook by Megan Tucker Illustration
• I Love Books Flag by Jay and Boos
• Apple Crumble Tea by The Tea Crew
• Book-Lover Necklace by Book Box Club
• Book Box Club's UK YA Summer Reading Digital Zine
• Bookmarks and Postcards

Review: 
I’ve started to experiment with other book subscriptions boxes other than FairyLoot to get an idea of what else is out there, with the aim to eventually subscribe to a box. Therefore, this is my first time buying through Box Box Club. This box was roughly £28 and had free delivery, so it is a bit cheaper than FairyLoot, therefore I thought I’d give it a try.

The July theme was I Love UK YA. I have books from authors from all over the world but my favourites are mainly American authors, so the theme intrigued me to find more authors from my country. I also picked the box because I liked the sound of book 2, not so much book 1 at the time. 

The books were at the bottom of the box and were neatly wrapped which was very pretty and something new to me. The first book was Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood, this book looked so pretty and I love the spine, it’s one of my favourites on the shelf. When I first read the description of the book through Book Box Club, I wasn’t too excited as it just sounded like a boring romance book. However, when it arrived I checked out the blurb and discovered it was set in the 1930’s, my favourite decade so that’s helped peak my interest as I do like historical fiction and don’t have enough of those books. The book also came with a bookmark and author bookplate, which I appreciated.

The second book was Heartstream by Tom Pollock, this was pretty much the reason as to why I bought the box. I don’t have any thrillers, or at least not many and it just sounded like a really good read. I look forward to getting around to it one day. This book didn’t have as pretty of a cover as the first but it did look very fitting to the books description. 

One of the unique things of Book Box Club, is that each box comes with a clubhouse invite which essentially is a big book club where people will be discussing the books of the box with the author on a date that is given in the box. I like the idea of this as it’s finding people in your community and exploring other people’s opinions but I’m a slow reader and I have a huge list of books to get through so I will probably not be able to get around to being ready for the book club in September which is a shame. I hope I can attend one in the future as they do sound interesting. 

One of the items I liked was the notebook, this has come at the right time too as I’ve been needing one. The notebook is a pretty design of a bookcase and includes some titles from UK authors on the shelves. The thing I really like about it though is the fact is it lined rather than plain white pages. I prefer lines when writing things and shall be using the notebook for the blog ideas. 

The first item I found in the box was the felt flag that says ‘I love books’. At first I wasn’t much of a fan of it, but when I attached the stick and tried it on my bookcase, I’ve decided I do like it as it looks nice on my bookcase. 

Book Box Club from my understanding tends to include an edible/drinkable item. This months was Apple Crumble flavoured tea. I’m not a tea drinker but it does sound pretty cool and definitely something different. I’ve given the tea to my sister to try and hopefully she’ll like it. 

My favourite item in the box was the necklace. I love getting necklaces in subscription boxes. I love the design of the necklace, I love the colours on it and I love that it is enamel. The only thing I would have done differently would have been a silver chain but that's just a personal necklace preference and I still love and will wear the necklace.

Another thing received wasn’t in the box but in my emails was the Summer Zine. This was basically a YA magazine, and featured interviews with authors and stuff about upcoming books and more. I did like it, but I think I would have preferred it to be in the box as a physical copy rather than digital. 

The box also contained bookmarks advertising upcoming books and pretty postcards, I have not much use for these but if I read the books advertised then I may add them to my art board.

In conclusion, I do think I would get this box again in the future but I don’t think I would subscribe as FairyLoot is still better for me. I like the exclusive covers and sprayed edges you get with FairyLoot and I feel like the books they get are more like the ones I would pick up shopping than the ones I got in Book Box Club. But if there is a theme that interests me and I don’t fancy FairyLoot’s then I may skip a month for Book Box Club.

Rating: 3.5 runes out of 5

Written by Lauren