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BoxWalla Book Subscription Box Review – February 2016

Bekki Menzies
ByBekki MenziesSep 21, 2016 | 5 comments

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BoxWalla is a new subscription company that has four different genres of boxes:  beauty, food, film, and book.  This is a review of the book box!

This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

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The Subscription Box: BoxWalla Book

The Cost: $49.95 every other month

Ships to: US for free, Canada for $11.95, Internationally for $18.95

The theme of this box is Love in Three Formats.  The packaging of this subscription is top notch.  The box itself is beautiful, and will definitely be reused.  The letter from the Drunken Boxwallas is on thick, beautiful paper, and the other side is printed with a crosshatch.  I'll find someway to recycle this paper in my office decor, that's for sure!

February's box is sold out, but you can sign up for April's box here.

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Obvious State small notebook - $6.00

This is a beautiful small notebook.  It is about 5 inches high and has 32 lightly lined pages.  This is a great size to keep in either your pocket or your purse!  Obvious State is a US company that prints their products in the US on recycled book paper.  How fun is that?

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Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson - $12.78

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, and classicist.  The Drunken Boxwallas say the book is "both a novel and a poem, yet somehow more than either form."  Here's the short book description from Amazon:

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

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A Heart so White - Javier Marias - $13.43

Javier Marias is a Spanish author and has won the IMPAC Dublin Award.  The Drunken Boxwallas say the book is "an engaging and unique perspective on marriage and love."  Here's the short book description from Amazon:

Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy--its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility--hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into shadows and onto the costs of ambivalence.

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A True Novel - Minas Mizumura - $21.55

Minae Mizumura is a Japanese writer, and the Drunken Boxwallas say "She is a scrupulous observer of life as it passes the characters in her book, often jolting us with casually strewn sentences filled with profound yet surprising truths."  This is a reworking of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.  Here's the short book description from Amazon:

A True Novel begins in New York in the 1960s, where we meet Taro, a relentlessly ambitious Japanese immigrant trying to make his fortune. Flashbacks and multilayered stories reveal his life: an impoverished upbringing as an orphan, his eventual rise to wealth and success—despite racial and class prejudice—and an obsession with a girl from an affluent family that has haunted him all his life. A True Novel then widens into an examination of Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class.

Verdict:  This is my first BoxWalla Book box, and I really enjoyed it!  I obviously haven't had time to read all of the books yet, so time will tell if I enjoy the books themselves (they have excellent reviews, so I'm sure I will!), but I think the curation around love for February was great.

All three of the books included feel like something a friend would have recommended to me to read, and the notebook is great for jotting down notes while reading, or as the Drunken BoxWallas suggest, jotting down a little poetry of your own!

My calculated value of the box is $53.76, which exceeds the cost.  I am happy with that value, as I know there was a lot of thoughtful curation involved, and shipping books isn't cheap.

What do you think of  BoxWalla's Book box?  I think I'm going to enjoy this one immensely!

Bekki Menzies
Bekki Menzies
Bekki first discovered subscription boxes in 2014 and they quickly took over her life! (Not quite, but pretty close.) She started with POPSUGAR Must Have, then moved to Little Lace Box, Birchbox, Hamptons Lane...the rest was history. Her favorite product find is Beekman 1802 Fudge (so, so good) and her favorite boxes are Birchbox and Hamptons Lane...but she's always looking for a new subscription to try!

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5 comments

Sarah

I really like this box. I am new to book subscription box companies, but really love this curation. I’d be excited to read any one of the books included in the February box!

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Jet

“The Autobiography of Red” looks very intriguing! I’m (i.e. all of our household) are on a book buying ban as we’re complete bibliophiles (I’m a published professional author, writer, must have many reference books, plus we’re all avid readers who enjoy the real thing vs ebooks) so it’s going to be a library check out for me. I appreciate you sharing, as I don’t think this would be one I found on my own, thank you! ?Jet

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Elizabeth

A unique book box. A little too steep for me right now but that is a nice book box. Those books aren’t just in your local bookshop type of books.

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Lisa

I got the Boxwalla February food box and I was very happy with the sweets they included.

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Jordan

I am really impressed by this box. I think this fills a definitely gap in the book box world by focusing on books that are high-brow literature, but not necessarily brand new. I feel like a lot of book boxes only focus on books that are new to the market.

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