Reading with teafortiffany

So I did it. I bought a blind date with a book box. If you know me at all, which I can’t imagine you do because I’ve only made like 7 blog posts at this point, I love mystery boxes. There’s just something I find incredibly fun about mystery boxes. This isn’t my first time buying a blind date with a book box from TikTok but this is the first time I’m blogging about it. I’ve gotten a blind date with a book box set previously and that went quite well.

Chapters & Chances doesn’t only exist on TikTok. They also have their own website, an Instagram, and an Etsy page. I linked their website up above if you want to go check everything out yourself. When purchasing the box, you have an option to pick the genre you want (I picked Fantasy of course) and then if you want a hot chocolate or a tea as your drink. Personally, I would also love to see a “dealer’s choice” type of option as well for those people who want to add a bit of extra randomness to it. Sometimes I just want the chaos, is that really so bad? (my wallet says yes)

This book box includes:

*this list was taken directly from their website*

• 1 book in your chosen genre
• 8-10 fun stickers
• 2 beautiful bookmarks
• 1 highlighter and 1 pen
• 1 handy notepad
• 1 set of sticky tabs
• Tea or Hot Chocolate Set
  • This includes a mini spoon, glass straw, and tea bag/hot chocolate
• Cozy Socks

Lets Talk about the Items

I can confirm that I got all the items that were promised, and they were packed up very nicely. The extra space in the box was taken up by packing peanuts so it wouldn’t move around and get damaged in the box. It had the classic blind date with a book box wrapping done where it creates pockets in the front for items to be put into. The hot coco was wrapped in plastic and tied off at the top with some string. The spoon and the straw were also in this packaging. I ended up getting a very yellow theme to my box with the pen, straw, socks, sticky tabs, and stickers having some element of yellow. (Just as a note: I didn’t select what color I wanted or request a specific color. I wanted some chaos and chaos I received!)

Now, for the most part, I really like the items I got with my box. The stickers are all really nice and a solid variety of bookish forward stickers. Also, I can confirm that the socks are soft and comfortable. I’m not really a yellow girl but honestly, I’m wearing comfy socks in my home when I want to be extra cozy so I don’t care what color they are! I absolutely love the little spoon and I’ll definitely use it as like a sugar spoon for my tea. It’s got a little flower design to it and it just brings me joy. I also rather like that the sticky tabs are a smaller set. I have so many now that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to use them all. I annotate pretty minimally when I’m reading so I don’t go through them very fast. I was also happy to see they were colors I might not have picked for myself. I like to match my tabs to either the cover of the book or the vibes it brings me, so having some colors I didn’t have previously was absolutely wonderful.

There were a couple of problem children in the box as well. The highlighter doesn’t show up very well because of the color and if you have pages that are more brown than white, I don’t know that it will show up at all. That being said, it works properly and is double-ended with a wide and a narrow tipped end. I genuinely like the little notebook, but the glittery dragon on the front rubs off some which makes me a bit sad. I’ll still 100% use this though. It’s a nice small size, perfect for the purse or just to have off to the side when you want to make a quick note. The other problem I have is that one of my bookmarks was a bit bent. I think this happened because the square shaped highlighter was behind the bookmark when placed inside the pockets of the book wrapping. My thought is that it probably got pushed against the bookmark while being shipped and that caused the crease. It’s a very pretty bookmark though and I’ll still use it in my collection. (Should I do a post about my bookmarks collection? No. That’d be crazy right?)

Overall, I think the items were a hit. The so called “problem children” weren’t really a huge issue to me personally. If they were, I would have contacted customer support and I’m sure they would have helped me out. For instance, the highlighter is really just a color issue and not an issue with the function of the highlighter itself. I’m also happy that they’re mostly items I will use in some fashion. I love knick knacks and I’m trying to make sure I don’t overload my space with too many of them. (I’ll never get rid of the knick knacks. I’ll just be selective about them.)

The Book Reveal

Drum roll please. The moment you’ve all been waiting for. What book did I get? Well let me tell you!

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab!

Honestly, I’m so excited for this. I’ve never picked up this book myself but I love V.E. Schwab, so it’s a perfect fit for my book collection.

This book has a 4.18 rating on Goodreads and a 4.23 rating on StoryGraph. Those are pretty high numbers if you ask me so I’m a little bit intimidated to be honest. I’ve already created the sheet to add this to my TBR tin (of doom). So, maybe I’ll pick it soon for a read or maybe I’ll just decide to read it some day. (TBR tin be damned)

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads if you are interested:

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Conclusion

This was fun. To me they always are. I love not knowing exactly what I’ll get but I do like having some control (specifically control over genre). I can use all of the items I was given and the book was in perfect condition. It was wrapped beautifully and arrived quickly. They do have options for other types of blind date with a book boxes and other products as well to explore. On a scale of 1-10 I would give this a solid 9/10. All in all, I think I might do this again through this company but maybe with a different type of book!

If you have any thoughts or comments or maybe even some dad jokes, leave ’em below! I love to connect with people and I can’t connect if you don’t say something. Anything. (I’m begging here)

I’ll be back again next week!!