Reading with teafortiffany

Hello friends!!

I have quietly been working on putting everything together to start a new series of book box subscription reviews. There are so many out there and I have tried a handful myself over the years and I decided that I wanted to try out and review a bunch of them. I know this particular type of content is not necessarily scarce, however, I still thought it would be fun.

A couple of notes about the whole process:

1. I will always purchase these boxes with my own money for the review. I am definitely not on any PR lists and if I ever were, I would let you know.
2. I will try 3 boxes from each company of the same type. Some companies do multiple subscription boxes with multiple genre’s or styles. To keep the reviews fair, I’ll do 3 of the same type of box.
3. I might try other types of subscription boxes from the same company. Like I said before, some companies do a fantasy and a thriller box. Just because the fantasy one is great, doesn’t mean the thriller one will be.
4. I will attempt to read at least one book of the three received. I’m not a fast reader, but I think it could only help to read at least the book I am most interested in out of the three I get in the box. That being said, if I’ve got my plate full, this probably won’t happen, but I’ll try.
5. These boxes are all going to be rated using the same rubric to keep things fair. I do have separate rubrics for the items vs the books themselves. I obviously won’t be rating the items in a book only subscription.

I believe that is everything of note about this. I have been excited to work on these book box reviews and I hope they are useful to you all! So lets get into the first box!!

The first box that I chose to look at was the Illumicrate monthly book box with items. The main reason for this was because it was honestly the first book box that had a spot open up on their waitlist. This box is one that is really well known and there are many book bloggers and booktubers that I have seen who review these, so I honestly had some pretty high hopes for this subscription.

Looking into it, this box is pretty expensive for 3 months. Part of this is due to the fact that this is a UK based subscription box, making the shipping more expensive. Because the subscription I did was for the box and items (this is the option I prefer if available), it is also more expensive. For me, this puts a bit more pressure on the quality and nature of the product being shipped to me and if I think it is worth the price. That being said, because I paid for 3 months in advance, I honestly quickly forgot about the price of the box and focused solely on the product when it was received.

One thing I can say about this box, it was always shipped on time. One of the book boxes I got a long time ago was constantly months behind schedule, so it was a relief to see that the boxes always came towards the end of the month. I typically would see the box on my doorstep within a week after getting the shipping email.

I figured the best way to approach these was to leave the best for last, aka the book. If you’ve seen anyone unbox these three months I got, then you’ll probably already know. I got my boxes between October and November with the November one showing up just a few days before I write this post! Let’s see how we rated these items!

I’m rating the items in each box on 4 categories: theme, usefulness, do I like them, and quality. Theme technically has to do with both how much I enjoy the overall theme of the box as well as how well I think that the items represent the theme. I rate all of these categories on a 1-5 scale and then do some quick math (not a fan) to get a total rating that encompasses all categories across all three boxes.

The three boxes I received came with the themes of Knightcore, In Every Life, and Academic Rivals. Each box came with 4 items that were related to the theme, typically through a related books fandom. If I enjoy a theme, I’m more likely to enjoy the items that come in it. Makes sense right? This proved to be true for the most part with these three boxes, so it’s at least still accurate for now

I will note here that I am not always so smart and I neglected to really take photos of each box that a received, which is just a rookie mistake on my part. I promise to do better with the next review box.

So what did I get in the boxes? Fantastic question my good friend! Let me tell you.

• Box One: Knightcore
  • Set of 8 bookmarks
  • Excalibur Sword Replica
  • Cosmetic Bag
  • Moth Bookshelf Bunting
• Box Two: In Every Life
  • Book Pot
  • Packing Cubes (set of 2)
  • Cross Stitch Kit
  • Shaker Key Ring
• Box Three: Academic Rivals
  • Iron-On Patch
  • Puzzle
  • Laundry Bag
  • 2026 Calendar

Out of these items, I could see that they tried to make as many of them as possible useful to someone. That being said, for me, a lot of these ended up missing the mark either because I already had something similar or they just weren’t anything I was going to use. I do love that they include some decorative items as well, because I’m a huge knick knack person. My favorite items are the book pot (I use it to store bookmarks), the puzzle, and the bookshelf bunting.

Overall, I enjoyed the items and I don’t think at any point was I completely disappointed with what I saw when I opened a package. My favorite box for items was definitely the Knightcore box. The score across all three boxes ended up being a 3.81, which I would probably round up to a 4 on vibes alone

This is what you really want to know about right? The books. Are they any good? What’s the point of fun items if the book that comes with it is absolute crap?! Well, I have a confession to make. You know that list of rules at the top of this blog post that I put out there for all to see? Yeah. I didn’t follow that rule I made about trying to read one of the books. Please don’t be mad.

Each box comes with a book with custom endpapers, a custom hardcover, a custom jacket, and custom edges. Each book I received was also a new release that was coming out the month the box was delivered. I have mixed feelings on this personally. On one hand, it’s fantastic to get a new release but at the same time it’s difficult to be super excited about a book I know nothing about. I know this make absolutely no sense considering I love a mystery and I purposely avoid spoilers, but that’s where my brain is on this subject at the moment. I both like it and I don’t like it.

Anyways, here are the books!

September: The Second Death of Locke

October: The Isle in the Silver Sea

November: A Rather Vengeful Accord

That’s all three! I would say my favorite naked cover is The Second Death of Locke but my favorite dust jacket is definitely A Rather Vengeful Accord. Each has absolutely gorgeous sprayed edges. I will say, that these books did not disappoint in the aesthetic department. Let’s look at where they landed on the scoreboard.

Overall, the books preformed very well. The ratings came from Goodreads with an average rating between the three books being almost a 4 star. I thought the upgrades made to the books were great and the quality felt really nice. For my interest, it was primarily based on how soon I thought I wanted to read the book. I was the most interested in the plot of A Rather Vengeful Accord because of the whole necromancy and gladiator style battle arena plot line. How could I not be interested in that!

Overall, I really enjoyed this box. I can see why people enjoy getting it and why it’s got a waitlist. The items were fun but I’m not sure I’ll use half of them. That being said, the items I liked I really liked and like I said before, everything felt like it was a nice quality. I am also excited at how pretty the books were. I should definitely make sure to read at least one of them relatively soon, and I will try to make sure that I read at least one in the future when doing these posts.

In the end, if I had the money in the budget (and weren’t testing out multiple boxes at once) , I’d get this again. It’s fun, the themes are enjoyable and I genuinely was excited each time one showed up at my doorstep!

That’s all for todays post friends. I’m sorry it’s a day late but we got here in the end! Let me know if you have any suggestions on book subscription boxes I should try!

Bye friends!!!!