The Best Damn Book Box Review + Coupon – November 2016

Take a look at the Facebook page. Cratejoy is emailing people about refunds and cancelling subscriptions. I don’t know if anyone will receive any more boxes. What a shame.

I also subscribed to The Best Damn Book Box, and I was very unimpressed with this August box (that most of us received in November). With a theme of “Oz and Everything Wicked” I expected more wickedy items in the box instead of a little soap finger and a green tea light candle. They have been consistently under value in their boxes and I really hope they get their act together soon. Every month the company says they will get caught up that month, and then you are lucky if you get even a box that month. I suggest looking at other book box subscriptions that cost less and are worth the money, such as Uppercase or Owlcrate!

I would not recommend this box at all. I signed up for several boxes but they never were shipped on time. If you expect to get a box for January, it might arrive in May or June, if you are lucky. The owner has great ideas, but the follow through is just plain terrible. She has excuses all the time. I also had to have my bank step in to recover my money because she never sent the boxes. Plus, she would sell specialty boxes and never get those out either. The quality of items in the boxes don’t match up to the cost or wait time. I really like Owlcrate and Uppercase. But, this is just my opinion and experience with this book box.

Well I wrote a long post and it disappeared! I purchased a three month membership in September and have received nothing but excuse after excuse. I finally contacted my bank and disputed it and cancelled. I have several subs and I would highly recommend Beautiful Madness Bookcase and My Lit Box. My 13yo receives Owl Crate and Lit Joy and they are great! LitJoy had the Diabolic and goodies for November and December was Scythe and great goodies. I loved both months and devoured the books.

I bought my daughter a three month subscription in September to start in October (then November and December). We have received nothing but excuse after excuse. I finally called my bank to dispute and cancelled. I have a lot of sub boxes and if any of you are interested in others, I highly recommend Beautiful Madness Bookcase, My Lit Box and a YA book sub called LitJoy. It has been mostly stellar.

Just so I’m clear on this: it’s $39.99 + $6.99 shipping? So a total of $46.98 for a paperback book (that retails for $10.99) and $5-6 dollars worth of trinkets? Granted, I wasn’t a math or economics major, but something seems a bit off here…

There is cohesive curation, and the bookmarks are cute, I’ll give it that. But even from just the pictures of the necklace I can tell it’s the type of cheap jewelrey that will oxidize and turn green within half a dozen wears – sooner if you sweat at all. There’s simply no way that necklace is worth $14.99, or even “$14.99?”

If the total cost of this this sub was $15, or maybe (picture that “maybe” in italics) $20, with shipping included, it could be a fun sub for the bookish sort. But for close to $50, I’d rather just have five books, and no cheap novelty items.

Or to use the parlance of this particular sub, you’d best damn save your money and just go to Amazon.

So because I love the MSA community, I feel the need to share my experience with this company. I signed up for a 3 month subscription at the beginning of June. Three months later, my card was charged for a 2nd 3 month subscription, before I even received my first box. After several attempts to try and contact the owner for a refund, I finally heard back that she would check with her “technical support” to see what went wrong (although on instagram she has stated several times that the company is made up of herself and family members). I never heard back from her again, despite more emails. None of my 3 boxes lived up the the price point of $39.99 plus shipping. Especially this Oz box. Which was promised to include a NEW YA book. The same thing happened with the Peter Pan box, where subscribers received a copy of….Peter Pan. She’s sent a few emails promising extra boxes, and extra books to apologize for the delays and box contents…none have happened. Current subscribers are still waiting for their SEPTEMBER boxes. On her instagram she’s made several updates (full of excuses) saying boxes are shipping in the next day or so, but still, no boxes have been received. So please before you take the plunge on this box, check out the angry subscribers on the company’s instagram, or the reviews on cratejoy. And then maybe consider Owlcrate or Fairyloot (UK based) which are much more consistent and have excellent customer service 🙂

Hmm.. I’ll have to keep my eye on this one for future themes.. I just dropped Lit Cube because the last several months really didn’t capture my interest. Perhaps this one would make a good replacement? I hope to see some ongoing reviews for this.