Welcome back to another exciting episode of....... Book Box Battle! We are excited to return for October's round. This month we will be comparing 3 new and delightful boxes. While we make our decision based on many criteria, we would love to know in the comments below what box was your favorite!
Battling it out to be the ruler of round 2 are Spearcraft Box, Unplugged Book Box, and The Bookworm Box. All of the boxes purchased this round are YA boxes. Something we forgot to include last month was the prices of the boxes, we've updated that since so feel free to check back on Round One if you wanted to know what those boxes cost.
About the box
Bookworm Box was created by the author Colleen Hoover (if you haven't read any of her books, you definitely should). 100% of the profit from these boxes are donated directly to charity. Not only are you getting a great read, you're also donating to a worthy cause. You can check out their donations and the charities they work with here.
Spearcraft started from a love of books and crafting for Laura. The awesome thing about Spearcraft is that most of the items you receive in your box are made by the Spearcraft team. They've been around since 2016 so you know they know what they're doing. You can learn more about how they do what they do here.
Unplugged book box focuses on self care. It offers a book and items to help you unwind and take care of you. You can find out more about Melanie and the team that run Unplugged by checking out their Instagram.
Price
Bookworm Box - $39.99 (prepay for 3, 6, or 12 months to save some money) shipping included for U.S. customers
Spearcraft Book Box - $34 (by the time of writing this, subscriptions are sold out and you can only purchase one time boxes.) + $9.75 shipping in the U.S.
Unplugged Book Box - $39.99 (prepay for 3, 6, or 12 months to save money) + $9.35 shipping in the U.S.
Looking at the price alone I would have to pick Bookworm Box since the shipping is inclusive. Spearcraft and Unplugged aren't very transparent about the additional cost for shipping unless you check out their FAQ or go through the process of adding your address and information. Personally I feel this is information that should be included up front.
Ordering and Shipping
Spearcraft and Unplugged shipped within a couple weeks of ordering, the process was pretty simple and self explanatory. You added to cart, provided your info, paid, and waited. Bookworm box was a little different. I had to sit on the waitlist for a minute before I was able to place my order. Once I did, I got a notification two days later that my box had shipped. (Colleen Hoover's team is QUICK!)
I have to again give this one to the Bookworm Box. That turn around time is so great for my anxiety. I haven't had the best of luck with items arriving on time, or at all lately so it was a really nice change of pace for me to have something ship so quickly.
Packaging
Spearcraft made an announcement on their page that as of September they will be shipping in plain boxes until prices return to pre-pandemic levels. I hear ya Spearcraft! Everything is expensive these days.
Unplugged comes in a brown box with a cute pink plug that wraps around it and says UNPLUGGED on the top.
Bookworm Box arrived in a teal box with "Good Deeds. Great Reads." printed on the side and a cute little worm coming out of a box on the top.
I have to tell you that teal is one of my favorite colors. When my Bookworm box arrived in teal, I was so excited for what was inside, cause really really great things come in Teal boxes 😉 Bookworm Box takes it again!
Theme + Items
You can check out the unboxings of each box and the items received at the end of this post!
Spearcraft's theme for the box I received was Dark Magic. With items from Sabrina, Practical Magic, The Magicians, and Coraline - I definitely feel like they stayed within the theme.
Unplugged's box was their 3 year anniversary box with the theme Finding your strength. I am going to be honest here, that I haven't read half of the books some of the items in the box cam from, so I can't be sure if they all align with the theme or not. The items from books I do recognize definitely fall within Finding your strength.
Bookworm box sadly did not seem to have a theme. The items all seemed to be a bit of a hodgepodge of bookish goodies and a book. There is an additional ebook included that you are supposed to receive a link to via email on the 25th of the month....I did not. 😢
For Theme I would award the points to Spearcraft. Since it's October now I am just really feeling the spooky vibes and I just think it fits for me.
Item points will go to Unplugged. I can not express to you how amazing everything smelled when I opened them. The reusable straws are such a great idea to include and I love the little extra step of engraving on each one.
The Winner
Because the items you receive and the theme of the box are probably the two most important, Unplugged and Spearcraft are awarded 2 points each. Bookworm Box is the winner for Round 2 - winning 3 categories and a little extra for proceeds going straight to charity. I 1000% love the idea of a box run by authors and being used to do good things in the world. If they add in a theme each month and make the items be more cohesive instead of hodgepodge this will be a winning box all around and might be some serious competition for the bigger boxes out there like Owlcrate, Illumicrate, and Fairyloot.
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