Luminary Book Box-January "Forbidden Magic"
Hello readers!
Do you guys always get FOMO seeing all of these bookish unboxings but don't know which one is the best? Feeling overwhelmed on the choices on the market of bookish boxes and where to start? We all love seeing OwlCrate unboxings but you may not ever get a chance to sign up due to the box selling out or the price being a little too high. So what else is on the market?
Don't worry, I'm here to hopefully help you.
I've decided to check out different bookish subscription boxes to give you guys the details on each box and help you make a little more informed decision on which subscription is best for you.
Do you guys always get FOMO seeing all of these bookish unboxings but don't know which one is the best? Feeling overwhelmed on the choices on the market of bookish boxes and where to start? We all love seeing OwlCrate unboxings but you may not ever get a chance to sign up due to the box selling out or the price being a little too high. So what else is on the market?
Don't worry, I'm here to hopefully help you.
I've decided to check out different bookish subscription boxes to give you guys the details on each box and help you make a little more informed decision on which subscription is best for you.
Today's post is an unboxing of the Luminary box's January themed box, Forbidden Magic. I know what you're thinking, it's the end of February and you're calling this a January box?
We'll get into that later.
The Luminary Box is a collaboration monthly YA book subscription between the creators of Wick & Fable and Flick the Wick. Luminary started in May of 2019 and their artwork is out of the park for the physical box, their announcements, I'm just really blown away by the imagery.
We'll get into that later.
The Luminary Box is a collaboration monthly YA book subscription between the creators of Wick & Fable and Flick the Wick. Luminary started in May of 2019 and their artwork is out of the park for the physical box, their announcements, I'm just really blown away by the imagery.
This box is $35.00 a month. You get one hard cover copy of a new YA release and 4+ bookish items.
Each box is supposed to ship on the 20th of the month, I received mine on February 14th. The box shipping label was created on February 8th, almost 3 weeks after the original ship date, due to some of the bookish goodies being stuck in customs. It finally actually started moving on February 12th. I originally had this large rant about the miscommunication regarding the shipping of this box, but I went to the Luminary Instagram page post-receiving my box and they had a long post addressing the issue.
I wanted to comment on the tracking issue regardless because I think it's important as a consumer of the box. It did take a while, I don't blame Luminary box nor the vendor they were waiting on for the fact that it did take a while. However, I would have appreciated an email stating that there was a delay and the new ship date is TBD.
Onto the actual contents of the box.
Upon opening the box, I immediately saw these small little trinket items.
There is a Wick & Fable candle called Rosella, which is related to this month's book. It's really hard to pin point what the actual notes are, and I did try to find it on Wick & Fable website, but it's not yet listed there. It's sweet and I want to say citrus-y, like either grapefruit or orange.
There was also a really pretty mirror with a quote from the Red Queen series designed by @JezHawk. I absolutely love the design, it reminds me of the animated Hercules movie with the lines included in the imagery and if you know anything about me, that's one of my favorite Disney movies.
The last little item is an enamel pin that is styled similarly and also by @Jezhawk. It's really hard to capture the image due to the amount of sparkle but it has the Scarlet Guard's moto "Rise, Red as the dawn". Unfortunately one of the two posts in the back was broken when I received it. I'm hoping that the super glue I used to put it back holds it together.
The next item in the box was this large Throne of Glass tapestry designed by @BXRomance. I recently found Juliet on Instagram and a lot of her work is really beautiful and ethereal. I'm excited to own this specific piece of art that she created, it's more subdued than some of her other artwork and so far it's the closest fanart I've seen of what I pictured of Rowan and Aelin. I just want to give a little shoutout/highlight to her Geralt artwork, he is a beautiful man.
Over-all I'm pretty excited about this box. Most of the items I see myself using and I'd heard of all of the fandoms included. I appreciate that most of the items are usable and pretty generic as far as pleasing a wide variety of people's taste. I think the book they chose was also a really great pick.
Would I re-order this box?
I am leaning towards not repurchasing it. I could be swayed if there were a few changes made and if I saw that there was more consistency with shipping.I may revisit in a year and see if it's one I'm still interested in.
Do I think it's worth the cost?
Breaking down the cost of the items vs. the price of the box, you are still getting a cheaper deal than if you were to go out and purchase them separately. There is the argument of whether or not you would purchase those items if you hadn't received them in this box. At this point, you are purchasing a subscription box and I think it's pretty clear which side of the line you stand on.
However, comparing it to other similar boxes on the market, it falls to the middle-high side as far as costs go and nothing about it really makes it stand out aside from the beautiful box it comes in.
In the end, I don't think that it's worth it if you were to stand it next to the cost and execution of a company like Owlcrate. I don't want to compare these other boxes to one as popular as Owlcrate, however the execution that Owlcrate does for their boxes is kind of a standard regarding price point, shipping, and goods provided.
If you are looking for a bookish subscription service to have as a fun gift, I would keep looking. That is just where I'll leave it.
Moving forward, I'd like to review a month of each different subscription service to kind of give an over-all review of each service. I'll be purchasing each of these boxes myself, unless otherwise noted in the post. Hopefully the next one comes a little bit quicker than this one.
Each box is supposed to ship on the 20th of the month, I received mine on February 14th. The box shipping label was created on February 8th, almost 3 weeks after the original ship date, due to some of the bookish goodies being stuck in customs. It finally actually started moving on February 12th. I originally had this large rant about the miscommunication regarding the shipping of this box, but I went to the Luminary Instagram page post-receiving my box and they had a long post addressing the issue.
I wanted to comment on the tracking issue regardless because I think it's important as a consumer of the box. It did take a while, I don't blame Luminary box nor the vendor they were waiting on for the fact that it did take a while. However, I would have appreciated an email stating that there was a delay and the new ship date is TBD.
Onto the actual contents of the box.
Upon opening the box, I immediately saw these small little trinket items.
There is a Wick & Fable candle called Rosella, which is related to this month's book. It's really hard to pin point what the actual notes are, and I did try to find it on Wick & Fable website, but it's not yet listed there. It's sweet and I want to say citrus-y, like either grapefruit or orange.
There was also a really pretty mirror with a quote from the Red Queen series designed by @JezHawk. I absolutely love the design, it reminds me of the animated Hercules movie with the lines included in the imagery and if you know anything about me, that's one of my favorite Disney movies.
The last little item is an enamel pin that is styled similarly and also by @Jezhawk. It's really hard to capture the image due to the amount of sparkle but it has the Scarlet Guard's moto "Rise, Red as the dawn". Unfortunately one of the two posts in the back was broken when I received it. I'm hoping that the super glue I used to put it back holds it together.
The next item in the box was this large Throne of Glass tapestry designed by @BXRomance. I recently found Juliet on Instagram and a lot of her work is really beautiful and ethereal. I'm excited to own this specific piece of art that she created, it's more subdued than some of her other artwork and so far it's the closest fanart I've seen of what I pictured of Rowan and Aelin. I just want to give a little shoutout/highlight to her Geralt artwork, he is a beautiful man.
Towards the bottom of the box had some prints and a bookmark.
The two prints are of Lou and Reid from Serpent & Dove, designed by @Morgana0anagrom. I'm super excited because I finished this book right around the same time I received my box and it's one of my favorites for the year so far.
The beautiful bookmark is double sided. One side has a quote from Throne of Glass, the other has a quote from Serpent & Dove. I posted a quick peek at it on Instagram. The bookmark was designed by @Fabled.Merch. It's a really nice, wooden one and I absolutely love it. The pamphlet just has the suppliers for the entire box.
Last but not least, the beautiful book for this months box.
First off, I absolutely adore the fact that they package their books in these sleeves. I definitely intend on using these in the future when I loan out books to co-workers so they can protect my books in their backpacks.
I'm pretty excited to read Dark and Deepest Red. I first heard about it while checking out the new releases for the beginning of the year. Although I didn't list it on my most anticipated list, the synopsis really stuck with me. It's apparently a retelling of Han's Christian Anderson's 'The Red Shoes' mixed with some historical fiction. I read in some of the reviews that one of the main characters is trans, which definitely makes me more interested.
Over-all I'm pretty excited about this box. Most of the items I see myself using and I'd heard of all of the fandoms included. I appreciate that most of the items are usable and pretty generic as far as pleasing a wide variety of people's taste. I think the book they chose was also a really great pick.
Would I re-order this box?
I am leaning towards not repurchasing it. I could be swayed if there were a few changes made and if I saw that there was more consistency with shipping.I may revisit in a year and see if it's one I'm still interested in.
Do I think it's worth the cost?
Breaking down the cost of the items vs. the price of the box, you are still getting a cheaper deal than if you were to go out and purchase them separately. There is the argument of whether or not you would purchase those items if you hadn't received them in this box. At this point, you are purchasing a subscription box and I think it's pretty clear which side of the line you stand on.
However, comparing it to other similar boxes on the market, it falls to the middle-high side as far as costs go and nothing about it really makes it stand out aside from the beautiful box it comes in.
In the end, I don't think that it's worth it if you were to stand it next to the cost and execution of a company like Owlcrate. I don't want to compare these other boxes to one as popular as Owlcrate, however the execution that Owlcrate does for their boxes is kind of a standard regarding price point, shipping, and goods provided.
If you are looking for a bookish subscription service to have as a fun gift, I would keep looking. That is just where I'll leave it.
Moving forward, I'd like to review a month of each different subscription service to kind of give an over-all review of each service. I'll be purchasing each of these boxes myself, unless otherwise noted in the post. Hopefully the next one comes a little bit quicker than this one.
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