Illumicrate- April "Squad Goals"

Hello readers!

This months box is from Illumicrate, a company I have definitely admired from afar. I follow a few people on Instagram that have done the special edition unboxings, specifically for Darkdawn and King of Scars, that look absolutely phenomenal. I'm going to try to hold my bias of their special edition boxes out of this one. 

The monthly cost of the box, after converted from euro to USD is $29.00 per month. You receive an exclusive edition of a new release and 4-6 bookish goodies. Their estimated ship date is the 20th-25th of each month, which seems to be the standard so far. 

The first thing that came out of the box was this awesome tote inspired by the Lord of The Rings. I love the size, since it seems to be a bit thinner than most totes. The print definitely makes me want to assign it as my Book Warehouse bag. One of our local book stores has Book Warehouse days. The first 3 days have discounted pricing on used book but on Sunday, the final day, you can fill a regular shopping sized bag of books for $5. The artwork for the bag was designed by Rachel Bostick.

I haven't heard of the book before, but the Illumicrate edition has these gorgeous teal sprayed edges. There is also a signed book plate and an illustration by Nicole Deal of the characters from this months book. I follow Nicole on Twitter and she does an amazing job creating illustrations of book-ish characters.

Next was this awesome Aurora Rising battery pack with an illustration by Icandrawthingz. I'm usually pretty good about keeping my phone charged, but with summer coming up I know this will be handy for some of my other devices to keep a charge while I'm camping or at the beach.

I also like the Gilded Wolves inspired, magnetic whiteboard, designed by Aentee. The entire thing is just a magnet so it wont fall apart the way I feel like other magnetic erase boards can. I appreciate including useful things like these that are themed book-ish to make them more usable.

The final really standout item, and the push for me to specifically choose to review Illumicrate for this months box was the Witchlands book marks. I've read the first two books and the novella in this series and I absolutely love it. I'm saving Bloodwitch for closer to when the next book, Witchshadow. These illustractions of our main characters were done by CoCo.  I'm excited to have portraits of these characters since I enjoy them so much and I look forward to the rest of the series.

Would I re-order this box?

Although I enjoyed this box, I would not repurchase a regular subscription box from them. I would, however, purchase a special edition box from them for any future releases that I am looking forward to. 

Do I think it's worth the cost? 

Yes, however the shipping cost is pretty steep since this is coming internationally. I completely understand that Illumicrate can't control shipping costs at all, so I do not fault them. 


I think for now I'm going to postpone continuing to get monthly bookish boxes until international shipping goes a bit more back to normal. Otherwise I will end up with a back-log of boxes like I currently have to post and share with you guys at irregular times. I may pop in an Owlcrate and make an exception there since they seem to be the least affected by shipping delays.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments below.