What’s In the Box: ShelfLove January 2020

I just received my January 2020 Shelflove Crate Envelope(?) and I had to run to the blog to share it with you! I’m gonna be totally honest, guys, I was INCREDIBLY disappointed with this one. First, I guess they’ve made the decision to switch to envelopes rather than boxes for shipping costs and it’s just much less impressive and more prone to damage, I think. Next, the items were really underwhelming unfortunately. I have always loved ShelfLove because even though they had shipping issues and woes, the quality was always good. This is the first major slip up from them and I’ll be watching carefully to see if I continue to subscribe.

overall

As I said above, they have switched to envelopes, which to me seems really likely to cause some damage. In fact, as you can see above, my book sleeve was damaged since my envelope was ripped when I received it.

When you open the envelope most of the items were included inside the large book sleeve, but the socks were separate. The book sleeve has a vinyl feel to it and doesn’t seem as high quality as other book sleeves I’ve gotten through book subscriptions before. I do like that it featured Nyxia and the design is cute. It’s also very oversized, so would for sure fit a large hardback book.

individual items

As you can see, this month’s box was somewhat sparse. The main item is the Nyxia book sleeve designed by @blanca.design. It’s cute, though I wish the print was on a higher quality feeling item.

The next item is these very cute, but totally useless, cards of the characters from Red Rising, designed by @icandrawthingz. I do like the idea behind this, but am not sure what I’m supposed to do with them! They are really well-designed, but I was disappointed in this as an “item.”

Next up, a wooden bookmark inspired by Scythe designed by @arz28. Again, the design of the bookmark is cute and I’m glad it’s from a somewhat underrepresented book, but the quality seemed really poor. I wouldn’t have actually known it was a woodmark unless you told me!

We also got this sticker inspired by The Hunger Games. This felt kind of like a sticker you can get at the doctor’s office. I wished it was a vinyl sticker at least!

These socks, designed by @heyatlascreative and inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, were definitely my favorite item in the entire box. They are really cute and I love the quote they picked! At first, I’ll admit I thought they were Santa hats, but it made a lot more sense once I saw the bottoms! These were great and I am glad I got them.

the book

This month’s book is Ashlords by Scott Reintgen, and as you know we really loved this book! You can read our review here and definitely check out our Q&A with Scott here! It also came with a signed book plate, which is pretty standard for ShelfLove rather than actually signing the book.

Their new collectible item appears to be a bonus dust jacket for the book. I didn’t notice it at first until I picked up the book to take a picture, since it was hidden under the regular book jacket.

The book jacket is definitely interesting and includes most of the same information as the regular jacket (excepting author information). It’s completely redesigned, front and back, and seemed to fit pretty well. This is an interesting item for sure and I like it more than the chess pieces, which I thought were cute but never really knew what to do with.

What About You?

What did you think of this box? To me, it was incredibly sparse and not really worth the money. I would rate it like a 3/10 and that’s being kind of generous. I’m disappointed that they have envelopes now instead of boxes and most of the items seemed to be really low quality. The best two items were the book sleeve and the socks for sure, but even the book sleeve wasn’t super high quality. I’m disappointed and they really only have another month to prove me wrong before I cancel! Such a bummer!