Unboxing: Review of LitJoy Crate May 2019

“Darkness Calls”

The theme of the May LitJoy Crate, “Darkness Calls”, was full of nods to well known “bad” boys. Many artists were involved in the creation of this months box, so let’s look closer.

Night Court Stationery. If you happen to enjoy mailing letters to your friends and family – which we really all should do more, because happy mail is amazing – LitJoy has you covered. This set of navy blue Night Court envelopes was designed by Noverantale and each envelope includes a complimenting designed slip of paper.

Hot Pad Set. (So if you were an international subscriber, as I am, we weren’t sent both hot pads … still waiting on the replacement that was sent … yay, mail). These hot pads were also designed by Noverantale  and are a punny spin on “It’s a small underworld after all” featuring a comical scene with Hades.

Malfoy Men Magnets. This 3 pack of heavy fridge magnets features artwork from Nastja Mclakoff.

Prince Cardan Pillow Cover. This is a gorgeous, silky square pillow cover designed by Salome Totladze featuring grumpy, bad boy Prince Cardan from The Cruel Prince.

Paper goodies. The trading cards this month featured Aedion Ashryver and Chaol Westfall with artwork by Gabriella Bujdoso. An extra author letter with artwork by Maria Lahaine and the beautiful product magazine (and reversible dust jacket art) designed by Salome Totladze.

The book pick for May was Nocturna by Maya Motayne, which featured the really cool reversible dust jacket art by Salome Totladze as well as art in the book of the main characters by Kathryn Adara.

Overall Rating: B

• Night Court Stationery 2/3: I don’t send mail. I should, but I don’t … so I was pretty underwhelmed by this set. I was also disappointed they came in a throw away cardboard box, it would’ve been nice if the box they came in was more substantial.

• Hot Pad Set 2/3: So I didn’t get the set, so that stinks, but again just really not my personal favourite aesthetic. But these might be fun to bring out at Halloween. Quality seemed fine.

• Malfoy Magnets 2/3: I really, really don’t like the Malfoy clan. I mean I get the darkness tie-in, but in the whole world of Harry Potter … just anyone else please! But they are really well done!

• Prince Cardan Pillow Case 3/3: This is really beautiful. The artwork is fantastic and the material is super soft and silky. This is exactly as I picture Cardan and she captured his arrogance perfectly!

I loved that they featured so many different artists in this box but overall it just wasn’t for me.

Sometimes a box just won’t be a hit with my personal tastes and fandoms, and that’s fine! I can’t call out any quality issues on any of the items other than it being disappointing that the stationery set just came in a squashed, throw away cardboard box …  at least even putting the Night Court design on the box would’ve been appreciated.

Note on Rating: I rate each item out of 3 possible points: 1 for quality, 1 for usefulness, and 1 for if I personally liked the item/fandom. I then assign an overall letter rating for the whole box.