Do you subscribe to book boxes? I admit, I get sucked into these things and end up subscribing to more than one at a time! Several years ago, my wonderful husband subscribed me to a book box, Coffee and a Classic, as a Christmas present. Every month I got a lovely box with a book, coffee or tea, a mug, and all sorts of neat bookish goodies. I waited eagerly for this box each month, but eventually decided $50 a month for a book and a mug was a little steep and unsubscribed.

Since then, I've subscribed to a book box for true crime lovers, one for romance readers, a book box subscription that was a one-off, and Book of the Month which I currently get each month because I can't seem to unsubscribe from them. They just sent me a tote bag this last month because I've gotten so many boxes from them.

The thing is, I'm not sure these boxes are really worth it. They're fun to get, no doubt, but what're they really worth? The books are often not of your choosing, which is a strike against unless you enjoy the thrill of surprise (I really don't). I do have to say, the thing I like most about Book of the Month is that you get to choose your selection each month and the box doesn't come with a whole bunch of frills. There's a book and a paper bookmark, that's it. 

The same can't be said for most of these boxes that are often filled with bookish stuff. Things like necklaces, lotion, candles, and edible goodies. Sadly, other than a few items here and there, I can't tell you what I've done with the stack of bookish treasures I've gotten from these boxes over the years. I have most of the mugs I got from the Coffee and a Classic boxes, but otherwise most of the stuff has fallen by the wayside somewhere along the way.

For a while I kept a box where I put these goodies, but it began to overflow with things I would never use like a bottle opener the shape of a whale, incense that smelled awful, ornaments, little candles, and small notebooks. Funny enough, I actually still have the bottle opener, it's one of the few items I know what I did with. 

So that leaves the value of the box in the book and most books just aren't worth the $40 or $50 that many of these boxes cost per month. Especially since I could just buy the books for under $15 on Amazon. Again, something I like about Book of the Month because it costs me less than $20 per month most months.

Perhaps I'm just jaded by the many, many book boxes I've gotten over the years. None of them, except the Coffee and a Classic boxes that started it all being all that impressive. I'd love to hear what you think. Do you get book boxes and if so, what's the value for you? Do you like the surprise each month and, honestly, would you actually buy the books you've gotten in those book boxes if you saw them on the shelf at Barnes and Noble? I'd love to hear! 

I should start with an admission, to give this post a little bit of context. So here goes: I have been trying to resist reading YA since I was in my mid-twenties. There you go. The thing is, when I was a kid, YA lit was simple and easy. It was for children, to inspire them read, and while some of it was good, it was also often formulaic and highly simplistic. We read things like the Fear Street Series by R.L. Stein, and they were awesome, but they were clearly for teenagers. Before that, it was Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Young Adult was for, well, young adults... for teenagers.

Heck, I read many of the Fear Street novels, but I did so when I was of the appropriate age to fit into their target audience, while I was still young enough to enjoy them for what they were, without my mind wrapping around the obviousness of many of the plots and destroying my suspension of disbelief. I could do it then. Now, as an English grad student, I'm trained to see what's going on in the book, which renders much of the YA from my youth completely unreadable. Wow, okay, that makes me sound like a lit snob, doesn't it? It wasn't meant that way. I enjoyed them then, I probably still would, but for the nostalgia, not the story.

Many of my friends in high school, for lack of YA reading with depth, turned to the books like Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. I never did read it, fairly certain my mother would have sent me back to the library to put the book back where I got it. My friends all seemed to love them, but that series was far from the YA lit of R.L Stein and Carolyn Keene. Still, without much interesting reading appropriate to a 15 year old, they went right to the "adult-ish" books. I still haven't read Flowers in the Attic but I'm going to have to put that series on my reading list.

Then, when I was in my twenties, something happened. Well, a few things, really. The first, I became a much more avid reader. I consumed books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The second, I found Harry Potter. Not at first, of course, in fact I was able to reject Harry Potter for years. But eventually, I was convinced to read them by friends who were adamant fans. My gal pal, Amanda, lent me the first three books in the series and I tore through them. From that point on, I was hooked. I devoured the rest of the series, waited patiently for the 7th book, and when it came out, I did the same. I laughed, cried, and began to realize that YA lit was not only for children. Rather, some of the themes were so adult, I wondered how any child, with their limited life experience, could understand them.

Still, I wasn't completely sold on the whole YA thing. I wondered if Harry Potter wasn't simply an exception, rather than a rule. It was fantastic, no doubt, I don't think anyone would argue with that (though I have a professor who hates it). Then, Twilight came out and I rejected that, too, but somewhere along the way I began to realize, much to my surprise, that YA lit had evolved. From simplistic plots for children, to something that all ages could enjoy, YA lit had grown up. It was defined not by its unwillingness to address the hard themes, but such elements as the lack of graphic sex. It addressed issues through teenage protagonists, but that didn't make it a genre strictly for children.

These days, with YA lit having evolved so thoroughly, I have abandoned any qualms I had about reading it. In fact, I embrace it, as do many adults around the book blogosphere, I've noticed. Now, I look for titles I want to read, without regard for their labels, but for their stories--I recently finished, and loved, the Hunger Games trilogy, a quite heavy YA lit trilogy and am currently reading The Girl in the Steel Corset. Now that I'm in my early thirties, I've finally come to terms with YA lit, but it's been a winding road. Sometimes, that's okay. Sometimes, it's not just the journey that matters, but the destination, too.