February 2021 - The Blog of the Mad Hattress

Review of “In An Absent Dream” by Seanan McGuire

Image of the book that is on review laying flat on a table, the cover says: "In an absent dream by Seanan McGuire".

Blurb:
A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire’s Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began in the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List Every Heart a Doorway
This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.
When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

Publisher: Tor.Com
Published: 1st February 2019
Length: 204 Pages
Genre: Magical Realism
Main Place of Action: A small town in America (1960-75)
Price: 14,95€ on Amazon

Summary:
Katherine is a young girl who has her life already planned out on her 6th birthday. She likes to keep her head in a book whenever she can, gathering wisdom, going on adventures with Alice, Peter, and Dorothy. When one day her own adventure awaits, she does not hesitate for long. Behind the door in the big tree is a world that would have made her heroes want to tag along. But it comes with consequences and life lessons, Katherine maybe did not want to learn that early…

Review:
As the blurb suggests this book is part of a series, but I got it as part of a mystery box and I can assure you that you need no knowledge pre-reading to enjoy the story 😉 It reminded me very heavily of Alice in Wonderland(with a splash of Pinnochio!), the story is even referenced in the book, but for me, it’s not a bad thing at all. I am a big fan of the old story and I really liked this one^^ It might be similar, but it does not take place in wonderland and tells its own tale.

All in all the story is about a young girl who does not seem to fit in the world she was born into, so a magical different one appears before her and she takes the chance to visit it. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, it’s not a one-way trip, she actually changes between both worlds multiple times, but you have to read the book to know in which world she ends up 😉
As a rather strange girl myself, I know the feeling of not fitting in and I have always dreamed about getting an opportunity like that, which made it even more fun reading about what world another person has made up^^

Reading the book and getting to know the world, understanding its rules was very intriguing, but only at the end is where the reader really begins to understand, what price has to be paid. The end actually has confused me a little bit and make me wonder if maybe the other books in the series do have some kind of meaning in this story too. But only a small one, so you would still be good, not having read the other books in the series. But I think about getting them now 😛

In between the story, there are some illustrations sprinkled in, to make help the reader imagine the world. But there are only about 3 illustrated pages, so there is still enough room for your own interpretations^^ Still I really appreciate the ones being there and their art style. They are somewhat sketchy and have this kind of magical flow to them, which really made them fit into what I have imagined while reading the story.

The only thing that really bothered me with this book is how fast the story is told. We have the adventure of a girl, growing up from an 8-year-old to an 18-year-old woman, having to make harsh decisions, told on about 200 pages, even though it could have been maybe even double the amount. There are many time skips and things that happened “off-screen” or in this case “off-page” which we are only told about very briefly, never really grasping what has happened. It also makes it quite hard to understand the protagonist sometimes. As I said, she has to make some very hard decisions, but I personally can’t really tell how she decided on them. In some ways, I even feel like I never really got to know her.

Picture of an illustrated page from the book, where a girl is looking ar a skteched out market with many diffrent stans, smoking coming from them and animals running around, it's very busy.

Final Verdict:
I was so looking forward to experiencing a story that could be compared with my all-time favorite and in some ways, this one has met my expectations. But I am still very sad about it being told in such a fast way, making it seem more like a short bedtime story, not giving me enough room to bond with the protagonist and really accompany her on her adventure. And there was some story happening behind the scenes, it’s not like the author did not have enough material, she just chooses to not include it and I can’t understand that at all. I would have loved to read a more detailed story, but I still would recommend reading it. If you are into short stories or want to experience something Alice in Wonderland-like and you see that book somewhere, definitely pick it up! But just know, that you won’t get to dive too deep into an otherwise fantastic story and a cool new world. That’s why I give the story a 3 out of 5 rating.

Rating shown with the book: 3 out of 4 books are colored.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

February 17

A Review on the Concept of Mystery Boxes

Maybe you already know the concept of a “Mystery Box” but in Germany, they are not as common, at least not as a cool idea. We know mystery boxes mostly as a way for shops to get rid of the stuff that is broken somehow or does not sell well. So you would get some items for a lower price, but they would also most likely be trash xD But on Etsy, for example, the shops will have a themed box, maybe showing you some of the contents, giving you a glimpse of what you might be getting, or not. But they don’t just pack the broken items in their shops, some might even be buying stuff just for you, or they at least give you some of the good stuff 😉 I have bought some of these boxes and want to share the experience with you, enjoy! I also made an extra post to some of the boxes, if you want to read it, just click on the link^^

Blind Date with a Book
I actually bought two book-themed boxes from the shop CoffeeAcademia on Etsy, one for me and one for my husband. I got a box with a well-loved(used) book and I only choose the genre to be magical realism and to get hot chocolate as a drink. My husband chose to get 3 randomly chosen books from the Penguin Black Classics edition. And here is what we got:

Picture of the inside of box one (mostly still wrapped) withe one book wrapped in brown paper and string, a bookmark, a postcard, a candle a white mug and a letter sealed with golden wax.

Picture of the inside of box two(mostly still wrapped) with three books wrapped in brown paper and srting, multiple postcards, a vinatge letter sealed with golden wax, a white candle and a light blue mug.

My book was “In an absent dream” by Seanan McGuire and my husband got a poetry book, a letter novel, and a normal novel. We were very lucky because the books matched our taste very well! We both got different bookmarks and postcards in a vintage style, porcelain cups, different mixes, and teabags for making beverages and scented candles. Everything was individually and beautifully wrapped, so the experience and the mystery did not stop after opening the package, which I really loved. All in all, I was really surprised and happy with the box and I can really recommend it^^

Picture of the inside of box one (unwrapped) with some sweets, two hot chocolate packages, one vintage style bookmark, a white mug, a candle with decorative rope round it, a postcard with a leaf and the book "in an absent dream".

Picture of the inside of box two(unpwrapped) with 3 diffrent books from penguin, sweets, 3 postcards, a hot chcoloate and a instant coffee package, a white candle, two tea bags, 3 small bookmars and a light blue mug.

Papergang
Papergang is the name of a subscription box from the UK that can be delivered monthly. You can’t choose any of the contents, but they work with a new artist every month to design exclusive stationery items such as pens, notebooks, and greeting cards. I did sign up for a subscription this year and already got my Januarys box. But I also bought the leftover of an old box they had(the box of October 2020), so that will be the one on review today:

Cover of the Papergang box November 2020 with a pattern of diffrent leafs, sticks and bones, flowers and wood and the name of the box inbetted in organe foil.

It contained lots of cool things like a full letter set with designed paper to write on and enough envelopes to send some letters to your friends. They also put two fully designed greeting cards with extra envelopes, if you have a special occasion^^ Also included were 3 different stamps with an ink pad and some washi tape with the moon phases on it. Last but not least there was a sweet little notebook and a calendar sheet for a month, but there is not October written on it so I can still use it, despite the box being outdated already, which I really appreciate!! It was the best box I got so far and I loved everything about it^^

Image of the inside of the box with three stamps, an ink pad, a wahitape roll, a notebook in mind green with orange foil, two greetingcards, a calander sheet, and a letterpad with the desing of the cover of the box.

Funny Mystery Box from OhhDeer
OhDeer is the same company from the UK which make the Papergang boxes and when I searched through their shop I saw that they had a normal mystery box too. But there was no glimpse of the contents what so ever, the description only said that it might contain stuff to make you giggle. So I went totally blind on this one and here’s what I got:

Image of the artsy cover the box came in with diffrent doodles of hands doing creative things like sticking washitape, cutting paper, drawing lines and so on.

The contains left me pretty disappointed not only because just a few items were actually fitting my own taste but also because the box was said the be worth 80€ and I just did not see that. I did even calculate how much the worth exactly was by looking through their website again and finding all the prices and it did not even reach the 80€. The contents were pencils with funny quotes on them, a Fight Club inspired soap bar, two enamel pins, a fragrance spray(against farts :P), a thin A4 notebook, two prints, and a photo frame that is made to look like a comic strip with speech bubbles to write on.

Inside look of the box, with two prints(one is not really visible) one is of a fortune chookie with a paper that says "Don't be a dick", tweo sets of diffrently colored graphite pencils, a read soaps that says "Dirty Bitch", two pins, a note book that says "Awake-ish" and a mystery looking bottle.

Image of the product "my comic life" that consists of a comicstrip with 3 example pictures and unfilled speechbubbles in diffrent shapes and a marker on the side.

My final verdict on my first mystery boxes
Well, I guess my haul has shown the many different sites of the concept of mystery boxes. There are the ones that let you choose what you get, those are the ones that guarantee some kind of success because, in the end, you will definitely get something according to your taste. If not, you might end up with a B**B pin and lame prints 😛 On the other hand, you could also get gems like an anti-fart spray which you might have never bought for yourself xD For me, mystery boxes are a great way to gift yourself and get nice surprises from time to time. And in a crisis like a pandemic where we can’t go out much and have many thoughts troubling our mind, a positive surprise like this can cheer us up^^ So I will be looking forward to my Papergang boxes for 2021 and the Blind Date with a Book Box really put a smile on my face, I will definitely get one again in the future!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Review | 46 Comments

February 10

A Blind Date With A Book

A blind date sounds like a mystery right? Because that’s exactly what it is, another mystery box from my big haul xD This time I found it on Etsy and actually got two boxes from the shop CoffeeAcademia one for my husband and one for me. They are both very similar but the books are the main actor in it. In my husbands’ version, there are 3 books randomly picked from the 80-anniversary Black Classics collection from Penguin. And in my version, I could only choose the genre of my book and I choose magical realism. I knew that we would get some stuff with the books, but tried not to spoiler ourselves too much, and that’ what it looked like:

Everything we got was beautifully packaged and individually wrapped so that every single piece could be enjoyed as a surprise. I did unwrap the candles and cups for the photos already, but they were well-secured too^^ I really loved how much detail got into putting everything together, with the wax seals on most of the paper and I also loved the strings <3 It really added to the whole feel of the box!
In my box, I got the book “In an absent dream” by Seanan McGuire, which is said to be very similar to Alice in Wonderland, so it seems to be the perfect match for me! I also got a vintage style bookmark, that looks really awesome and a postcard in a matching style. I also got a scented candle, a withe porcelain cup, hot chocolate mix to go with it, and some sweets 😉

My husband got his three black classics each wrapped individually with small bookmarks that were bird-themed. The black classics consisted of a poetry book, a letter novel, and a normal novel. He too got three postcards, which did not match the bird theme and his taste in general with different botanical drawings on it, but I guess I will just steal them 😉 He got a light blue porcelain cup and a white candle in a glass bowl, which seems to be scented too but there was no label on it. Because he was not able to choose a beverage to go with his books, he just got a bit of everything: one hot chocolate mix, two tea bags, and a coffee mix too^^ He drinks everything, so he liked them and the bag of sweets very much.

What I did not mention up till now is that those books were described as “well-loved” meaning they were used before. But it’s hardly noticeable at all! My book had some light scratches on the cover and a little rip on the first page. My husbands’ books had nothing we could see at first glance. So even though they were read before, the readers must have been really gentle with them and I really aprreachiate that^^ I am a bit of a cautious reader myself and I really hate it when the back of the book breaks and if the books we got would have had flaws like that, it would have been more of a problem 😉

Zoomed in picture of the wax seals from the shop, which are golden, have an open book in the middles and text going around it saying "Coffee Academia".

I did not get to read any of the books yet, but I am sure they will be good 🙂 Because I do think both me and my husband got really lucky, that we got books we liked so much. I was able to choose a genre, but I could have gotten anything like a book I already own, or a story I would not have been interested in, but I got something that felt perfectly suited for me. My husband had to gamble a bit more because he could not choose a genre but he got three different kinds of books and loved all of them! The experience we had while opening the package was better than I had imagined when ordering, so much love and thought went into preparing it! It was one of the best mystery boxes I got so far and I really recommend^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Review | 4 Comments

February 4

The Funny Mystery Box

Mystery Boxes are a tricky thing. Are they just a clever way for shops to get rid of their unwanted products, none wants to buy? Or are they a cool gift idea for others or even for yourself to get really surprised once in a while? The “Funny Mystery Box” was being sold on the website OhDeer and it was the first of its kind I’ve ever tried. Let’s see how it went 😉

I actually bought the mystery box without knowing anything about it. I was scrolling through the website in search of something completely different and the funny box appeared. It was even on sale and because I was always interested in trying something like that out, of course, I had to buy it! But the only thing I knew about it was the fact that “contents will make me giggle” and that it was normally priced around 80€, but I got it for around 20€. Because it was sold by OhDeer and I spend quite some time on their website, I was prepared for anything from a sock, greetings cards with funny quotes on them up to even a cactus. And here is what I’ve got:

I was actually a bit surprised that for a mystery box for about 80€ I would get only get about 10 items. Of course the questions is how much would the things cost if I would buy them each on its own, so I went back in the site and tried to find them.
The B**B enamel pin was nowhere to be found on the site as a normal pin, but I did find it combined with a greeting card for 4,48€. I had the same problem and the same result for the NERD pin, so 4,48€ each.
The pencils are normal pencils but they have different quotes written onto them. For the wizard pencils, you would get spells like “Expelliarmus” or sentences like “Dobby is free!” and the Crackin’ pens had quotes like “I have had some wines” and “Alright, sugar t*ts?”. Again I was not able to find the exact ones but other pencils sets like this in the shop cost 5,61€.
The dirty b*tch soap was the first item I actually found on the website and it costs exactly 4,48€. It’s a Fight Club inspired soap bar smelling like roses with some glitter in it. But I kinda like the idea and what they wrote on the back of the box: “You dirty b*tch; time to wash away those naughty actions […] Clean yourself up and your act! “
Total Eclipse of the Fart Lavatory Mist seems to be the priciest item I got at 10,14€. It sounds kinda epic and seems to be a fragrance spray to chase away bad smells like a fart. I have not tried it yet, but I have high hopes for it xD
The Awake-ish A4 Notebook was 5,61€ again and it’s basically what you would expect. It has some preprinted columns for the date, things to remember, and some columns to reflect your day. It’s not the kind of notebook I like to use, but there is nothing wrong with it.
I was not able to find the exact prints but on their site prints like those vary in price between 8-20€ and let’s face it those are not that great. One is even just some not very motivational text, at least I can kinda laugh about the fortune cookie. But I still don’t know if I would pay 10€ for any of them o_O
The last item I got is a DIY photo frame for 4,25€, which makes your pictures look like a comic strip. Basically, it just aligns them properly and gives you the option of putting some speech bubbles on them, making it look kinda authentic. There are two strips in that package and they are both magnetic, so you could technically put them on your fridge if you want. That’s at least pretty handy.

If I am generous and grand the prints 16€(which I would not pay for them) and count everything together I end up at a price of 60,66€, which I am actually pretty surprised about. I would not have counted the items to be over 30€ maybe 40€. That’s why I am a bit disappointed to be honest, I was just looking forward to more stuff or at least more interesting stuff? But there is something I have to praise OhDeer for, which is how they dealt with the other things being inside the package. Instead of taking old newspapers, or even buying new stuff like bubblewrap, they just shredded an old cardboard box that might have been used for shipping stuff to them. I really appreciate the reclyling^^

Just a picture of the packacking from the inside, which seems to be an old package that has gone through a shredder.

My final verdict on this box is not as great as I would have hoped. With mystery boxes, you always have the risk of getting stuff you don’t need or don’t want. At least some of the items in here are things to keep and they did manage to make me giggle a bit like promised! So I don’t want to say the items are bad in general, have bad quality, or are not fitting the theme, they are, but I just would not have paid the 80€ for it, if I would not have seen it in the sale. I just don’t see the price as justified. Just look at the other boxes OhDeer puts out, where I would pay about 15€ for one box and would get so much more for the price. I just don’t get why this box gives me the exact opposite feeling, it’s not made for the customer to enjoy, but for the shop to dispose of unwanted stuff. Maybe it was just this box and other ones are better, maybe I will try one of their boxes again in the future. But this one just did not really live up to the hype.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT