I'm Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom

                              

Title: I'm Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom

Author: Jason Pargin

Published: September 24, 2024

Pages: 400

Genre: Comedic Mystery/Thriller

Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.

But there are rules:

He cannot look inside the box.
He cannot ask questions.
He cannot tell anyone.
They must leave immediately.
He must leave all trackable devices behind.

As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.

The truth promises to be even stranger, and may change how you see the world.

Oh this book. I had a good time reading this book, I think I even liked it. But it was definitely a very specific style choice. It was very rooted in pop culture as well, which was pretty fun actually. Seeing how the social media machine shapes stories from multiple angles felt very realistic.

The black box. This woman is dead set on getting this black box to DC, and she doesn't care what laws she has to break to do it. Which is hilarious to me because she is the most inconspicuous and ridiculous person, so of course everyone is following along with the story on their phones. Discretion? Never met her.

Here's where I'm going to give a mini *spoiler alert.*

I wish we hadn't seen what was inside the black box. I kind of wish that it had stayed a mystery. It IS funny when you find out what's in it, and I enjoyed all of the shenanigans surrounding it. 

Ultimately, it's good, but it was just missing something for me.

Ratings

Stars: 3/5