I was fascinated by this book. I may not have understood what was happening at some points but it’s just such a great journey that the road getting there was quite interesting to say the least.

What a great story. A simple situation of transporting a box across the country turns into the most insane series of events that are definitely fictional but… could also absolutely happen thanks to the garbage fire that is social media.

The themes and messages are clear, well defined, and thought provoking (in a sense of the beginning of a conversation, not a conclusion; you’re welcome, Jason). The story is break-neck (sorry for the pun) from beginning to end, full of humor, action, and heart. There is so much to say and so much to discuss but the risk of spoilers is also way too big, but, suffice it to say, I think Jason has hit right on a growing feeling and a growing trend that people are going to become more aware of and in tune with in relation to the internet.

I haven’t read a Jason Pargin novel before, but I can say that now I’ve finished this book, I will be rushing out (okay, searching on my kindle) for John Dies at the End to carry on Pargin’s storytelling. It takes a lot for me to read a single author back-to-back, but that’s the level of enthusiasm this book has instilled in me. Highly recommended.

Jason Pargin has done it again. In this delightful commentary on the society that we all hold so dear, Pargin offers criticism of the social and cultural phenomenon that permeates our lives, social media. This narrative shifts between multiple character POVs & imagined reddit posts. The main protagonist Abbott and his "green sunglasses girl" make their way across the country to deliver a mysterious package. This novel can be harshly critical of worldviews and the actions of people, but this eye opening text is well worth the read.

I read John Dies at the End ages ago. And it seems, upsettingly, that Goodreads has lost my rating and review of it. Anyway, I liked it. Then I watched a movie adaptation and liked that too. But I never read any more Wong/Pargin until now. Largely because his books, as fun as they are, seem like a lot. The fact I was very much reminded of reading this book.
Why this? Why now? Because it’s a standalone and looked like fun. And sure enough, it was. Oodles of fun. Pargin’s writing is very hip in exactly the right way, very funny, very clever. Does he go over the top with it? You bet! His characters tend or talk in either witty quips or (more often) in protracted soliloquys so seemingly well informed and convincingly presented that the author spends pages of his afterword convincing people he made it up.
The novel is essentially a sort of wacked out road trip that starts with a strangely dressed and mannered, progressive-minded woman named Ether recruiting a pale, anxious incel named Abbott to be her driver. It’s an odd pairing for an arrangement that seems oddly impractical, and it goes off the rails almost immediately, with the internet trolls pouring fuel onto what soon becomes a fire.
On a basic level, it’s sort of a comedy of errors, and it works well enough as such, although it’s very long and occasionally self-indulgent. And Ether’s Pollyanna-like views clashing with Abbott’s paranoid (although shockingly well presented, no wonder Pargin had to spend so much time self-explaining afterward) does get tiresome.
But what the novel really shines as is a clever and viciously scathing opprobrium of the internet and specifically social media culture and the black box of doom it perpetuates. There, Pargin hits all the right notes.
All in all, an entertaining (if somewhat manically so) read. Fun was had. Thanks Netgalley.

Have you ever been a ride-share driver or taken a roadtrip where everything goes wrong? It certainly does for Abbott AKA “Abbadon” as he is hired to transport the desperate Ether cross country with a mysterious box. If it can go wrong-it does. From wrong turns to being hunted by the mysterious tattooed Malort, to internet rumors being spawned that lead to people trying to track them down. Every page keeps you asking “WHAT IS IN THE BOX!?” There is no better wild ride than one that Jason Pargin takes his readers on. Filled with his cynical humor and real life reflections on society “I’m Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom” keeps you on your toes while also making you reevaluate everything you know about human interaction.

Not My Kind Of Story

I made it almost halfway through this book. That was all I could take. It was totally boring to me, I couldn’t see the humor that everyone else was talking about. The endless banter finally got to me so I skipped over parts of it and ended up reading about some nut who ended up in the creek with his hundred year old cactus. That was it, I’m done reading.

I received an advance copy of the book from Net Galley, this is my unbiased review.

This book was fantastic! It was the perfect mix of irreverent humor on the human condition and the ridiculous. It took the premise of a black box and its journey cross country and made it a surprisingly salient exploration of the current human condition. It commented on humidity without falling into the pitfall of preaching. Overall, a great read and I would suggest this book.

Maybe I’m missing something big here? But this is the worst book I have ever read and I read a lot. It was painful. I have no other words to describe what I thought of this book except my waste of time reading it. Why did I finish it? I cannot post “no stars” so I’ll just have to post one star. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

4.5 stars

Not gonna lie, I kind of like this book better than his others. That’s saying a lot. This was laugh out loud, and fun as we’ve all come to expect from Pargin, not so heavy on the Sci-fi/fantasy though. I think that’s why I love it so much,

This was a very fun road trip book that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through trying to figure out exactly what was going on the whole time. Not nearly as silly as other novels from Pargin but still a fun read.

Excellent book! This is fast-paced, humorous, and action-packed, but is also laden with through-provoking ruminations on the state of the world and how people interact. I could not put this down, and when it ended I was upset because I wanted to keep getting to know these characters and to see where they were heading next in their lives.

Thank you to Jason Pargin and St. Martin’s Press (through Netgalley) for an ARC in exchange for my honest review! It's been an absolute pleasure.

Abbott’s average day as a Lyft driver is thrown out the window when he's offered $200,000 in cash to drive a sealed black box from LA to DC, no questions asked. It will take five days max. What's the worst that could happen?

“I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom” is a doozy of a title that completely sums up how I felt throughout the entirety of this book. Worry would be an understatement. The anxiety that accompanied the NEED to know what the heck was inside the box is maddening. It's what drives you to turn page after page.

At the core, this is a fantastical story. There is absolutely no way a situation could spiral out of hand so quickly… right? Absolutely no way a tidbit of information could be blown out of proportion on the Internet… right??

But it's really hard to remember that this is a FICTIONAL, FANTASTICAL STORY when Pargin is dropping bombs of insight left and right. It's like all your deepest darkest insecurities about the world we live in right now were ripped from where you repress them deep inside you and are plopped into a parallel universe where something wacky could, in fact, happen.

But I digress.

This book was great. Five stars across the board. I was entertained, which is the number one reason I love to read. “I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom” was chock full of hilarity, even if it sometimes felt a bit too on the nose. You have a cast of characters who are unremarkable and recognizable. They make mistakes, and sometimes they learn from them. They adapt, get overwhelmed, overcome obstacles, and because they're human they're innately stubborn as hell.

If you're already a fan of Pargin's previous works you won't be disappointed. If you're new to his writing, welcome, I think you'll enjoy this stand-alone. It will probably help ease you in a bit.

What a fun read. I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin has the craziness that you'd expect by the author of John Dies at the End (and that whole series). But it's a bit more reigned in? Kind of? Funny and a fast read, I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I'm a huge fan of Jason Pargin's John Dies at the End and Zoe series, but upon seeing the description for this novel I wasn't sure how interested in it I was. Had the publisher not offered me the ARC without me requesting it, I'm not sure how quickly I would have picked it up. The writing itself was as any of Pargin's other books. While it had some of his patented unexpected humor, it had much less, and fewer silly-but-hilarious moments than its predecessors. All of the characters had a sort of duality to them - they had aspects that made them sympathetic, but also had reprehensible traits to counter them. The book made many much too accurate observations about the internet and modern society. While Pargin made some very astute commentary about the Internet Age, at times the truths he pointed out made the story pretty depressing. There were numerous instances of satirical Reddit posts, but as the book went on the ignorant comments stupid conspiracy theories ceased being funny as they mirrored reality too closely and I finally ended up skipping the last few. While fairly accurate, there was a bit too much philosophizing by some the characters. Overall the book was still excellent writing but more societal commentary and less comedy than I would have preferred. 3.5/5*

A slight change of pace from [author:Jason Pargin|16596547] as there are no weird interdimensional aliens or science-fictional enhancement technologies in this book, but it's still pretty madcap. Fun viewpoint characters and almost all of them end up being somewhat sympathetic. Kind of reminds me of Carl Hiassen or maybe the wackier Elmore Leonards, but for the 2020s.

I think fans of Jason Pargin's prior work will enjoy this new stand alone novel. If you haven't read anything by Jason Pargin before, this is a great place to start as this is probably his most accessible book to date since it isn't horror or sci-fi. Don't worry, it still contains some of the humor we have come to expect, although more subdued than in past novels. Jason has a real talent for unloading a lot of interesting and useful information without boring the reader. I think this book has an important message that you don't hear anyone else talking about. I believe the world would be a much more pleasant place if we could all change our perspective and have gratitude for how good we really have it instead of focusing on the negatives. I found the pacing to be great and finished this quickly and enjoyed every minute of it.

What do you do when a random woman orders a rideshare and then asks you to drive her and her mystery box across the country, for $200,000 dollars? Well, if you’re Abbott Coburn, apparently you agree. You leave behind all your electronics and head east on an old fashioned road trip. What could possibly go wrong? A mysterious box in an SUV headed toward DC could never lead to any sort of wild speculation, right?

This book was not what I expected. I tried to go in with zero expectations, but as we all know that’s basically impossible. So I expected, while this was a standalone novel, it would function much like his other works: a story taking place in our world, but not really. The John, Dave, and Amy books are cosmic horror comedies, and the Zoey Ashe series is a near future, sci-fi series, so they deal with modern day topics through the lenses and expectations of those genres. I’ve always liked that about Pargin’s work. It is close enough that the real world problems are there, but they are exaggerated by the fantastical elements the genres bring and allows for them to be talked about in really interesting ways. . . with fart jokes. This book was the most uncomfortable reading experience I’ve had reading a Jason Pargin novel and that’s not a bad thing.

With none of the trappings of horror and sci-fi through which to filter the discussions of humanity, you are left with a story, set in a very real world, that can be uncomfortable to inhabit. Every POV character has a valid point. Every POV character makes bad choices. There seems to be no good guy to root for. There seems to be no bad guy to root against. They are all just people. Making their way through life, making the best choices they can, with what information they have, in the most difficult world: ours. But isn’t that kind of the point?

This book has compelling characters, a fun plot, and a lot to say about how humans interact with each other, in person and online. And if you’re interested in discussions about online spaces and how they have been affecting our lives for the last 30 years, this is a very entertaining way to approach that subject matter.

As a long time fan, this story felt new while also staying true to the voice Jason has cultivated over his previous seven books. The ability to discuss difficult topics in a nuanced way has always been my favorite thing about Jason Pargin's work, and that is alive and well in Box of Doom.