Review: A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James

Thank you to Berkley for the eARC!

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The book: A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James

Content warnings

• Child death
• Parent death (mentions, not details)

The Synopsis (from memory)

Violet, Dodie, and Vail grew up in Fell, New York but went their separate ways in young adulthood. But 20(?) years after their six-year-old brother disappeared into thin air while they were playing hide and seek, he asks them to come home. They return to their decrepit family home to solve the mystery of Ben’s disappearance together.

The Good

The cover

I love Simone St. James covers and this is no different. There’s not much to say here but I’m a fan.

True Simone St. James

This is my third Simone St. James (I have three more to read on my shelf) and I loved it almost as much as the others (the resolution is why I say almost). It’s set in 1989 so it has that nostalgic retro creepy feel that her others have had, too.

Fast paced

While this did take me 16 days to read, it was my “before bed” book so some days I didn’t read as much, and not at all a couple of them, but there weren’t any points where I thought “wow, I wish this was done.”

Things kept moving and the writing was good but easy to follow and fast moving (as were her previous books I read). I definitely prefer fast paced, so this was a big plus for me.

I like the story

I like the whole idea of this. A kid just disappearing during hide and seek? Sign me up! Aliens? Ghosts? Yes please. I like the mix of vaguely historical fiction (relevant to the mystery) and old 80s vibes.

Character growth

I also like and appreciate the character growth in this, even though it really only takes place over a few days (a week?) as far as I could tell.

I don’t think I would say they’re unlikable at the beginning but they could definitely rub people the wrong way. However, as the story progresses, we see them opening up and growing as they continue to have these experiences together at their childhood home.

The Grievances

Not much happens before 70%

This isn’t really a grievance since I didn’t really even think about it until this point, but not much happens before the 70% mark. We find out bits a pieces but I don’t think it was anything like, super important?

However, this didn’t really matter because it was so fast paced. I was intrigued and entertained the whole time so it didn’t bother me.

The resolution

We do mostly get a resolution but there is one thing that we either don’t get an answer to, or I missed it (I think we didn’t get the answer). I did like the answers we did get but the one we didn’t is bothering me and is the main reason this didn’t get five stars for me.

I don’t want to specify what it is because it’s kind of spoiler-y though. And now that I’m thinking about it, there might be a couple of questions that weren’t answered. If you’ve read it, I would love to ask you the questions I have and discuss!

Should I read A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James?

If you like other Simone St. James books and if you like supernatural thrillers/mysteries, then definitely, yes! While it is supernatural, it doesn’t feel like, horribly supernatural.. if that makes any kind of sense. It’s the perfect amount of it and even a little creepy at times!