This is not a book I'd typically be interested in but it was recommended by my favorite bookstagrammer so I decided to give it a shot. It was definitely fun and very weird but way too long for what was covered and ended up being a DNF for me.

This story takes me back to the days when seeing the latest Transporter movie was all the rage… this puts a modern spin on the theme. The story is a wild ride and I did not guess what was in the black box of doom… however it was just too long to keep me intrigued. The story is bizarre with entirely too much social commentary but I’ve read reviews saying this authors other work is great so now I’m curious and likely to buy the other books written by Pargin!

Pargin takes the idea of a black box of doom both literally and figuratively here. This is a treatise on our disaffection as a society and our reliance on technology over community, it's about family members not understanding each other, and people not being willing to understand each other. But ultimately I found it a tale of redemption, and that sometimes the good guys, or the complicated guys, may not win in the end but they will have a cracking good time on the way and face up to their reality while doing it. This is by no means a perfect book, but it was taut, it held together better than I expected, and the twists and turns of this road=trip through the US with a wild cast of characters was entertaining throughout. Four stars!

eh. Really lost interest in this about halfway through, when the MC was really jiving on incel bullshit - I didn't really like any of the characters, and was just not invested. I had to switch to audiobook to finish because I couldn't hold my attention on it while reading. It took me 6 months to finish this.

I don't think I was the right reader for this. It was less of a thriller than I expected and felt too long. Unfortunately I was just anxious for it to be over.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

Abbott is a young guy who is a Lyft driver and he’s struggling. He doesn’t know where he fits in the world and he has a strained relationship with his parents. When he is offered a huge chunk of money to transport a woman and a mystery black box across the country, he accepts and what unfolds is a wild tale.

I did enjoy this book but I had some issues with it. I’ll start with what I enjoyed. I think this book had some funny and ridiculous moments throughout and i enjoyed that. I also liked the characters and how the chapters had different point of views throughout.

I was also intrigued to finished since I wanted to know what was in the box! This book also had some good social commentary about the internet and social media.

On the other hand, this book was entirely too long. I think the social commentary, while correct, was just mentioned and repeated way too much. I think this book could’ve been shaved down a lot and it still would’ve had the same impact. I also think the story got just a bit too ridiculous at one point.

I would still recommend this book but I do wish it was a bit shorter.

I really enjoyed the dark humor of this book! What a suspenseful read that really had me wondering what was going to happen next! The writing felt very unique and it was a great change of pace.

This was so fun from start to finish. There is commentary about the state of the world and the internet community which is especially poignant today and really hit home. Lots of hilarity and lighthearted humor to break up the heaviness of this novel.

This is a remarkable take on the path that social media’s online sleuthing community has taken over the course of the past few years. As a fan of some of the greats, I was surprised by how invested I became and by how similar it is to the armchair sleuthing I see daily in my own SM apps. I’m digressing from the story but wanted to point out that this isn’t far from the truth of daily content digestion and the rabbit holes it provides.

I won’t rehash the summary but I was pleased with the dark humor, the outrageous theories, the mob mentality and the pure bedlam that ensued.

Well done, Pargin, well done!

I love an attention grabbing title.
I love an attention grabbing cover.
But most of all, I love an attention grabbing novel and this was definitely it.

This book was relatable to me in a lot of ways. It dealt with anxiety that I, like most people, suffer from. It also had great social commentary on the internet, hive mentality, etc. It was written very smart, very funny.

There were quite a few characters POVs throughout and I found them to all be engaging. Not once did I feel like I wanted to skip a certain person's story. One of the other things I really loved about this book was the aftermath tidbits that were interjected throughout, kind of giving little clues to what happens in the conclusion.

A very satisfying read and I loved how everything came together at the end.

What works in humorous fiction is highly subjective. A reader might find Douglas Adams brilliant and Carl Hiaasen unbearably cloying, or vice versa. For me, this novel from John Dies at the End author and former Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin strikes the right balance, with characters who reveal unexpected depth even in truly absurd situations—and quite a few genuine laughs. The mysterious “black box” in the title is a package the two main characters, a video game streamer/Lyft driver and a canceled beauty influencer, have been hired by a multimillionaire to discreetly transport cross-country. Internet rumormongers and would-be Reddit sleuths become convinced they’re transporting a nuclear weapon—or, perhaps, an extraterrestrial corpse. It’s an enjoyable road trip story combined with astute satirical but sympathetic takes on internet culture and its limitations, delivered by a writer with experience enough to have a nuanced take. Pargin’s Cracked roots do occasionally show in his characters’ sometimes-annoying tendency to regale each other with trivia facts and historical oddities of the kind that populated that site in its early-2000s heyday, and to otherwise revert to the Whedonesque ironic voice of that era, but it’s still a funny and even thought-provoking read.

I was enjoying this story for the most part until it took a bit of an odd term in regard to the characterization at about the 30% mark. It went downhill from there for me, unfortunately.

Fun and thought-provoking exploration of online culture, blending dark humor with a compelling plot. Recommended!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin!

This is a great place to start if you're newer to Pargin's works since it's a standalone and thus an easier lift for anyone unsure about delving into his series.

Lyft driver Abbott nervously accepts an offer of $200,000 cash to transport a woman named Ether across the country with a large black box. But she has a list of rules he must follow: he cannot look inside the box; he cannot ask questions about the box; he cannot tell anyone what he is doing; they must leave immediately; and he must leave all trackable devices behind. What ensues is a hilarious and timely tale about the way technology and the internet have completely overrun our lives. As the internet community speculates about what’s in the box as well as sparking rumors that this duo is preparing to launch a terror attack, the tension mounts. A variety of characters narrate the story, which works particularly well and so many thought-provoking issues are raised. I’m Starting to Worry about This Black Box of Doom will appeal to fans of quirky, unique, and creative stories and is well worth the read.

I thought the premise was intriguing so I decided to give it a try. I don't think it was a bad story or poorly written it just wasn't for me.

As a person who has frequently used Lyft and Uber, I was really intrigued by Jason Pargin's I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, as I have had some really bizarre rides as a passenger. This is a thriller with a side of dark humor that satirizes contemporary culture - and the ways social media has a pervasive hold on so many and perpetuates so much misinformation.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

A wild ride that somehow is both incredibly long and tedious and yet also a fascinating tahe on society and media consumption. I liked it, but good god, the endless ranting about things was so boring and I actually had to skip sections because my eyes were rolling too much.

This book reads like I’m watching a movie! I could picture every detail and I most definitely want to see it brought to the big screen !
Thank you #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.