The Very Nice Box

 
 
The Very Nice Box

by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman
Mariner Books

2021
 
 

The Very Nice Box is kind of a wild ride. It has a great cover illustration that makes it look like a contemporary romance novel, and it includes a romance plot, but it's not so straightforward. It's also a workplace comedy, a satire, and character study of its protagonist, and in places even a thriller.

 
We follow Ava, a senior engineer of containers at STADA, an IKEA-like design firm that makes things like thr Practical Sofa, the Precise Wristwatch, and Ava's current project, the Very Nice Box. Ava starts the novel very serious and proper, in part because she's still grieving over a car crash that killed her girlfriend and parents several years earlier. She likes her work and her routines, and has no time or interest in anything else.

 
Ava's orderly life is upset by a series of changes at work. Mat, a handsome bro in marketing gets promoted and starts all kinds of positivity and wellness initiatives - including mandating that everyone either attend a certain number of seminars or use the SHRNK psychiatry app, which Ava does. Also protestors are targeting STADA's new building. 

 
When Ava's car gets vandalized, she gets a ride home from Mat, develops a crush, and following the advice of her SHRNK, pursues the relationship, even though all the turmoil restarts traumatic flashbacks to the crash. Despite the stress, and Mat's bro-y flaws, she finds herself falling in love.

 
HR finds out about the relationship and sends Mat to Ohio. Ava goes on a couple dates (one with a man, one with a woman,) but still misses him. He comes back and moves in, and finally the glow begins to wear off. Ava has to decide if she really likes Mat, or if it was just short-term infatuation.

 
Woven through are a couple mysteries - who is behind the increasingly surreal STADA protests?, and what secrets from Mat's past explain why he joined the Good Guys, a group that seems halfway between AA and a redpill organization? While I don't want to give away the answers, I will say that the last few chapters are a rollercoaster of excitement and tension.

 
The style of the prose shifts over the course of the book to match Ava's shift from being compacted by grief to opening back up. Queerness is presented casually and treated normally. The parodic elements (mostly aimed at companies and corporate jargon) are genuinely funny, but there's also a much sharper critique of certain aspects of contemporary heterosexuality and masculinity that grows throughout and drives the conclusion of the story. I came in looking for light-hearted romance and double entedres, and got much more than I expected!