Mandy-Suzanne Wong dives back into the world of literary fiction with The Box, an intricate and artistically curated story that follows an inanimate object as it stumbles into the lives of six very different people. This bold and unique plot originally caught my attention because of its genius concept and craftsmanship. To write the misadventures of some box and create six distinct narrators with alternating points of view is no small feat! You’re bound to get caught up in these rumors and stories as you uncover this object’s significance. You slowly learn more by becoming an onlooker in this stylistic and mind-boggling puzzle. The Box may seem simple on the outside, but the more you dive in, the more outlandish and mysterious it becomes—almost like the box itself.

Taking place in an unnamed city where it’s constantly snowing, this story is told through the eyes of six narrators. We start off following a character that finds a small box that has fallen out of a man’s pocket in a small, dark alley. The box looks to be woven together by strands of paper with no clear way of opening. We get our first look into how this unassuming box finds itself in new hands when our narrator tries to return it to the man in the alley. Next, we meet a pretentious art curator who, between her drawn-out explanations of her gallery, discovers a lingering art buyer who is searching for this box. As we jump from character to character, we learn more about this box and the recurring mysterious black-haired woman who hunts it down, seemingly possessed to have it back. From an old married couple who owns an antique shop to a woman hiding out in a hotel after experiencing a traumatic event, these stories allow the reader to become a fly on the wall by hearing rumors, whispers, and casual conversations that hold more importance than they may seem. Our last section introduces us to characters waiting at a train station for a train that will probably never arrive. It’s written through emails and testaments that keep track of the events in this station, eventually sharing more details that may seem like everyday events to the narrator, but are very meaningful to us as we bind these interweaving stories together. Each perspective offers a look into significant moments in this box’s journey, but these moments are hidden behind a puzzle that ultimately shows that this box serves as more than just a fragile object.

The Box might not be for everyone, especially if you’re looking for an “easy” and relaxing read. I went into this novel excited to jump into its intriguing concept, but in all honesty, it took a bit of time for me to fully embrace it. I was questioning everything from the get-go. Am I going to like it? Am I smart enough to understand these dense and intricate ideas? Should I continue reading it? But once I grasped the tiniest bit of understanding of what I was getting myself into, I was in for the ride. With an unclear timeline, The Box forces you to take in every detail to uncover the true puzzle behind this paper box, making every single conversation, side glance and breath demand attention. Wong’s powerful writing makes this story endlessly creative and inventive, as we rarely get a name, time, or place for any of the scenes in this book. By doing so, we’re left to figure out how these stories coincide with each other, and we finally get some answers in this book’s last section. We have to solve the mystery that Wong has manufactured, giving us little guidance other than the rich details that she has sprinkled about, probably taking more than one read through to gather every breadcrumb and puzzle piece Wong provides.

Wong’s perfectly crafted writing is shown through her meticulousness, but she doesn’t shy away with her characters and how they’re represented. No two characters are written the same way—that’s how each personality bleeds through without explicitly being told. This becomes obvious as soon as you realize the opening sentence of this book is a paragraph long. I honestly thought I missed a period or two, but looking back, it was intentional. The rambling nature of this opening character was expressed through these long-winded and sometimes hard to track sentences. Stylistic choices like that are a perfect way to introduce each narrator without needing to spell it out for the reader, especially since Wong aimed for a detailed yet ambiguous book. Her writing evoked different feelings for each character and I understood each one based on how they actively view the world. I really enjoyed being able to understand the different character quirks Wong crafted. When we meet the old married couple who own an antique shop, we’re only given their dialogue, with no clear start or end to each person’s speech. This easily reminded me of an older couple sitting on their front porch, rambling to each other about their days, but here they are: gossiping about a peculiar little box. Each section focused on the storyline of this mysterious box while also allowing every character to shine and tell their own tale. These characters’ perspective adds to the overall story, flawlessly creating different layers to this interconnecting web. By the end, we have new interpretations and insights that we didn’t see at first, but they enrich and elevate The Box and its brilliance.

While I can now appreciate the well thought-out characters that are the backbone of this story, I really struggled to connect to them. Since we only get a short time with each one, I found myself asking more questions at the end of their chapters. This changed for me, though, when reading the last section of this book, where we’re finally given some answers and connections to the characters that came before. When the last character says “You’re an object that uses objects,” I realized the book isn’t about the people, but the box itself. We read this novel through the eyes of these characters, listening to their stories and the strange things they’ve seen, but it’s ultimately just a way for us to hear this box’s story. The box is the driving force behind the plot and since we weren’t with each character for very long; I didn’t need to love them. We simply bounce from one person to the next, hoping to learn more about this inanimate object and the mystery it holds. The notion that things hold power is explored in the last character that we meet through emails, testaments, and articles that are written while waiting for a train that never comes. The lives of these characters are all woven together by their connection to this white paper box, similar to the paper ribbons that hold the box together. “The box is a living thing that chooses and causes things to happen,” and that becomes evident when we see how these six narrators become entangled by this force of a box, whether or not they wanted to.

You definitely need to be prepared going into this novel as The Box takes you on a rollercoaster of intertwining and experimental stories, ultimately coming to a head when its true message is revealed. This mystery had me questioning everything, from what was actually happening in this story to who (or what) truly had control. In a world where we see humans as the center of everything, this book asks us philosophical questions about the forces that make things happen and what power we truly hold, making you look at the relationships that exist between us and inanimate objects. This book will leave you asking more questions than it answers, but after sitting with this story for a while, you may look at your surroundings differently and question the control you have over your life. How much of our lives do we control individually? We have agency, sure, but at what point do we let the things around us influence our actions completely?