Bringing the perfect boyfriend to life A subscription box can turn your favorite book boyfriend into reality: is it cringe or genius?

Having a crush on a fictional character is an almost universal experience. We read, we watch, we dream. And then we start questioning all our life choices. We hate all the men around us and wonder why we can’t meet someone like that. Usually handsome, romantic, generous, attentive. Or, if dark romance reflects our taste, possessive, jealous, a bit brooding, yet still romantic and usually very skilled in bed. The novel has always been conceived as a means of escaping reality and building other worlds, even very distant ones. Recently, however, what was once an individual fantasy has turned into a collective language. Fandoms, online communities, and platforms like Wattpad, a participatory writing and reading platform, have helped create a shared grammar of desire, with imaginary men becoming fetishes to long for even in real life.

How a Boyfriend Book Box works

But would you be willing to pay to bring your favorite book boyfriend to life? Some people are, and not cheaply. In the United States, the Boyfriend Book Box subscription service was launched, offering quarterly boxes that promise to bring your favorite male characters to life. How? By sending you, at the modest price of $497, a box containing: the book featuring the boyfriend in a special edition; his personal items, such as necklaces, candles replicating his scent, or clothing that looks like it came straight from his wardrobe; and finally, the pièce de résistance, a faithful replica, based on the book’s descriptions, of his intimate parts, in the form of sex toys. The goal is clear: to blur the line between fiction and reality, creating a fully immersive experience. This, of course, takes time. That’s why Boyfriend Book Box releases only four editions a year, one per quarter. Delivery times are not immediate either: as stated on their website, it can take up to six months from subscription payment to delivery. Everything is on demand and customized, with only 1,200 boxes produced.

The obsession with experientiality

At first glance, it sounds crazy. And yet, it clearly has a defined target audience. According to Dazed, the project has generated $800,000 in revenue since its launch in 2024, with a waiting list of 20,000 people. The Boyfriend Book Box seems to have tapped into an increasingly common desire: experiential consumption. Alongside the rise of escapist genres like romance and fantasy, there’s also been a growing trend to experience stories beyond the page in a more immersive way. This has led to the creation of playlists accompanying novels, spin-offs exploring specific characters, and even publishers like 831 Stories, which sells clothing and organizes events inspired by the books they release. In a way, this falls into the realm of augmented reality, just in a much more analog version.

Touching grass again

Probably, my 12-year-old self would have paid (not nearly €500, of course) to bring Travis Maddox, the controversial yet charming protagonist of the young adult bestseller Beautiful Disaster, to life. That’s the beauty of books: dreaming and imagining something far removed from us and everything that represents our comfort zone. But thinking about it now, the magic of books lies precisely in the power of imagination. Trying at all costs to make tangible what lives in our minds risks slipping into fanaticism, turning into a fetish what should remain fantasy. And besides, if we make an effort to look around a bit more, the world is full of men and women worthy of our attention. We could try interacting with them.