"I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom" is a novel by Jason Pargin, written in 2024 and published in 2025 (which is significant). The novel is a comedy thriller, full of social commentary, that combines aspects of realistic modern day internet foibles with exaggerated happenings from a spy story. Incidentally, it was released the same week as How to Dodge a Cannonball by Pargin's colleague Dennard Dayle, and both books share some similiarties---they are stories of hapless young men thrown into cross-country journeys across the United States.
The basic plot of the book is that Abbott, a gig worker for Lyft, who also is a streamer on Twitch, picks up a young woman named Ether who offers him several hundred thousand dollars in cash to drive a box across the United States. Abbott is anxious and sheltered and trying to please his distant father, but for several reason, agrees. When he announces to his Twitch stream what he is doing, rumors start spreading on the internet (mostly on Reddit), that the box he is transporting is a dirty bomb, and conspiracy theories start snowballing about everything from terrorism to alien mind control. As they travel cross-country to Washington, DC, diverse parties, feeding off of internet rumors, try to stop them. And while they drive, Abbott and Ether debate their social milieu as they pass through freeway rest stops and eat fast food, and rescue a lost bunny rabbit. The reader, like the audience, assumes that something nefarious is going on with the radioactive box being transported cross-country...but the truth is a bit more complicated.
This book started me reading, and kept me reading. The humor and absurdity and pitch perfect take on Reddit and other forums was perfect. The action scenes were even more amusing as they took place in Walgreen's parking lots, and not in standard spy locations. The ending, where the mystery was "solved" in several different ways, was also a great ending to what was in some ways a mystery novel.
My biggest problem was that some of the author tracts got to be a bit too tractful. Pargin is an intelligent social commentator, and many of the viewpoints expressed in this book are helpful and interesting. It is just that sometimes the dialog gets a bit wooden and stilted as the characters have staged debates. Some of the character interaction and development also feels a bit forced, as when Abbott and his overly demanding Father finally "reconcile" in the middle of a scene with therapy speak. Ether, who I found untrustworthy at first, also peppers Abbott with what I think of as "weaponized therapy talk", something that usually isn't productive in real life. Luckily, the sections that are a bit too much are quickly interrupted by something more humorous and plot relevant.
This was actually the first book I've read from Pargin (although I have read him elsewhere and follow him on the social medias), and I would definitely rate it worthwhile, despite its flaws.