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STACKED

books

  • STACKED
  • About Us
  • Categories
    • Audiobooks
    • Book Lists
      • Debut YA Novels
      • Get Genrefied
      • On The Radar
    • Cover Designs
      • Cover Doubles
      • Cover Redesigns
      • Cover Trends
    • Feminism
      • Feminism For The Real World Anthology
      • Size Acceptance
    • In The Library
      • Challenges & Censorship
      • Collection Development
      • Discussion and Resource Guides
      • Readers Advisory
    • Professional Development
      • Book Awards
      • Conferences
    • The Publishing World
      • Data & Stats
    • Reading Life and Habits
    • Romance
    • Young Adult
  • Reviews + Features
    • About The Girls Series
    • Author Interviews
    • Contemporary YA Series
      • Contemporary Week 2012
      • Contemporary Week 2013
      • Contemporary Week 2014
    • Guest Posts
    • Link Round-Ups
      • Book Riot
    • Readers Advisory Week
    • Reviews
      • Adult
      • Audiobooks
      • Graphic Novels
      • Non-Fiction
      • Picture Books
      • YA Fiction
    • So You Want to Read YA Series
  • Review Policy

Fat Girls on YA Book Covers

November 27, 2017 |

It seemed like it would never happen. But it is. We’re finally seeing more fat girls on YA book covers. After years of talking about fatness, about YA lit, and about the lack of working one into the other, it’s so damn refreshing to see some change happening. It’s tiny, of course, in the big scope of things, and for now, it’s primarily white. But tiny ripples grow bigger.

Let us enjoy this moment.

 

Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly DeVos (June 5)

FAT.

High school senior Cookie Vonn’s post-graduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother—and named after a dessert.

Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat too fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society’s pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush, and put her life on track.

SKINNY.

Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she’s always wanted—an opportunity to live and study in New York—she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day.

Will she realize that she’s always had the power to make her own dreams come true?

 

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (April 24)

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

 

 

 

Puddin’ by Julie Murphy (May 8)

It is a companion novel to Dumplin’, which follows supporting characters from the first book in the months after Willowdean’s star turn in the Clover City pageant.

Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream—and to kiss her crush. Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend. When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they will surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing they might have more in common than they ever imagined

 

 

 

 

The Struggle Is Real by Maggie Ann Martin (August 21)

Savannah is dreading being home alone with her overbearing mother after her sister goes off to college. But if she can just get through senior year, she’ll be able to escape to college, too. What she doesn’t count on is that her mother’s obsession with weight has only grown deeper since her appearance on an extreme weight-loss show, and now Savvy’s mom is pressuring her even harder to be constantly mindful of what she eats.

Between her mom’s diet-helicoptering, missing her sister, and worrying about her collegiate future, Savvy has enough to worry about. And then she meets George, the cute new kid at school who has insecurities of his own. As Savvy and George grow closer, they help each other discover how to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now before it disappears.

Filed Under: book covers, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

Grave YA: Book Covers In The Graveyard

October 30, 2017 |

Happy Halloween week, friends. Let’s take today as an opportunity to round up some of the creepy and delicious YA book covers featuring graveyards and headstones. I find these covers to be the perfect blend of creepy and evocative, even when some of them become a little repetitive. Imagine a book display of just books with these covers!

Descriptions all from Goodreads.

 

 

Dead Connection by Charlie Price

Murray, a loner who communes with the dead in the town cemetery, hears the voice of a murdered cheerleader and tries to convince the adults that he knows what happened to her. But who believes him? He’s a loser. Can he even believe in himself? Also comes Pearl, the daughter of the cemetery caretaker, who befriends Murray and tries to enter his world. Together they may prove the astonishing possibility that Nikki is closer than anyone thinks.

 

 

 

 

Gathering Deep by Lisa Maxwell

When Chloe Sabourin wakes in a dark, New Orleans cemetery with no memory of the previous days, she can hardly believe the story her friends tell her. They say Chloe was possessed by a witch named Thisbe, who had used the darkest magic to keep herself alive for over a century. They tell her that the witch is the one responsible for the unspeakable murders that nearly claimed the life of Chloe’s friend, Lucy. Most unbelievable of all, they say that Thisbe is Chloe’s own mother. As she struggles with this devastating revelation and tries to rebuilt her life, Chloe wants nothing to do with the magic that corrupted her mother…especially since she feels drawn to it.

Now, a new series of ritualistic killings suggests that Thisbe is plotting again, and Chloe is drawn unwillingly back into the mystical underworld of the French Quarter. To stop Thisbe before she kills again, Chloe and her friends must learn what they can from the mysterious Mama Legba. But when her boyfriend Piers vanishes, Chloe will have to risk everything and embrace her own power to save the one person she has left… even if that means bringing down her mother.

 

Going Underground by Susan Vaught

Del’s not a bad guy. He’s just a misunderstood criminal.

Seventeen-year-old Del is a good kid, but one mimro mistake three years ago was all it took to turn him into a social outcast. Now, with a criminal record, the only job he can get is digging graves-not exactly your typical after-school gig. But it’s in the graveyard that Del meets the beautiful yet sad Livia, who doesn’t know anything about him. She gives him reason to be hopeful again. Except that Del’s crush comes with a sea of complications and he’s not sure he is ready to reveal his past. Will the truth set him free..or will it dig him in even deeper?

 

 

 

 

The Grave Keepers by Elizabeth Byrne

Lately, Athena Windham has been spending all her spare time in her grave.

Her parents—owners of a cemetery in Upstate New York—are proud of her devoutness, but her younger sister, Laurel, would rather spend her time exploring the forest that surrounds the Windham’s’ property than in her own grave.

The Windham girls lead secluded lives—their older sister died in a tragic accident and their parents’ protectiveness has made the family semi-infamous.

As the new school year begins, the outside world comes creeping in through encounters with mean girls, a new friend, and a runaway boy hiding out in the cemetery. Meanwhile, a ghost hangs around the Windham property—the only grave keeper never to cross over—plotting how to keep the sisters close to home and close to her . . . forever.

 

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family.

 

 

 

Just Kill Me by Adam Selzer

Megan Henske isn’t one to heed warnings…

When the last letters in her alphabet cereal are D, I, and E, she doesn’t crawl right back into bed. When her online girlfriend won’t text a photo, she just sends more of herself.

And when she realizes that Cynthia, her boss at a Chicago ghost tour company, isn’t joking about making stops more haunted by killing people there, she doesn’t quit her job—she may even help.

But who is responsible for the deaths of prominent figures in the murdermonger industry? Could it be the head of the rival tour company? Or could it be someone near and dear to Megan?

Soon after she learns that she has an uncanny resemblance to a flapper who disappeared in 1922, Megan receives a warning she can’t ignore: the next ghost on the tour might be her.

 

 

One Death, Nine Stories edited by Marc Aronson

Nicholas, Kevin. Age 19. Died at York Hospital, July 19, 2012. Kev’s the first kid their age to die. And now, even though he’s dead, he’s not really gone. Even now his choices are touching the people he left behind. Rita Williams-Garcia follows one aimless teen as he finds a new life in his new job-at the mortuary. Ellen Hopkins reveals what two altar boys (and one altar girl) might get up to at the cemetery at night. Will Weaver turns a lens on Kevin’s sister as she collects his surprising effects-and makes good use of them. Here, in nine stories, we meet people who didn’t know Kevin, friends from his childhood, his ex-girlfriend, his best friend, all dealing with the fallout of his death. Being a teenager is a time for all kinds of firsts-first jobs, first loves, first good-byes, firsts that break your heart and awaken your soul. It’s an initiation of sorts, and it can be brutal. But on the other side of it is the rest of your life.

 

 

 

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It’s true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey’s life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.

Everything changes when Joey’s mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey’s father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey’s life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.

 

 

 

Ruined by Paula Morris

Rebecca couldn’t feel more out of place in New Orleans, where she comes to spend the year while her dad is traveling. She’s staying in a creepy old house with her Aunt Claudia, who reads Tarot cards for a living. And at the snooty prep school, a pack of filthy-rich girls treat Rebecca like she’s invisible. Only gorgeous, unavailable Anton Grey seems to give Rebecca the time of day, but she wonders if he’s got a hidden agenda. Then one night, in Lafayette Cemetery, Rebecca makes a friend. Sweet, mysterious Lisette is eager to talk to Rebecca, and to show her the nooks and crannies of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Miller

Iris is ready for another hot, routine summer in her small Louisiana town, hanging around the Red Stripe grocery with her best friend, Collette, and traipsing through the cemetery telling each other spooky stories and pretending to cast spells. Except this summer, Iris doesn’t have to make up a story. This summer, one falls right in her lap.

Years ago, before Iris was born, a local boy named Elijah Landry disappeared. All that remained of him were whispers and hushed gossip in the church pews. Until this summer. A ghost begins to haunt Iris, and she’s certain it’s the ghost of Elijah. What really happened to him? And why, of all people, has he chosen Iris to come back to?

 

 

 

Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace

Breezy remembers leaving the party: the warm, wet grass under her feet, her cheek still stinging from a slap to her face. But when she wakes up, scared and pulling dirt from her mouth, a year has passed and she can’t explain how.

Nor can she explain the man lying at her grave, dead from her touch, or why her heartbeat comes and goes. She doesn’t remember who killed her or why. All she knows is that she’s somehow conscious—and not only that, she’s able to sense who around her is hiding a murderous past.

Haunted by happy memories from her life, Breezy sets out to find answers in the gritty, threatening world to which she now belongs—where killers hide in plain sight, and a sinister cult is hunting for strange creatures like her. What she discovers is at once empowering, redemptive, and dangerous.

 

 

Six Feet Over It by Jennifer Longo

No one is more surprised than Leigh when her father buys a graveyard. Less shocking is the fact that he’s too lazy to look farther than the dinner table for employees. Working the literal graveyard shift, she becomes great at predicting headstone choice (mostly granite) and taking notes with one hand while offering Kleenex with the other.

Sarcastic and smart, Leigh should be able to quit this stupid after-school job. But her world’s been turned upside down by the sudden loss of her best friend and the appearance of Dario, the slightly-too-old-for-her gravedigger. Can Leigh move on, if moving on means it’s time to get a life?
 

 

 

A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

Sometimes, when a person dies, their spirit goes looking for somewhere to hide.
Some people have space within them, perfect for hiding.

Twelve-year-old Makepeace has learned to defend herself from the ghosts which try to possess her in the night, desperate for refuge, but one day a dreadful event causes her to drop her guard.

And now there’s a spirit inside her.

The spirit is wild, brutish and strong, and it may be her only defence when she is sent to live with her father’s rich and powerful ancestors. There is talk of civil war, and they need people like her to protect their dark and terrible family secret.

But as she plans her escape and heads out into a country torn apart by war, Makepeace must decide which is worse: possession – or death.

 

Very Bad Things by Susan McBride

Katie never thought she’d be the girl with the popular boyfriend. She also never thought he would cheat on her – but the proof is in the photo that people at their boarding school can’t stop talking about. Mark swears he doesn’t remember anything. But Rose, the girl in the photo, is missing, and Mark is in big trouble. Because it looks like Rose isn’t just gone… she’s dead.

Maybe Mark was stupid, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.

Katie needs to find out what really happened, and her digging turns up more than she bargained for, not just about Mark but about someone she loves like a sister: Tessa, her best friend. At Whitney Prep, it’s easy to keep secrets… especially the cold-blooded kind.

 

 

Filed Under: book covers, book lists, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

YA Cover Makeovers: 5 Redesigns To Consider

September 11, 2017 |

It’s time for another round of YA cover makeovers. As usual, some of these are great redesigns, some are not so great, and some make you wonder why they were being changed at all. I’d love to know what you think of the covers, either the original or the redesign, in the comments, and if you have seen other recent changes worth noting, lay ’em in the comments, too. Original designs are on the left, and the paperback redesign is on the right.

 

 

Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation. The original cover was entirely illustrative, and it was quite clear that the book had something to do with Hamlet. There’s Yorick there, as well as an image of the crown above the word “Hamlet,” and the spotlight gives a good indication it has something to do with theater. It’s a cute cover, though perhaps reads a little bit young. Yet, I can imagine the teens who see this being excited by it because they know exactly what it is they’re getting into.

The paperback redesign of this cover, though, didn’t strike me as YA when I first saw it. It reminded me of a romance novel, and that’s precisely why I stopped and looked at it more closely. This cover is very clever, incorporating parts of the original cover design into the new look. We have Yorick still, as well as the crown. We also have a font which, if not exactly the same, is really close to being the same. But the changes: we have a boy and a girl who are back to back. From afar, it looks like there are handcuffs, but upon a closer look, it’s clear each is holding their own hands and they’re hovering near the sword. This is a weird image, for sure, and while it’ll certainly appeal to readers seeking a romance, I’m not sure it hits the same demographic as the original cover. The new design also incorporates a tag line that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense without context: “Shakespeare gets real.” Was Shakespeare not real before? I can’t say I get it not having read the book.

Neither cover is better or worse. They cater to wildly different readerships. Saving Hamlet will hit shelves in paperback on November 7.

 

 

I kind of hated the original cover for Anna Banks’s Nemesis and I can say that I hate the paperback a little bit less. The original features a stone-faced girl and a color scheme that could only be described as bland. The only feature that stands out is her blonde hair, which tells me absolutely nothing about the book except that there’s a white girl at the center of the story. The tag line at the top, “She didn’t expect to fall in love — with her nemesis” only adds more to the nothing factor of the cover. It sounds like every other fantasy or dystopian novel tag line. It’s frustrating to not get a ready on genre at all, as I can’t tell who this book would be great for.

The paperback, which will be released October 3, isn’t hugely better in terms of giving a genre read, but from a design perspective, it’s worlds better. It looks, I think, a little more science fiction than fantasy, but that may be from the font alone — I can’t place it, but I’ve definitely seen that look for an author’s name. What this cover improves, though, is on color: we have at least a little bit. There’s also a nice sheen to the image in the center, and the girl on it is less easy to identify. The dropping of the tag line is also an improvement.

I don’t love either cover, but the paperback is much better, if for no reason other than it looks like it could be shelved alongside a bunch of other similar books for readers to pick up and know whether or not it is for them.

 

 

The Last True Love Story by Brendan Kiely came out last fall and it didn’t seem to land as loudly as it should have, given that Kiely had gained a significant amount of acclaim in his work with Jason Reynolds in American Boys. The cover for The Last True Love Story, however, is pretty quiet. It’s clear it’s a giant sky with movement, and the font itself sort of mirrors the look. It reads contemporary love story to me, though beyond the title, little exactly says that. . . and little indication of what is really inside the book. This is an example of a font-driven title that does the job of explaining the story but that doesn’t add much to the design itself.

The paperback, which just hit shelves, tells a little bit more. What’s interesting is how much it looks like a movie still: we see a girl who looks lost, we see the dreamy lights behind her, and then that’s mirrored by the dreamy motion and lights of the ferris wheel below. Brendan’s name has been moved from below the title to above, likely being the bigger selling feature than the title, and interestingly, the blurb from Julie Murphy takes up far more real estate on paperback than it did on the hard cover. Toning down the font for the title does the cover service, too. It’s not perfect, but this one screams mature, dreamy YA love story in a way the original doesn’t. The original nails YA love story but less of the “mature” and “dreamy” aspects. I’m really digging the buttery-yellow color for the author name, too — there’s a shade of yellow I’ve not seen much on YA books and adds to that dreamy feel.

My own reader tastes would pick up the paperback before the hard cover edition, but I can see the appeal for both. I think they hit the same readership, though they tell different stories.

 

 

Dust of 100 Dogs by AS King came out many years ago from Flux as a paperback original. This was King’s first book and one that doesn’t seem to get the same kind of talk or attention as her subsequent titles. It’s a pretty cool cover, focusing on three colors, a unique font design, and using the negative space really well.

King’s first book is being reissued on October 3 through Speak, an imprint of Penguin, which is where she’s now being published. The choice in reissuing is a smart one, given that she’s grown her audience since this book, and the designers were clever in making the new edition look really similar to the previous ones. The font is very close to being the same, though her name has been made white and more standard looking. There is now a list of acclaims beside her name, and a blurb from the New York Times. If you’re curious why they didn’t just keep the original design, my guess would be that it was copyrighted by the designer and/or house, so getting rights for that would be challenging. But the way they managed to keep it so similar, just using different pieces, is pretty impressive.

While I prefer the original cover, I’ve got no qualms with the reissue. I think the similarity is clever. I only wish that our girl was wearing something on her body in the new edition. Her boots blend in a little too much. (Also, look at how she went from knee-high heeled boots to less-high combat-style boots).

 

 

Here is the cover design baffling me the most out of the ones here. Krystal Sutherland’s Our Chemical Hearts hit shelves last fall with a cover that was super fresh and unique. I love the blue-hued fish and the way the font plays with the fish shapes. There’s a cool three dimensional effect, and it’s just so different. Does it say anything about the story? Absolutely not. This is a book about first love, but from that cover, you’d never know. And yet, the cover is cool and fresh enough to encourage readers to pick it up to find out what it could possibly be about. Fish? Maybe romance…but fish?

The paperback edition of the book, which hit shelves earlier this month, continues to tell us nothing about the story. It’s pretty, sure sure, but the choice in all lowercase letters for the title and author name is odd. This is a very bright and fun cover that achieves an effect of being just that. The blurbs for this book call it “John Green meets Rainbow Rowell” — we’re still not past that lazy and useless description — but the book doesn’t look like it would belong in the hands of fans of either of those authors. Working in favor of this cover over the original, though, is the blurb on top, as we know it’s a story about first love.

It also reminds me a lot of Natalie C. Parker’s forthcoming anthology Three Sides of a Heart.

Verdict? I really like the design and feel of both covers, yet neither one seems to fit the book. Either would stand out on a display but how would you know who to hand it to?

 

What do you think? Do you prefer any of these covers? Lay your opinions and thoughts in the comments.

Filed Under: book covers, cover design, cover designs, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

These Book Covers Are Bananas

July 10, 2017 |

Because sometimes, you see a book cover with a banana on it and become a 12-year-old with the giggle fits. Here’s a roundup of a bunch of banana book covers, with book descriptions beside them. I’m not going to lie: I’m surprised there aren’t more covers for romances with bananas on them. Too obvious?

Descriptions from Goodreads. I’m kind of surprised just how many microhistories about the fruit there are.

 

 

Banana Cultures by John Soluri

Bananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, “banana republics,” and Banana Republic clothing stores—everything from exotic kitsch, to Third World dictatorships, to middle-class fashion. But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States.

Beginning in the 1870s when bananas first appeared in the U.S. marketplace, Soluri examines the tensions between the small-scale growers, who dominated the trade in the early years, and the shippers. He then shows how rising demand led to changes in production that resulted in the formation of major agribusinesses, spawned international migrations, and transformed great swaths of the Honduran environment into monocultures susceptible to plant disease epidemics that in turn changed Central American livelihoods. Soluri also looks at labor practices and workers’ lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, the effects of pesticides on the Honduran environment and people, and the mass marketing of bananas to consumers in the United States. His multifaceted account of a century of banana production and consumption adds an important chapter to the history of Honduras, as well as to the larger history of globalization and its effects on rural peoples, local economies, and biodiversity.

 

Banana by Dan Koeppel

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the ‘apple’ consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn’t it?). Entire Central American nations have been said to rise and fall over the banana.

But the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today’s yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight — and there’s no cure in sight.

Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) — ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.

 

Bananas: An American History by Virginia Scott Jenkins

Before 1880 most Americans had never seen a banana. By 1910 bananas were so common that streets were littered with their peels. Today Americans eat on average nearly seventy-five per year. More than a staple of the American diet, bananas have gained a secure place in the nation’s culture and folklore. They have been recommended as the secret to longevity, the perfect food for infants, and the cure for warts, headaches, and stage fright. Essential to the cereal bowl and the pratfall, they remain a mainstay of jokes, songs, and wordplay even after a century of rapid change.

Covering every aspect of the banana in American culture, from its beginnings as luxury food to its reputation in the 1910s as the “poor man’s” fruit to its role today as a healthy, easy-to-carry snack, Bananas provides an insightful look at a fruit with appeal.

 

 

 

Blind Item by Kevin Dickson and Jack Ketsoyan

No one knows her name, but now everyone wants to.

As an assistant publicist in Hollywood, Nicola spends her days (and nights) sweeping up the scandals of singers, movie stars, and TV actors. Fresh from Ohio, she’s rapidly discovering the real Hollywood is rotten under its glittering skin. Everyone is a hustler with a hard bottom line and a soap opera sob story.

When she breaks her own rules and starts dating a movie star, the Los Angeles scene starts to spill into her own life. As the paparazzi begin the hunt for sexy star Seamus O’Riordan’s new mystery girl, Nicola’s best friend Billy has her back while he prowls parties for the latest scoop to sell to the tabloids. Her roommate Kara keeps tabs on things too—in between befriending a former child star and transforming herself from stylist to reality TV sensation.

As the scandals pile up behind them, their pasts will be exposed… And every secret can be sold.

Written by two Hollywood insiders, the jaw-dropping scandals are real, but the names are not. And they’ll never tell.

 

Eliot’s Banana by Heather Swain

Things should be peachy.

Junie isn’t entirely sure what her problem is. She’s just moved into a Brooklyn apartment with her cool longtime boyfriend Leon, a drummer who adores her. She flits through a string of temp jobs in funky thrift store clothes. But beneath her veneer of quirky humor there’s a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction about her life.

She’s about to go bananas.

When Junie meets Eliot, who is twice her age, and his cat, Alfie, at the vet’s office, she’s convinced she’s found the zest missing in her life. A burnt-out sci-fi writer in search of a muse, Eliot is apples to Leon’s oranges. It’s not long before Junie’s standing in his kitchen being offered a banana…and then some.

Losing herself in the mayhem of a fling, Junie slowly realizes that kinky diversions are a poor distraction from what’s really eating her. Only when she stops obsessing about Eliot and starts peeling away the layers of her family’s past will she see that what she really wants has been waiting for her all along…and that her future’s ripe with possibilities.

 

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

Lions, rabbits, monkeys, pheasants—all have shared the spotlight and tabloid headlines with famous men and women. Sharon Stone’s husband’s run-in with a Komodo dragon, Thomas Edison’s filming of an elephant’s electrocution and David Hasselhoff’s dogwalker all find a home in Love in Infant Monkeys. At the rare intersections of wilderness and celebrity, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with pop icons and the culture of human self-worship.

 

 

 

Never Out of Season by Rob Dunn

The bananas we eat today aren’t your parents’ bananas: We eat a recognizable, consistent breakfast fruit that was standardized in the 1960s from dozens into one basic banana. But because of that, the banana we love is dangerously susceptible to a pathogen that might wipe them out.

That’s the story of our food today: Modern science has brought us produce in perpetual abundance-once-rare fruits are seemingly never out of season, and we breed and clone the hardiest, best-tasting varieties of the crops we rely on most. As a result, a smaller proportion of people on earth go hungry today than at any other moment in the last thousand years, and the streamlining of our food supply guarantees that the food we buy, from bananas to coffee to wheat, tastes the same every single time.

Our corporate food system has nearly perfected the process of turning sunlight, water and nutrients into food. But our crops themselves remain susceptible to the nature’s fury. And nature always wins.

Authoritative, urgent, and filled with fascinating heroes and villains from around the world, Never Out of Season is the story of the crops we depend on most and the scientists racing to preserve the diversity of life, in order to save our food supply, and us.

 

Noah Can’t Even by Simon James Green

Poor Noah Grimes! His father disappeared years ago, his mother’s Beyonce tribute act is an unacceptable embarrassment, and his beloved gran is no longer herself. He only has one friend, Harry, and school is…Well, it’s pure HELL. Why can’t Noah be normal, like everyone else at school? Maybe if he struck up a romantic relationship with someone – maybe Sophie, who is perfect and lovely – he’d be seen in a different light? But Noah’s plans are derailed when Harry kisses him at a party. That’s when things go from bad to utter chaos.

 

Notes on a Banana by David Leite

Born into a devoutly Catholic, food-crazed family of Azorean immigrants in 1960s Fall River, Massachusetts, David had a childhood that was the stuff of sitcoms. But what no one knew was that this smart-ass, determined dreamer with a vivid imagination also struggled with the frightening mood swings of bipolar disorder. To cope, “Banana,” as his mother endearingly called him, found relief and comfort in food, watching reruns of Julia Child, and, later as an adult, cooking for others. It was only in his mid-thirties, after years of desperate searching, did he finally uncover the truth about himself, receive proper medical treatment, and begin healing.

Throughout the narrative, David takes the reader along on the exhilarating highs and shattering lows of his life, with his trademark wit and humor: We watch as he slams the door on his Portuguese heritage in favor of blond-haired, blue-eyed WASPdom; pursues stardom with a near-pathological relentlessness; realizes he’s gay and attempts to “turn straight” through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan; battles against dark and bitter moods; delights in his twenty-plus year relationship with Alan (known to millions of David’s readers as “The One”); and shares the people, dishes, and events that shaped him.

 

 

 

 

The Art of Failing by Anthony McGowan

HAUNTED! By endless tiny humiliations.

STRUGGLING! To resurrect the corpse of his literary career.

ENSNARED! In a loving yet perplexing marriage.

Anthony McGowan is a man at odds with the universe. Stumbling from one improbable fiasco to the next, patrolling the mean streets of West Hampstead like some unholy cross between Columbo, J. Alfred Prufrock and a common tramp, he ponders the very stuff of life itself. For McGowan that’s holed socks, unsatisfactory packed lunches, athlete’s foot powder, Kierkegaard, the eccentricities of the British Library, liver salts, Morrissey and disapproving ladies on trains… Relentlessly honest, exquisitely funny, The Art of Failing is a paean to the glory and desperation of everyday existence.

 

The Fish That Ate The Whale by Rich Cohen

When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.

 

The Oddities Of Life by Martin Bryers

This isn’t a real book but a sample book cover from Canva I happened upon and couldn’t not include.

 

 

Know of any other covers that are bananas? Leave ’em in the comments!

Filed Under: book covers

YA Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers: Six to Consider

June 12, 2017 |

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a look at YA book cover changes. For some reason, I keep a massive list of them but can forget to actually write about them when I’m working on posts. Alas, I’ve put together two at once — the one here and one for next month — and hope to continue highlighting these with more frequency because I love looking and thinking about YA book covers.

As usual, some of these changes are great and others are less so. I’d say on the whole, this round falls a little more into the “less so” category for me, but I suspect some of you might feel differently. As always, I’d love to hear what you think, which covers you prefer, and what cover changes you’ve seen lately that have caused you to pause and think.

Original covers in this round-up are on the left, with the redesigns on the right.

 

Kids of Appetite by David Arnold covers

 

Kids of Appetite kicks off this round of cover changes and I have to be honest: I dislike both covers. Quite a bit, in fact. The hardcover looks to me like it’s not only trying too hard, but also that it’s doing too much. The text takes up a significant amount of real estate, and a good portion of that is a tag line that doesn’t seem to add much. I’ve never been a huge fan of illustrate covers, and this one is no exception. As nice as it is to see an inclusive illustration, none of the characters have any personality since we’re only able to see their backs.

The paperback takes what the hardcover did and turned the kids into telescopes. One of them even has on a scarf which kills me. It’s trying so hard to be clever and literary. More, the paperback redesign takes on a new trend from this particular paperback imprint that I’ve not been fond of: it’s making the paperback cover into two pieces, wherein the design is on top, with an underlaid cover that has praise all over it (in redesigns like the one for Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King or Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun, one of those cover pieces is simply a quote from inside the book, which literally tells you nothing about the book). These kinds of choices scream adult audience, serious literary business. And if that’s the angle, then it’s succeeding, but….it’s not a YA look. What the paperback does have going for it, though, is the lessening of text. The title and author look much better on this one. It’s also interesting that they not only cut the tag line, but they also got rid of “bestselling” before “author of Mosquitoland.”

Neither of these covers really does it for me. If I had to pick one, though, I’d likely go hardcover, if for no reason other than it features at least two teens of color on it.

Kids of Appetite by David Arnold will be available in paperback on September 5.

 

ten things we did by sarah mlynowski cover change

 

The original cover for Sarah Mlynowski’s Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have) came at the same time we got the original cover for Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl. They feature the same couple in slightly different positions. Back in those olden days of YA in 2011, covers with people on them were all the rage. On the right, though, we have a brand new edition of Mlynowski’s title in paperback that seems to follow the conventions of 2017 design: illustrated and, as I’ve noticed in a number of “lighter” YA titles, totally covered in stuff. See, for example, Lauren Strasnik’s 16 Ways to Break a Heart. Maybe it’s the color choice, but the new Ten Things cover looks really middle grade leaning to me, despite the fact the cover does feature a wine bottle, red underwear, and other items that one wouldn’t associate with middle graders. It is also certainly not a middle grade read in terms of content.

This is a tough one for me, since I don’t especially care for either of the covers. It is interesting to note that the new design denotes that Mlynowski is a New York Times Bestselling author, whereas the original hardcover has a blurb from Sara Shepard. Neither of the covers really do much for what the book is about; I almost wish that the Strasnik design scheme was what we saw for this particular cover, as that might make it feel more appropriate or appealing.

Ten Things We Did hit paperback in its new look June 6.

 

 

amy chelsea stacie dee cover change

 

How about before saying anything about these covers, we pause and just appreciate how different the stories these covers are telling? And yet, what I love about both of them, is they both convey a sense of something Not Good happening. Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee in hardcover looks like a pretty solid horror novel. The doll face is creepy, and it’s made even creepier by the dirt splotches on the doll’s face. The title fonts work pretty well, too, as they’re sparse and it’s really the face of the doll which stands out on the cover. As someone who likes scary, this cover would be enough to make me pick it up.

The paperback edition, though, is also pretty damn good. I think that maybe the hair strands on covers could become cliche very quickly (there’s at least two others that I know of for 2017 alone, including the new E. Lockhart) but on this cover, it certainly does something interesting in conveying the idea this book might be more thriller than horror. The color differences on the hair locks is notable, as is the small pink bow. Like with the original hardcover, there’s a careful use of fonts with the title, wherein both “Amy” and “Dee” are in the same design and “Chelsea” and “Stacie” are in an alternate font. What I don’t like about this cover, though, is the use of the tag line. I think the effect of the cover is lost a bit in there being too much text on it now. Were it gone, the starkness would speak volumes.

Each cover tells a different story about the feel of the book — the one on the left is certainly horror, whereas the one on the right conveys thriller or mystery. I think both work, though as someone who hasn’t read this book, it’s challenging to discern which one is more fitting for the story. But in considering which might make me pick up the book….both actually would catch my eye enough. Perhaps the one on the right is geared a little more toward adult readers than teen readers, but it’s hard to say.

The paperback for Mary G. Thompson’s Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee will hit shelves October 3. It might hit my own TBR a little sooner than that.

 

 

unnatural deeds cover change

 

Unlike the previous set of covers, I don’t necessarily think the design change for Unnatural Deeds by Cyn Balog offers up anything different. The two images are even almost exactly the same in where they’ve been placed on the cover: dead center. On the original hardcover, we have a pair of scissors cutting a flower, while on the right, we have a take on the “moth to a flame” cliche (just, you know, a butterfly to a lightbulb without any shade on it). The font on both covers feels somewhat uncreative, and it bothers my eyes a bit that the paperback font is not an even size between “Unnatural” and “Deeds.” I also find the fact that part of the word “Unnatural” actually clips the lightbulb to be bothersome. Or maybe it’s the fact that it looks like the lightbulb was slightly altered to allow the title to fit?

An interesting difference between the two: we lost the blurb on the paperback edition. Both still feature the tag line — and neither image really captures the idea of needing to kill to protect. In a lot of ways, these feel like safe images for what sounds like a murder-y type read. Although the cliched nature of the paperback bothers me, there’s something about the black background that works much better than the odd, bottom-of-the-river green on the hardcover.

I can’t say I love either of these nor feel they’re particularly fresh. That said, I suspect teen readers might feel differently, especially those who know what kinds of covers to look for for the types of books they love to read. What’s cliche to me as an adult can, and does, often not feel that way to teens, in part because they haven’t seen it enough to be tired by it. If I had to pick one cover doing it a bit better, I’d go with the new paperback, though I really hope that title font gets fixed. Kirkus called this a “PG-13 version of Gone Girl” and I think we get that more with the paperback, too.

Unnatural Deeds will hit paperback on November 1.

 

the memory of things by gae polisner cover change

 

I don’t think I have a cover change I like more in this round-up than this one. Gae Polisner’s The Memory of Things is a 9/11 themed YA novel, and the hardcover made that super clear. The “I” in the title there was masked as the Twin Towers, kind of, if the Twin Towers were uneven in their size. The color of the original was a bright baby blue, and the image in the background of a white angel absolutely popped. But, aside from the small use of the Towers in the title font, the cover didn’t say much other than maybe it’s a book about angels. Despite having enjoyed Polisner’s previous books, there was nothing about this cover that really spoke to me, other than appreciating that it’s pretty sparse.

It’s interesting how much a YA book cover not filled with blurbs or tag lines can stand out for that alone.

The paperback edition of the novel doesn’t make the 9/11 connection clear, and in a lot of ways, that’s of service to the book. The yellow color pops and is fresh, and the image we see is that of a cityscape. As a non-New Yorker, this image doesn’t exactly place me in that city, though it does place me in A city; I think this is a hugely positive thing, as it will appeal to a larger range of readers who, like me, can tire of the same New York City story (I tend to think sometimes New York City publishing forgets that not everyone cares about NYC….growing up, all anyone ever wanted to do in my town was get to Chicago, and though we’re seeing more Chicago-set books now, they’re still few and far between). The almost generic feel of the city here, though, works really well, and I appreciate how the color and saturation of the image actually work against the yellow background. More, that font! The font itself tells a story in a way that the original didn’t. Like the hardcover, the paperback is clean, clear of extra text, and I think it literally pops from the screen and will pop from shelves.

No question, the paperback is the big winner here for me. It hits shelves on August 29.

 

salt to the sea cover change

 

Finally, here’s the paperback makeover for Ruta Sepetys’s Salt To The Sea. The original cover tells a pretty powerful story. It’s clear, at least to me, this is a historical fiction read, and there’s something to be a big element of survival to it. The color saturation and the lines in the image itself are powerful. It has a cold feeling to it, and there’s always something neat about a book cover that makes you feel a sensation just by looking at it.

What the original cover has that’s kind of annoying: so much text. Not only do we have the blurb from the Wall Street Journal review, we have a note that it’s by an international bestselling author of another book and that the book itself is a New York Times Bestselling novel. Do teen readers care? I don’t think that they read those blurbs and are suddenly moved to pick up the book. But alas, I’m curious about how much the teen appeal is in consideration.

I say that because the paperback book is not, at least in my mind, for teen readers. The cover is very adult historical fiction, and it also tells absolutely no story except that there might be people who died, as represented by shoes. I think the tag line also conveys that, and it’s a tag line that isn’t on the original hardcover. But at least we lost the other text in this rendition.

As noted before, notice how the paperback edition of this book is two-fold: there’s the cover, and then there’s a bigger cover beneath it, like with Kids of Appetite. This isn’t a particularly library friendly style, though it is a style that really screams Literary Fiction Adults Will Like. In this case, we lose the cool of the blue water and we now have a green hue to it. Though it is, without question, a pretty and appealing cover, it doesn’t tell nearly the story the hardcover does. Nor, do I think, does it care about reaching teen readers. None of those shoes even look like they’d belong to a teen (we have children’s shoes, as well as what appear to be a pair of shoes from an adult couple).

Hands down, for me, the hardcover does it better. I wish it had about half the text it has on it, but it gives so much more feeling and emotion, and I think it appeals far more to the audience for whom it was published (if YA is for teens, of course, which is in and of itself a debatable suggestion).

Salt To The Sea hits paperback on August 1. Interestingly, as I looked up the pub date on Amazon for this one, it was quoted as being great for readers who loved All The Light We Cannot See…another adult-aimed read.

 

Filed Under: aesthetics, book covers, cover design, cover designs, Cover Redesigns, Cover Trends, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

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