A bit more fun with covers. (See part one here.) First up is some good old-fashioned addition:
And some addition that requires a little out-of-the-box thinking:
Let’s mix it up a little:
And finally, we close with order of operations:
Any others you can think of? Let me know in the comments!
I haven’t done a cover double post in quite a while, but here’s one. Let me start at the beginning because this cover has had a journey to it.
Sourcebooks unveiled this as the cover for Juliana Stone’s Boys Like You at the end of last year or beginning of this year. It’s cute, but it’s not necessarily remarkable. It looks like a light romance title. But that cover didn’t last long, and instead, Sourcebooks took it in a new direction:
This cover tells an entirely different story. It might still be a romance, but it doesn’t look as light as the previous cover. The redesign definitely fits into the trend of text and image driven covers that are becoming the new dominant look in YA (almost to the point those all look the same too).
The book’s description (via WorldCat): When Monroe Blackwell, who is spending the summer at her grandmother’s Louisiana bed-and-breakfast, meets Nathan Everets, who has a court-appointed job there, they share, and begin to recover from, their respective feelings of loss and guilt.
I don’t think either cover quite nails it via description alone. The tag line, which changed a little bit between cover redesigns, does a pretty good job capturing it, but I’m not sure where the guitar fits in in the new look and for the old one, it might just look too lighthearted.
Stone’s book comes out May 6.
Let’s return to that first cover iteration, though. That stock image is going to get quite a bit of play elsewhere, even though it didn’t end up being used for Boys Like You.
Kat Spears’s debut novel Sway will get the stock image. The title and the author placement are exactly the same as they were in Stone’s book, too. Again, there’s the feeling of a lighthearted romance here, despite the fact the tagline conveys something different.
Because Sway doesn’t come out until September 16, there’s not yet a description up in WorldCat, but here’s the lengthier one from Goodreads:
High school senior Jesse Alderman, or Sway as he’s known, could sell hell to a bishop. He also specializes in getting things people want—term papers, a date with the prom queen, fake IDs. It’s all business with Jesse. He has few close friends and he never lets emotions get in the way.
But when Ken, captain of the football team, leading candidate for homecoming king, and all around jerk, hires Jesse to help him win the heart of the angelic Bridget Smalley, Jesse finds himself feeling all sorts of things. While following Bridget and learning the intimate details of her life, he falls helplessly in love for the very first time. He also finds himself in an accidental friendship with Bridget’s younger brother who’s belligerent and self-pitying after spending a lifetime dealing with cerebral palsy. Suddenly Jesse is visiting old folks at a nursing home in order to run into Bridget, and offering his time to help the less fortunate, all the while developing a bond with this young man who idolizes him. The tinman really does have a heart after all.
A Cyrano De Bergerac story with a modern twist, Sway is told from Jesse’s point of view with unapologetic truth and biting humor. His observations about the world around him are untempered by empathy or compassion–until Bridget’s presence in his life forces him to confront his quiet devastation over a life changing event a year earlier and maybe, just maybe, feel SOMEthing, again.
It’s a male point of view, though from the cover, I’d never quite get that. I like that my expectations are bucked like that, but I wonder how much the cover image conveys what the story looks to be about. It’s a fairly generic image that suggests light romance, and I’m not sure if that’s what the book is about.
While I do not think that books have gender and wouldn’t hesitate to hand a boy a book like this, I think it’s the kind of cover that could be difficult for boys to pick up on their own from the shelf. Romance fans, though, would definitely gravitate toward this, regardless of gender.
When Spears’s cover was revealed a couple of weeks ago, another cover was revealed from Entangled Teen that looked pretty familiar.
Here’s the description from Goodreads:
Charlie Hanson has a clear vision of his future. A senior at Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, he knows he’ll graduate, go to MIT, and inevitably discover the solutions to the universe’s greatest unanswerable problems. He’sthat smart.
The future has never seemed very kind to Charlotte Finch, so she’s counting on the present. She would rather sketch with charcoal pencils, sing in her pitch-perfect voice, or read her favorite book than fill out a college application.
Charlie’s future blurs the moment he meets Charlotte. She’s not impressed by the strange boy until she learns he’s a student at Brighton where her sister has just taken a job. At Charlotte’s request, Charlie orchestrates the biggest prank campaign in Brighton history. But by the time Charlie learns Charlotte is ill and that the pranks were a way to distract her sister from Charlotte’s illness, Charlotte’s gravitational pull on him is too great to overcome. Soon he must choose between the familiar formulas he’s always relied on or the girl he’s falling for (at far more than 32 feet per second).
I can’t get a clear read, but it seems to me that this book is told from more than one point of view, both Charlie’s and Charlotte’s. Like with Spears’s cover, though, I think this has more appeal to female readers from the shelf perspective, particularly those who like romance.
I’m not sure I love the way this cover looks, changed from the original stock image. I feel more pulled toward Spears’s, and perhaps it’s because of the color and the way that the title and author’s name are less obscuring of the image.
But wait! There’s another cover out featuring this image.
Elizabeth Langston’s A Whisper in Time is available now, having been published April 6 by Spencer Hill Press. It features the same stock image, but it’s been dressed up a bit. Rather than the girl not having anything covering her legs, there’s been a skirt added. Rather than just the sun in the background, there’s been a water scene added. Rather than sticking with the side images in the original, there’s been some fall foliage to give the cover an even warmer feel. While I don’t love how it looks — I think it looks far too tinkered with — I do like the feel of it, especially compared to the Alexander cover treatment.
Here’s the description from WorldCat: Rescued from a life of servitude by the boy she loves, Susanna Marsh escapes across two centuries, only to be plunged into a world she’s ill-prepared to face. Unable to work or go to school, Susanna finds herself dependent on others to survive. Immersed in the fun and demands of his senior year of high school, Mark Lewis longs to share his world with the girl who’s captured his heart. But first he must tackle government bureaucracy to prove Susanna’s identity.Overwhelmed by her new home, Susanna seeks refuge in history and in news of the people she left behind. But when she learns that danger stalks her sister, Susanna must weigh whether to risk her own future in order to save Phoebe’s happiness.
What makes this cover work for this title is that it does feel historical. The girl having a skirt, rather than a bare leg, gives that suggestion, as does the color treatment. It doesn’t feel entirely modern.
It’s interesting to me that when there are so many potential cover options, that four books in the same year could use the same stock image. One got changed, but the other three remain the same (as of now, at least). It’s not a bad image, and all of the designs have worked to make them distinct enough. But it makes me wonder why they can’t be distinct without having to use the same picture. I’d like to see far more cover diversity on my shelves in terms of design. While text and image driven covers have really taken off in the last couple of years — we can definitely thank The Fault in Our Stars and Eleanor & Park for that — even when that keeps emerging again and again, it gets boring and waters down what covers can look like.
When you think of covers that stand out and are memorable, they’re not ones that look like every other cover. They’re ones that do something different — think Winger for example or this year, Rebel Belle.
This matters because it does impact who these books reach on the most basic level. Covers are the book’s biggest marketing tool. It sells the story to the reader. It is what compels a reader to look at the flap copy and see if it’s something that interests them. If we rely on the same looks over and over, we can only ever reach the same exact readers over and over. A lot of this has to do with fear, of course. If a cover is different, will it sell? Will Barnes and Noble stock it? The publishing world is exceptionally conservative when it comes to risk taking.
Which leads me to ask a few things: what are some of your favorite and most memorable YA covers in the last couple of years and why? What made those covers stand out? What haven’t you seen on covers that you would like to see?
In this installment of YA books getting new looks in paperback, I’ve included not only standalone titles getting new looks, but I’ve included a series getting a new look, too. As usual, some of these redesigns are great and some of them I am not entirely sure I understand nor think have improved upon original ideas. Likewise, some of the cover redesigns have been clearly inspired by new trends, and whether that’s a positive or a negative for that particular book is up for debate.
All original covers are on the left, with their new looks on the right.
Beta by Rachel Cohn came out back in October 2012 and honestly, I kind of forgot about this book and the fact it’s the first in a series. I think some of it has to do with the fact the hardcover isn’t memorable. In fact, I think this cover looks like many other covers that came out at the same time — it’s a single girl’s face and that face isn’t necessarily memorable. Sure, she’s got a floral design on her skin, but that’s not enough to make this cover stand out from the crowd. When a book has a cover like this one, while it might be on trend, it’s also remarkably boring and forgettable. What is this book about vs what other books featuring a big face are about? I’m not sure. I have no idea what genre this book is, and even the blurb on the cover from Melissa de la Cruz doesn’t offer a whole lot. It’s a riveting novel about what? What the cover does have going for it is the title and font, which suggest this is perhaps science fiction of some flavor.
The paperback redesign of Beta came out last summer; like I said, this is a book I kind of forgot about because while it may have made a splash initially, it didn’t get on my radar nor have I read a lot about it. The redesign is much better than the hardcover, though I don’t know if I love it, either. Rather than make use of de la Cruz’s blurb, the redesign uses a tag line that . . . also doesn’t tell you a whole lot about the book, other than there will be romance (which can be the hook for a lot of readers, regardless of genre). I do like the color scheme going on, and I like the feel of the cover, since it’s clearly set in a warm, tropical, and likely exotic place. I like that the original font from the title carried over, as I do think between that and the image itself, there’s a little bit better genre placement. It’s still not perfectly clear, but it’s better.
But can someone explain to me what’s going on with that model’s foot? Why does it look bent in the wrong direction? She looks exceptionally uncomfortable like that.
For me, the paperback edition of Beta wins for better cover, and I think it’s fitting with the second book in the series, Emergent. When you look at that cover, the cover for Beta makes a little more sense, as the people look more robotic than they do human.
Speaking of Rachel Cohn, three books she co-authored with David Levithan are getting recovered for the fall.
Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares
Naomi & Ely’s No-Kiss List
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about any of these cover makeovers. They’re all pretty nice, though I’m not sure how much up to date they are compared to the original looks. One of the reasons it was noted that these books were getting redesigned was to play off the popularity of contemporary YA in the vein of John Green and Rainbow Rowell (of course). I don’t know so much that I see the influence of either of those authors’ books on these covers, especially since the original covers were themselves pretty iconic — maybe if I see it at all, I see a little of Will Grayson in the Nick and Norah cover. What I do like on all of the redesigns, though, is that the font is the driving force for the cover, and I think that good fonts are at play here. I also do like that both authors — who are each known for being pretty prolific — have had the size of the font for their names made bigger.
Interesting tag line of sorts, though, on Nick & Norah that I’m not sure I entirely understand: “The He-said/She-told New York Times Bestseller.” What’s the difference between he-said and she-told? I have read the book and saw the movie but I’m not sure I get that.
All of these Rachel Cohn and David Levithan paperback redesigns will be available September 23, 2014.
The Art of Wishing by Lindsay Ribar is getting a redesign that I don’t think is better nor worse than the original. I think that they’re maybe missing the right audience for this book all together, as the hardcover reads really young and the paperback reads much more adult. Neither sort of hit that middle ground of young adult. I kind of like both covers, but I like them in context of one for younger readers and one for adult readers.
The original hardcover on the left has a tag line to it that, when you read it and look at the cover, doesn’t add or mean much: “He can grant all her wishes. But only she can save his life.” It looks to me like those are two girls laying on that bed, but I suppose it could be a guy on the lefthand side there laying beside a girl. If that’s the case, maybe the tagline makes a little more sense. I do love the font and placement for the title quite a bit.
On the paperback, the tag line is gone, but now there is a prominent blurb beneath the title. What stands out is how big and loud Tamora Pierce’s name is on the cover — it’s more obvious to me than the author’s name, which sort of fades into the background because the font is so thin and it’s hidden on the bottom (at least with the hardcover, her name is dark and easily pops out). The font choice for the title here confuses me a bit because there’s almost too much going on. For four words, there are three different fonts, including one that uses a mixture of capital and lowercase letters. As for the image, it’s clearer now that it’s a male and a female on the cover than it may be on the hardcover (I still think it’s two girls) but their stance is much more defensive than it is inviting to readers. Are they angry? I can’t say I am a huge fan of the red dots along the right-hand side, nor am I particularly keen on the faded effect. Is that snow on the ground or just how the image looks? I’m not entirely sure.
I don’t think either cover is great, and I don’t think either is terrible. Both are sort of middle ground. The paperback for The Art of Wishing will be available June 12, 2014, and the second book in the series, The Fourth Wish, will retain the style of the redesign (and, I think, looks much better than the paperback redesign).
Like with The Art of Wishing, I have a lot of neutral mixed feelings about both the hardcover and the paperback redesign of Alex London’s Proxy. On one hand, the hardcover is pretty distinctive, even if it’s not the most visually appealing. It’s distinctive because it’s jarring and because it forces you to pause and try to make sense of it. It makes use of a mirrored effect, but it’s not a perfect mirror image. The font is, but if you look at the two faces on the cover, they’re much different — and that is, in many ways, really eerie to see. I’m not a huge fan of the bars running on either side of the split, but again, I think that’s what makes this cover pretty distinctive and memorable. I can see a teen asking for this book by asking for the book with elements of this cover (i.e., it’s red and white, kind of like it’s a reflected image and there are a lot of black lines). I dig how the tag line, “Some debts cannot be repaid,” is right in the middle of the cover, splitting it in two. I also think it’s just a nice tag line, even if it’s not particularly memorable nor telling of the story inside. It’s catchy.
The paperback, on the other hand, looks like a dystopian novel and that is one of the big things that works both in its favor and against it. This book looks like a lot of other books out there, and for teens who love that genre, this will be what they’re looking for. The redesign also features a blurb quite prominently, and that blurb from Marie Lu is pretty smart — readers who like Lu’s books will likely want to try London’s series. I think it was smart to carry over the same color palette to the new design, though the use of a cityscape for the driving image here isn’t particularly memorable (a teen comes to the reference desk asking for the book with a city on the cover is going to yield too many results). I find the placement of the tag line and how it’s in two different sized fonts to be a little unsettling and I think it overwhelms the cover. For some reason, the period there bothers me a lot. It’s not there in the hardcover, and it looks out of place. Why is “some debts” so much bigger than “cannot be repaid?” I’ll also say that the font for the title isn’t my favorite. The lack of a center for the P, the R, and O makes it feel uneven.
Again, neither cover is terrible but neither knocks it out of the park. Proxy will be available in paperback on May 1, 2014. The second book in London’s series, Guardian, will follow in line with the design in the paperback makeover.
Here is a series for younger teen readers that’s getting an entire facelift:
Vanishing Act
The Cover-Up
The Rivalry
Change-Up
If ever a series needed a redesign — one that would bring unity and cohesion to the series itself — it’s John Feinstein’s sports mystery series. I’ll be honest and say that I’m not even sure I’ve collected the original cover images on the left. I know I have in some cases, but I feel like I’ve seen other covers for these books, too. For readers who might not be familiar with this series, it’s a really good choice for those who like sports books or mysteries, and it’s a good choice for readers (or parents) who are concerned about content. It’s not written down and because it’s a series, it’s a way to get readers who might be a little more reluctant to get hooked and keep reading. The catalog calls this a series for readers 10 and older, but in every library I’ve worked in, it’s been shelved in YA. It’s fine for younger readers, but I think the prime audience is that 12-16 or so range.
I’m a huge fan of the redesign, as I think it nicely unifies all of the books in the series while also making it clear they’re about different sports. While we get that from the other designs, what we don’t know from the other covers is that these books all go together and that they’re a series. There’s not anything unifying them in their looks. The new covers are very clean and crisp, with just a minimal amount of coloring. What’s interesting, too, and what I think is maybe smart is that because the players on the new covers aren’t easily identifiable, they look ageless, if not older than teens themselves. That can be a big factor of appeal for a lot of readers, who may feel like they’re reading much older books.
This series redesign/rebranding is a big win in my book. John Feinstein’s books will be available in their new looks on August 5, 2014. If you’ve had this series languishing on your shelves, I would consider springing for the series again with their new look. I bet it’ll spark new interest — plus, it just looks really good.
Let’s round out this post on a cover redesign I’m not entirely sold on because I’m not sure it nails it in the way that the hardcover does. David Iserson’s Firecracker came out last year, and it’s one of those books I keep meaning to read but haven’t picked up yet. It’s supposed to be a funny story about a girl who is told by her parents she’s being moved from her boarding school to public school. The reviews I’ve read have suggested it’s quirky without being “quirky,” and it’s a fun read. The hardcover nails that feel. I love the fact we don’t see a whole girl, but I do love the fact we see a girl on the cover, and she’s
wearing a bright, fun, and yet really wild collection of clothes. The rocket in her hand is representative of a big element in the story, which is that the main character lives in a rocket ship in her parents backyard. The way the title is angled across the lower half of the cover, along with the somewhat billboard-esque font choice is fun and eye-catching, and Iserson’s name also stands out because it’s angled and done in a contrasting font. Everything This is a bright, fun cover that is super eye catching because it’s so different and yet, it’s really not that different at all. The slighter things — her clothes, the rocket ship, the font and layout — are what make it stand out.
The paperback for Firecracker is boring. It lacks the life and verve that the hardcover has, and I think it’s because it’s sort of a lifeless pink, with a lifeless — and faceless — girl in the middle. It feels like they were going for a design that mirrored the hot and trendy illustration wave, but in doing so, they removed the fun from the cover. Even the title placement and the font used is dull. If anything, this book will have a much better appeal to adult readers than to teens, which might be the point since, like with the paperback, it’s noted that Iserson’s a writer for New Girl and SNL (both are shows I think that appeal to the 20-something audience more than the teen audience). This cover makes me miss the spunky girl on the original quite a bit, since this girl…she’s got a loose tie and no face and thus, no expression whatsoever.
Hardcover wins this round without question, and in fact, every time I see that hardcover I’m reminded how much I want to pick up and read this book. Firecracker will be available in paperback June 12, 2014.
What do you think? Which cover redesigns here are winners and which ones aren’t going to be making the most memorable list?
Cover redesigns are maybe my favorite thing to think about. Obviously, I like to blog about them since I think I do one of these about once a month. Let’s call today’s installment cover redesigns with a bit of a twist. The twist is two out of the five not only got a cover makeover, but they also got title makeovers in the process as well. Some of these are great makeovers and some are maybe not as great as the original.
Melissa Marr’s Carnival of Souls got a new look in paperback in September, along with a new title. Rather than being Carnival of Souls, it’s now Untamed City: Carnival of Secrets. You may or may not remember, but this is a book that had a lawsuit brought upon it by someone who claimed to have trademarked the title Carnival of Souls. So it’s not really a surprise that the paperback got a new title all together to avoid the mess (if you haven’t read the story linked above, I suggest you do because it’s a doozy).
In terms of the cover change itself, I didn’t have an issue with the original, though it’s not necessarily original or memorable. The paperback on the right, I think, is an improvement, though it certainly changes the entire feel of the book itself. In many ways, the redesign reminds me of the cover for Amy Garvey’s Cold Kiss. I like how the cover does feel a little bit cold, which fits with the book’s title and “secrets,” if you will. In many ways, the paperback redesign also feels a little bit older to me, and it might have appeal to more adult readers than the hardcover design.
Abigail Haas, who you may know better as Abby McDonald, will see her psychological thriller Dangerous Girls get a new look in paperback this summer. I’m reading this book right now (which I’ll talk about in a post later this week) and part of what attracted me to the book in the first place was the really standout hardcover image. It’s so different. I love the use of sand, as it not only gives a sense of the story’s setting — it’s on a tropical island — but there’s also something mysterious, intriguing, and maybe more than anything, there’s something unsettling about the impermanence of the sand letters and handcuff. This is a story which looks as trust and mistrust, and I feel like the hardcover does a good job portraying that.
The paperback, which will be available May 6, gives a very different image on the cover and yet still somehow captures the feel of the story well. In many ways, it’s more telling of what happens in the story (there is a dead girl) though I’m not sure it’s different enough to stand out on shelves in the same way that the hardcover is. Is that a bad thing? Maybe or maybe not. Readers who like thrillers will easily see that in this cover, and maybe even more noteworthy, readers who like female-driven thrillers in adult fiction, like Megan Abbott or Gillian Flynn, may be tempted to pick this up because it’s reminiscent of their covers. I love the font for the title a lot: it’s fun in a way that is almost uncomfortable in context of the story and words themselves.
Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler was one of my favorite reads last year, and I’m really excited to talk about it a little more now that the Outstanding Books list is out and this book is on it (that’s a spoiler for a future post). The cover on the left is the hardcover. It’s not a bad cover, but I don’t think it’s the kind of cover that has people clamoring to pick it up by looks alone. It’s pretty basic, and it doesn’t give a whole lot of insight into what the story is about. You know the title — which, while a great title, also doesn’t tell you much — and the tagline, “My one-way ticket to salvation” suggests this is a book about a person coming to terms with their faith.
That paperback though.
That paperback.
This redesign might be one of my all-time favorite redesigns because it nails the book perfectly, and not only does it nail the book, but it has massive reader appeal to it. Readers see this and they want to know the story. The boy on the cover just did something bad by cutting his tie. And his tie has a cross on it, so you know this is something serious. The tag line for the paperback changed quite a bit, too, and for the better. Rather than claiming this is a story about the author’s salvation, it’s instead “A true story about growing up gay in an evangelical family.” That absolutely nails the story, and not only does it nail the story, it does so in a way that’s really appealing and allows readers to know exactly what they’re getting into. Perhaps they relate! Perhaps they’re just curious! It’s much more enticing and engaging than the prior one.
Also added on the paperback is a blurb from Maria Semple. What’s interesting is her book, Where’d You Go Bernadette? is adult fiction, but it earned an Alex Award. So there’s a less-than-subtle attraction to this YA memoir for adult readers, too. The image and tag line are completely teen friendly but that blurb invites older readers into the story too.
Rapture Practice will be available in paperback on June 10, and I think even though I bought a copy of the hardcover for my library’s collection already, I’ll also be picking up a paperback because it’ll bring the story to even more readers.
Here’s the second of the six books in this roundup of cover makeovers that not only got a new look in paperback, but it also got a new title. Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff came out last summer, and the cover is on the left. Again, not a bad cover at all. The tagline doesn’t tell us a whole lot about the story, but the image on the cover itself does a good job explaining what the story is about. It’s action adventure and this has definite appeal to male readers (though I don’t think in any way it is a cover that would turn off female readers).
The paperback, which will be available May 13, has a new title: I Am The Weapon. I think I like the new title, as it does a much better job telling readers what the story is, and as can be seen on the cover, there’s no longer a tagline. Perhaps this is because the title is explanatory enough without further elaboration. The image on the cover changed, but it’s not so drastic a change that the feel of the cover or story is different. Rather than being black, it’s got a blue hue to it, and the character who is running is much more in the forefront than on the hardcover. There is a blurb from the Publisher’s Weekly review on the paperback, and while I don’t tend to love blurbs on covers, I feel like it works really well here. That it highlights the story is hard-edged and entertaining should sell the story to the exact right readership. This paperback also tells readers this is the first in a series, “The Unknown Assassin,” which itself is printed on the cover.
The sequel to the book also got a bit of a title change, too, and it’ll fit with the new one for this book: I Am The Mission.
Would you ever guess by the title, tag line, or image that the hardcover on the left was not a dystopia but instead a psychological thriller about a cult? Because I wouldn’t, and that’s why when I was given a copy of Amy Christine Parker’s Gated, it fell and fell and fell to the bottom of my pile of reading. I love cult stories, but I am not huge on dystopia. And the cover didn’t compel me in the least either. Simply stated: it blends in. It’s boring. I think the tagline doesn’t do it any favors either: “She thought the evil lived outside the walls. She was wrong.” It’s generic.
But the paperback. I love the paperback. It has an entirely fresh feel to it and it feels like a psychological thriller, rather than blending into the sea of dystopians. I love that it’s a font-driven design, and yet, I also love the girl who is on the cover. She’s in a dress, but it’s not a fancy one. It looks pretty generic, like the kind of thing a girl in a cult might be forced to wear. I love how the blue font plays against the orange-hued wheat field the girl is standing in, and I also think that the blurb use on the cover is a huge enhancement. You know immediately it’s a psychological thriller.
We’ve seen a million covers with girls who have hair blowing in their faces, but it works here so well. You know there’s something more going on here. That it’s purposeful. This cover also seems to have a lot of crossover appeal to it, and again, like the Haas cover, I think that it is being done in a smart way. I’m much more tempted to pick this book up now than I was with the original cover. And since I don’t think I bought this one for my collection when it was out in hardcover, I’m eager to get this series going at the library with the new look.
Gated will be available in paperback on May 27.
I don’t even know what to say about this cover redesign, so I’ll keep it pretty simple: why? Why did they insist on putting a girl doing duck face into the background of the paperback edition of Mindy Raf’s Symptoms of My Insanity? It is not only scary but it also almost undermines the title, as well as what the book itself seems to want to be tackling. I’m positive there’s some humor in this story, and perhaps that was the thinking behind it, but no. No. This was a real huge step back and makes little sense. I like the addition of the tag line, the removal of the oddly-darker-than-the-rest smiley face, but that girl. It kills the paperback cover for me.
I really wish the US edition of this book had gone with this look because I feel like it captures the feel of the story so much better without being a little … horrifying.
What do you think? Which cover and title redesigns nailed it and which ones fall flat?
A couple of years ago, Kimberly talked about a trend she’d noticed on covers. Back in the days of girls in long dresses, she pointed out the single eye trend, where YA covers got just one eye looking out or up or away from the reader. I thought it would be worth pointing out that this trend hasn’t slowed down and it’s possible that the single eye on a cover trend is even stronger in 2014.
Here’s a roundup of YA books featuring an eye on the cover, along with a description from WorldCat. If you know of others, I’d love to know. These are books that are coming out in 2014, and knowing there are still some covers yet to be revealed for the year, I suspect we might see another single eye or two before year’s end. I bet if you pulled all of these books together you could make a real eye-catching display of books (I know, I know).
Some Fine Day by Kat Ross (July): Sixteen-year-old Jansin Nordqvist is on the verge of graduating from the black ops factory known as the Academy. She’s smart and deadly, and knows three things with absolute certainty: 1. When the world flooded and civilization retreated deep underground, there was no one left on the surface. 2. The only species to thrive there are the toads, a primate/amphibian hybrid with a serious mean streak. 3. There’s no place on Earth where you can hide from the hypercanes, continent-sized storms that have raged for decades. Jansin has been lied to. On all counts. (description via Goodreads).
Fugitive X by Gregg Rosenblum (available now): s a war between robots and humans looms on the horizon, Nick, Kevin, and Cass continue to battle the bots that enslaved humanity–but when they are separated, they must fight the war on their own.
Gasp by Lisa McMann (June): After narrowly surviving two harrowing tragedies, Jules now fully understands the importance of the visions that she and people around her are experiencing. She’s convinced that if the visions passed from her to Sawyer after she saved him, then they must now have passed from Sawyer to one of the people he saved. That means it’s up to Jules to figure out which of the school shooting survivors is now suffering from visions of another crisis. And once she realizes who it is, she has to convince that survivor that this isn’t all crazy—that the images are of something real. Something imminent. As the danger escalates more than ever before in the conclusion to the Visions series, Jules wonders if she’ll finally find out why and how this is happening—before it’s too late to prevent disaster. (Description via Goodreads).
I Have A Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand (March): A Hunger Games-style survival school for teens is about to get deadly serious… or seriously deadly. Take your pick. Henry Lambert is a skinny, completely non-athletic sixteen-year-old who would much rather stay inside playing video games than do anything that requires interacting with nature.