A couple of years ago, there was a big brouhaha over how dark some people thought YA books had gotten – and I don’t mean just the contents. Many people decried the seemingly overwhelming amount of black covers, drawing the conclusion that the color of the covers reflected the darkness of its contents.

I have opinions on this (naturally), but that’s a topic for a whole other post (or several posts). What I did want to mention now is that I’ve actually seen a major growth in the amount of color being used on YA covers recently, most specifically fantasy covers. In particular, cover artists and designers seem to favor mixing blues, pinks, and purples in really striking ways. 

I’ve collected a montage of recent titles below that feature this type of color usage. They’re all published in 2013 or 2014. I personally love the color schemes on these. They’re beautiful and quite eye-catching. For now, they stand out because they are so colorful. If more books start following suit, that will obviously change, and they’ll begin to blend in just as the black covers have.