Every time I do one of these posts, I’ve got to hold back from how many I pack in. I spent a lot of time on Edelweiss, and whenever I come across a new book package, I make note, meaning that in a couple of months, I’ve got way too many for a single post. But for those who love looking at cover changes, it means there’s another post in the near future featuring some of the others I’ve come across worth talking about.

As always, some of these covers are strong redesigns while others aren’t quite as strong as their original packaging. Let’s take a peek. Love one of these? Dislike one of these? Seen other redesigns lately that are worth looking at? I’d love to hear about those things in the comments.

Original hardcover designs are on the left, and new paperback editions are on the right.

 

 

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas hit shelves last spring with sort of an odd cover. I don’t think I “got” what it was trying to do until looking at it right now. We have a profile of a girl on repeat with what looks like weird color blotches beside some of them. But beneath those color blotches are more profiles of the same girl. Perhaps it’s meant to signal mental instability? Confusion? The splotch colors in addition to the child-style font for the title and author, though, don’t especially scream “thriller” to me with this cover. I’m not sure I could pin down what the cover expresses in terms of genre or feel, beyond that it’s a little confusing.

The paperback redesign, though, does this book some tremendous service. The shadow of a face, with the wind-in-the-hair effect of the girl scream thriller. You could shelve this alongside the Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter books and have it fit right in. The title font and effect work much better, too: there’s something eerie and off about a title which is in all lowercase letters, and having it centered just below the nose of the girl’s face add to the creep factor. Further adding to the effect with the font is the fact that Thomas’s name is in all caps and in red. It’s a color palette that complements the design really well.

For me, the more appealing cover design is the paperback, which will be available July 3.

 

 

Going in the complete opposite direction is Jennifer E. Smith’s lighter-hearted contemporary Windfall. I’ve not yet read this one, but mean to, given that I’ve loved Smith’s work in the past and the premise — a girl buys her best male friend a lottery ticket for his birthday and he wins. There’s also a romance thread through the story.

In terms of cover: the original hardcover is not only adorable, it’s memorable, and it’s in a color scheme that isn’t seen enough in YA. The blue and green with confetti are fun and clever, and the use of the gold tokens on the bottom add to the real lighthearted, sweet feel. Note the tag line for this cover, “Let luck find you.” It’s short and to-the-point, and it ties the entire cover together in a nice little bow.

The paperback for Windfall will hit shelves July 31. This new take on the original is clever in that it retains some of what makes the original work. We see the confetti again, but tis time it’s in a variety of colors. We have two people at the bottom of the cover, as opposed to the tokens, but it’s as nice a mirrored effect as the script-style font for the title carrying over. What’s interesting to me is the complete change in color scheme. The paperback feels like it’s leaning into the Millennial Pink trend almost too hard (and I say this as someone who loves that color). That, paired with the fact that the teens are dressed in a very now look, make me wonder if this cover will date much more quickly than the original. It’s certainly eye catching, but it screams 2017/2018. And interestingly, the tag line is gone, replaced with a blurb from Morgan Matson. That’s the perfect name to have attached as a blurb, but I think I lean toward the tag line working a bit more. Is it me, or does this cover maybe feel like it’s reaching an adult YA reading audience more than a teen YA reading audience?

For me, the hardcover edges out the paperback.

 

 

 

Let’s follow up the eerie and the sweet with the downright strange. Jane, Unlimited hit shelves last year to a lot of mixed reviews. Long-time fans of Cashore were thrilled she tried her hand at a new genre, and many were smitten while others were left a bit confused. I didn’t pick this one up, in part because the hardcover edition told me literally nothing about the book. It’s a purple and silver color scheme, with little more than a standard font used for both the book’s title and the author’s name. The tag line, “One house, limitless possibilities” suggests nothing, either. Is this a thriller? A horror? Contemporary? Fantasy? It’s impossible to tell because there’s nothing here to tell. The book’s sell is on the author name and the title of her previous best-selling work (which, in this case, is likely fair for fans but not useful for newcomers or shelf browsers).

And then there’s the paperback, which comes out July 10. This is perhaps one of the weirdest YA book covers I’ve seen in a long time. I’d argue that it’s not a YA book cover at all, and in fact, rivals many of the bizarre, genre-bending adult covers out there. The artistic direction is entirely different than the hardcover, beginning with the fact that, while a dual color palette, the title font and author name font actually have some weight to them on the cover. The design is box-like, with the red being the sides and the turquoise in the center. Before going further: the colors. They’re slightly disorienting when put together, odd colors to see used in conjunction with one another, especially on a YA book cover. In some ways, that disorientation works quite well — it forces you to pause, consider, and become curious in what’s going on.

That curiosity extends when you realize there is a foot coming through. I noted that the design looks like a box, but I also wonder if it’s meant to play the role of a house of sorts. The red being the walls, the turquoise being the inside, and the foot falling through the roof. This is, of course, a consideration I’m making entirely on the tag line from the hardcover. Would a casual reader who hasn’t seen the original or the tag line put that together? I have no idea.

The tag line is ditched on the paperback, replaced with a blurb from the New York Times review of the book. Here’s where the cover begins to make a little more sense: the review notes it’s a genre bender, and that it’s one which may mess with your brain.

It’s hard to say which cover is more effective. I’m not sure either really does much for the book itself or tells causal readers what they can expect. The paperback might be closer, if only because of the blurb pulled on it. But, this cover doesn’t feel like it belongs in the YA section at all.

For me, neither of these are especially working.

 

 

 

 

The hardcover version of Beware That Girl by Teresa Toten never got on my radar. It’s not especially remarkable, and even though this is a thriller, there’s little about the cover that would tell you so much. Sure, there’s the tag line “This will be our little secret,” but that tag line doesn’t really go with either the title nor the shadowy girl in the image. Who is telling us to beware? Who is the girl in the image? How does that tie into keeping a little secret? Does it at all? The font for the title is off-putting for me, too, as it feels too rough and jagged, and incongruent with the shadowy image in the background. Is this image moving or is it still? I can’t make too much sense of it.

But the paperback cover caught my eye immediately. This is a creepy as hell cover which brings its creep factor in very subtilely. The white background is stark in contrast to the bright red sucker, which doesn’t land in the middle of the cover, but rather, is placed in the upper third of it. Anyone who knows about design knows this is a placement our brains and eyes find appealing and unique.

Then there are the ants.

Those highly focused black ants stand out against both the white background and the red sucker. Their legs, despite not being especially chill-inducing, manage to bring on the uncomfortable factor because of how clear they are. This cover veers from being gross, though; instead, it has a feeling of discomfort.

The discomfort, though, is made even more obvious with the change in tag line for the paperback “She only looks sweet.” That tag line, with the image, with the thinning out of the title font — along with a slightly disorienting kerning style — makes it clear this is going to be a book that is strange, unsettling, and mysterious. The change from pushing the mystery tropes too hard to stripping them away all together in favor of something completely different piques reader interest in a whole different capacity. More, given that this is a book about the rich elite and a girl desperate to climb the social ladder, the image of the sucker with ants harkens images of childhood, loss, desperation, and ambition so perfectly.

Beware That Girl hits shelves in paperback on May 15.

 

 

 

I don’t want to delve into the cover packaging for If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson too much, but I wanted to include it in this round-up because it’s the book’s 20th anniversary this year. In honor of that, it’s been given a stunning new look. What makes the new cover really stand out for me is not only the fact there’s an interracial couple on the cover, but that the illustrative take fits in with some of the biggest titles in recent memory. I’m not a huge fan of illustrated covers — it’s a trend that burned itself out really quickly and one that often is hard to make distinctions between and among covers — but in this case, the cover is absolutely beautiful, magical, and will encourage new readers to pick up Woodson’s classic.

If You Come Softly’s 20th anniversary edition is available now.