Judging By Covers

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I know, I know, we aren't supposed to. But that doesn't mean we don't. I know, it sounds stupid, but the cover can really affect how I feel about the book. A while ago, I read the book Avalon High, by Meg Cabot. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it, but while I was reading it I was almost embarrassed to carry it around. Why? The cover: It was PINK. Extremely PINK. Hot PINK. All over. And I was like "OH HELP THE PINKNESS IT'S TOO PINK MAKE IT STOP AAAAAAH MY EYES." I can't find a picture of that cover on Teh Intrawebz, which is probably a good thing, but trust me on this one, guys: It was PINK. It looked kind of like the picture at the right, but PINK. Imagine all the gold stuff being PINK, and you've got it.

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Of course, sometimes the reverse happens: I hate a book whose cover I love. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, has a very creative, unusual, eye-catching, nauseous-making cover that attracted me instantly. I hated the book, though, and was unable to finish it. (Maybe that was my fault, though: With a cover like that, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that it nearly made me vomit, although it was fine until Elizabeth started killing ninjas and eating their hearts.) 

But the cover is very cool, and it did its job: It made me look at the book. I think that's a cover's job: To make the book stand out. 90 % of YA books I see look exactly the same. They're black, or at least dark-coloured. There's a girl's face on the cover. And I'm all "OH look that's nice another random generic teenaged girl and I care why?" Faces on covers tend to get that reaction from me.  BOR-RING. (Mother Dearest says this is because I hate people. I DO NOT!) 

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Some books have covers that are exactly as good as the stories. Beth Revis' Across the Universe, a science-fiction book that I recommend extremely highly, has an absolutely gorgeous cover. Every time I see it I like it better and better. Look at those COLOURS! Surely I'm not alone in finding them incredibly incredibly pretty? The almost-kissing faces look really cool, and are an exception to my face rule. (Confession: The first time I saw this cover I didn't look very closely and I didn't see that the faces were faces and I was like "What is that weird pink shape?" The second time I saw it I was like "Ohhh." *facepalm*) Anyway, I like them, and I think that, together with the stars, they reflect the story very well. Also, guys, get this: The dust jacket? It's REVERSIBLE! Can you say "awesome"? The other side has a really cool map of the spaceship. 

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Here's another cover I love, and another that lives up to the amazingfulness of the story: the cover of Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, not least because dude that thing is SHINY. (In person, anyway; the SHININESS doesn't come across quite so well in a picture.) The (SHINY) colours and the (SHINY) metallicness are very very cool, as is the (SHINY) font. I love those gears and things. 

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I don't like the cover of the sequel, Behemoth, quite as much (face rule again), but it's still pretty awesome - more metallicness, and more cool colours. It's got the same cool font. While different, it matches the first in the series. Also, still SHINY. And I adore goggles. I am utterly a sucker for cool-looking goggles. 


The Books of Bayern, by Shannon Hale had some lovely lovely covers. I love those cracks, that font, and those colours. They've got a beautiful fairy-tale feel. They reflect the stories very well, and they're enormously pretty to boot. 

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However, they were later replaced by a set of covers that are far more maddeningly generic and that I don't like very much at all.  The last one, especially. The first one is fairly pretty if boring, and the second one has some awesome fire, but the last one I just find weird. What is with the expression on Razo's face? 


That's another of my cover rules: I nearly always prefer illustration to photos. This is no exception. 

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And of course the blurbs from Stephanie Meyer do not help endear them to me, though I imagine they attract other people. 

Anyway. Those are some of the covers that I loathe and love. I'd like to know what you think of them, and what your favourite/least favourite covers are. 


Toodle-oo!