Skip to main content

Cover Snobs Unite! (Or, YA Highway RTW: Favourite Covers)

Pretty 100 per cent sort of certain that I have never participated in a YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday in any form but that of lurking on a Friday afternoon thinking "Well, Thursday's bluffable. But this is just slow". Anyhow, this "blog carnival" topic this week is Favourite All-Time Covers. And I've talked previously about my snobbiness regarding the physical appearance and/or first impressions of people books.

So, without further ado.



THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER has a similar floating feel, but the air of suffocation and constriction, as well as the crowded text just conveys this subtle darkness that really appeals to me.

If it were possible to marry a book cover and its premise, I would have been wedded to Julie Cross' TEMPEST a long time ago. I know many link this to HUSH, HUSH with the zero-gravity nature, but it's the entire composition that really links with the time-travelling premise of the novel. 


I was always rather indifferent to Beth Revis' ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, both in premise and in regards to the cover, but this edition just made me like it.

I'm pretty familiar with Elena Vizerskaya's art, and when I saw the cropping for THE WATER WARS of one of her prints, I was tres impressed. I love the vectors the water makes.
 

Like ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, I was always indifferent to the cover for THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH while I was always intrigued by its premise. My lack of love for the previous cover is probably the single factor that prevented me from buying it over other books. I really like the strength of the colours juxtaposed by the ambiguity of the reddish could by a duster or a feather or a really impressive fan thing.

In contrast to all these pretty girls in pretty dresses under water or in fields, I really liked how THE PLEDGE conveyed the under the radar importance in the plot, and the darkness, but still maintained the underlying beauty. Like humanity under dystopian conditions. Oh, God, how pretentious am I?

 
The only thing that could make the vein map on the WARM BODIES cover cooler would be illustrations of anatomical GREY'S ANATOMY-type things as chapter headings. Oh, wait. There are those illustrations. And they are awesome.

It is a thing with me that I absolutely DETEST movie tie-in covers. The idea of some surly actress of the moment staring out at you and making everyone on public transport judge you when you're reading is just ugh. I've been known to spend an extra five dollars on Book Depository to just dodge the movie tie-in. But this is phenomenal. I love this movie poster/DVD cover/book cover with all my heart. Down to the colouring and positioning and font and everything, ONE DAY has to be on this list.

So, followers. How are we today? Have you got any favourite covers or all time favourites or covers that you like so much you bought the book despite the premise or writing?
 

Comments

  1. Great covers! To be honest I have never got on the 'book cover lovin' bandwagon', though I do love a good book cover. Weird, really, since I'm a fine artist too and should be into all that stuff. hehe

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D'You Ever Get Those Umpteenth Draft Blues - They're Like the Mean Reds (Or, I Need to Buy HG Wells' Time Machine off Sheldon Cooper)

Say hip hip hooray for absurdly long titles. (And if you didn't catch those references, look here (at 2:50) and here ) I apologise profusely here, boyos. School has been an even greater burden that I'd ever imagined. If I want this mark I've been blabbering about, I am going to need to clone myself. Seriously. It's been a long week since I last spoke to you all and I'm afraid it may be another until I can break above the water. I'm drowning in homework, and core texts that I absolutely despise. In fact, I'm starting to look a little like this: And this glorious situation sparked me with inspiration as gracefully as lightning destroys a palm tree. Inspiration for, well, my blog. *Casts longing glance to manuscript in the corner* As I tried to straighten out my weekend to catch up on all the work I missed when I was sick this week, I realised that Saturday - my devout RETURN revisions day - was being consumed by extra reading/film viewing/art sketching for s

Show Me Yours, a Blogfest

Ooh, look! It's a post. Finally. I am aware that it's been a while, but I've been swept up in the NYE-slash-work-slash-revisions world that has now become my life. Anyways. A while ago, I signed up to a blogfest over at Falen Formulates Fiction , by the charming name of Show Me Yours . I know that to many northern hemisphere natives that it's only the 2nd of January, however, down here in Australia, it's the 3rd. Therefore, I am early. I couldn't find an excerpt from my NaNo, mostly because I haven't touched it since the 1st of December. This blogfest deadline really snuck up on me, and I don't really have time to comb through and then edit a scene, so I'll be lazy and give you an excerpt from my novel, RETURN, which is seizing my sanity and my sleep. It's meant to be 500 words, but I'm feeling rebellious and shall give you 650 or whatever it is. The Grog and Gruel was empty, or almost empty. Nightfall smothered the narrow pub, blackening th

"In 900 Years of Time and Space, I've Never Met Anyone Who Wasn't Important Before" (Problem: Boring Lead, Riveting Supporting Cast)

I received an email the other day from a reader (who wanted to remain anonymous in this post - but we'll call her Sarah) who told me that she was having trouble getting into her protagonist, despite this being her most prominent POV. She is dynamic as many Young Adult characters are, but at the beginning she's anxious and self-doubting because she's in that adolescent phase when you realise everything you know about yourself is completely wrong and you're just starting to discover who you REALLY are. There's not much that makes her like me (or am I kidding myself?) even though I've been in the same position as her. Well maybe not exactly since this is YA SF, but as far as her emotional state goes, I've been through that. But I just feel like she should've developed more by now, and she still feels like a faceless stock character. Bildungsroman is the nature of YA above all, and that relatable trait for the protagonist is necessary. To some extent,