cover atrocities: the transition from hardcover to paperback

The title says it all: these paperbacks have murdered the books.

Smart Girls Get What They Want by Sarah Strohmeyer

The original cover was lovely: bright blue background, full-body model, great contrast between sans serif author font and handwritten title font. Then the paperback: overload of pink, really awkward model positioning with typical hiding-of-face, generic outdoor background. Just... WHY. Why would they take a book about  being smart and turn it so generic?

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The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper

Close-ups of fabric are far less common than one would think. Close-ups of girls' faces, however, are far more common than one would like, and so is a guy's shoulder in the frame to say HINT HINT ROMANCE, and so is that atrocious bubbly script font. Oh my God, and that tagline. "Which letter will open her heart?" *gag*

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Transparent by Natalie Whipple

I cannot get over this transition. The hardcover is so lovely — the blur of colours, the faint outlining/masking, the glow of the title letters. And then the paperback. It's so tacky. I can't even. I mean, yay for glasses on a YA protag?

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Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Not a huge fan of the original, but wow is that paperback worse. The sticker-like application of the title makes this look like a piece of produce, and that awkward pose of the models is exacerbated by the diagonal tilting of the photo. And again, generic outdoor background, yay.

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Wow! That was a lot of negativity. But seriously, how do paperbacks get so terrible that I feel compelled to post about them? I think I'll have to do a cover love post in the near future, just to restore my faith in YA transitional covers.

cover comparison: foreign editions.

Foreign edition covers have the potential to be -- and usually are -- extremely gorgeous. Sometimes more so when compared to the US and Canadian versions. So let's take a look!

(I realize I haven't posted in over a week. *hangs head in shame*)

On the left is the USAeain version; the right is the Australian. And I don't know about you, but for some reason that right cover absolutely screams "foreign cover" to me. I think it's just a sense that no Big 6 publisher would create that kind of cover; the title font, the busy foreground... but then again, the US version is pubbed by Kensington Teen. (That publishing house mystifies me as to where it lands on the publisher size scale.)

And its cover... I don't know if either guys or gals would pick it up. I'm curious as to which gender they actually designed it in mind for. I mean, four young men on a cover? What does that imply to you?

The first is the American one; the latter two are either Mexican or South American, or a mix of the two. (Sorry I can't tell you anything more specific. :P) So how lovely are these? TOTALLY lovely. For my comments on the first, just glance back at my review.

As for the second, I love the incorporation of so many things in the tree, and the fact that it's hand-drawn, but I would've preferred more of a background rather than a solid colour. And for the third, I adore the background but man, are those feet boring. So basically, mash the best aspects of the second and third cover together and you're good! :D

And finally, two covers which I have no clue what happened to:

When I got this book from the library, it had the first cover. Which took me offguard, because for the longest time, as this book built up buzz around the 'sphere, it was the second that garnered praise for the uniqueness.

So... what happened in the end? When I look on Goodreads, only the first one is featured. (And my thoughts on the covers: both are okay. Like the colour schemes, but I thought the bridge in the first one was, like, imprints of her arms left behind. o_0)

comparing covers: the transition from hardcover to paperback.

No intro needed; the title says it all.

Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Both those covers make you go "WOW." The first one for its menacing and mysterious look -- that fog wrapping around the title is beautiful, and those eyes must be the best face I've seen on a cover. (It's shiny in real life, too!) The second one for its style -- the quirkiness of the illustration, plus the awesome tagline placing. And did you notice the trees (so important) and the little city there?

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Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Excuse me while I sob.

WHAT happened to the ARC cover, that first one there? We go from "Interesting, a girl in a simple dress (for once!) with a lovely background" to "Okaaay, bright turquoise...?" to "Whoopdeedoo. Another close-up of a girl face". Yaaaaaay.

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Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

The first one, the hardcover, is most definitely evocative of the novel's tone and lush atmosphere. The second one may turn off less foreigner-phobic non-Asians. And the third is neither -- it's the Indonesian edition. :D Isn't it lovely?

a cover comparison: Wither & Fever.

Last week, Lauren DeStefano released the cover of Fever, the sequel to her debut Wither:

Now, a book designer needs to create stunning covers and interiors, but they also need to ensure that the jackets (including spines) seem continuous from book to book within a series. Lizzy Bromley achieved the "stunning" part of the job, but to me, the continuousness is lost. Sure, the geometric shapes are still there, and the font's still the same. But:

• the lighting is totally different. Whereas Fever's lighting comes from the background, Wither's lighting is from behind the camera, facing the dark blue setting.
• the models look almost entirely different. As far as I know, it's the same girl, but what with the hairstyle change and pink tinge on Fever, the look has very much deviated.
• does the girl on Fever's cover look like she's running away?! I could accept a passive position on Wither because for most of the novel Rhine doesn't do anything. But for a runaway to be slumped on the floor? *is baffled*

There you have it: my not-too-pleased opinions. See, it's a gorgeous cover by itself, but compared with Wither, it doesn't match at all IMO. What do you think?