Book Covers

Recently, I have been reading a lot of books that have very pretty book covers. I’ve noticed that while some book covers are purely aesthetic, most of them are also expertly and subtly related to the content. Here are some of the book covers that stood out to me, both because they were pretty and because of the meaning behind them.

More Than We Can Tell by Brigid Kemmerer

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Before you get too far into this book, I must warn you that it deals with some really, really tough subjects. One of the main characters, Rev, was severely abused by his father until the age of 8, where he was rescued after a particularly bad incident. The second main character, Emma, is a programmer who maintains a game she built from scratch called OtherLANDS. She frequently experiences harassment from a cyberbully. The two meet by chance one day, while Emma is walking her dog behind an old church. They help each other to get through their individual struggles. 

I love the cover of this book. The text bubbles are a reference to Rev and Emma’s constant communication as they quickly become friends. The colors are really lovely, and it’s very clean and simple. If it had had a more sinister cover that revealed some of the darker themes of the book, I doubt I would have been as inclined to pick it up. 

Cover rating: 4/5

In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton

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In the Neighborhood of True is about a young Jewish girl named Ruth who moves from New York to Atlanta after her father’s untimely death. She and her family move in with her grandmother, who is very old-fashioned. She does not approve of the fact that her daughter is raising Ruth and her sister, Natalie, to be Jewish.

This book is set during the 1950s, when the KKK was extremely prevalent in Georgia. Ruth reluctantly hides her religion from her friends, and from Davis (the boy she likes), who conceals some family secrets of his own.

The cover is quite clever, in my opinion. Most of the book is spent leading up to the Magnolia Ball, an exclusive event for all of the fashionable teenagers where one lucky girl is crowned the Magnolia Queen. Both Ruth’s mother and grandmother were the Queen, so she’s expected to perform well. The image of the magnolia flower on the cover is a clever and aesthetic nod to that. There is also a bit of ash visible in the bottom left corner. This theme is easier to spot on the back of the book:

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This is also somewhat of a hidden detail, since you don’t find out what it is referring to until near the end of the book. It manages to be both pretty and menacing at the same time, which is a rather impressive feat. It makes the person looking at it a lot more likely to read it.

Cover rating: 4.5/5

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth

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This is a pretty well-known book. For those of you that have not read this story, it is about a planet ruled by two different groups: the Thuvhe and the Shotet. The two main characters come from the alienated groups, but manage to become friends. The title is in reference to a Shotet practice of marking one’s arm with a stained cut, similar to a tattoo, for every person you have killed. The cover shows an abstract, yet pretty, depiction of this disturbing concept. I also love the color scheme and all the sparkles!

Cover rating: 5/5

-- Anna