Judging Books By Their Cover

By, Crystal Best

We’ve always been told by our English teachers “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Saying that the ugliest book could have the greatest story inside, so don’t just look at the appearance and pass judgment. As much as we are told this as kids we still judge books by their covers and how pretty they look. Even experienced book lovers, which I do count myself as, still judge books by their cover, and even every once in a while we cave into the need of just picking a really pretty book that would look good on our trophy case. I mean our bookshelves. There is a stereotype though that if you pick up a pretty book it’s either a really bad story or super dark.

So to save everyone the pain of picking up a pretty book and it being a downfall, I decided I would. I will look at pretty books and judge them first on how pretty they are by color, how the color pops, and brings my eyes to the book. Attention-drawing, where does the book make my eyes look at first or want me to focus on. Lastly, symbols that are easily rememberable like the Hunger Games insignia. Then I will read the synopsis to see if the plot is actually good or flop. This will all be rated out of ten.

Pestilence

Author: Laura Thalassa

Series: The Four Horsemen

Genre: Fantasy

Colors - 6/10

It shows that the main color is gold and red. The gold really pops off the cover with the black background giving a shine to it. The red at the end of the arrows draws your eyes to it and then once you notice it’s an arrow your eyes will most likely follow it up to the gold.

Attention drawing - 7/10

When you look at the covers your attention goes straight to the crown, it is the brightest thing on the cover. Even if you look at the arrows they make you follow them to the center of the cover where the crown is. Making it clear that the main focus should be the crown and the black space behind it emphasizes it.

Symbols - 4/10

For the book and series, it seems that each book has its own symbol. For this book in particular its symbol is the crown, but it’s different for each book which though it’s nice and decently memorable. The more same a symbol can be, the easier it is to remember.

Synopsis - 5/10

The synopsis was weird but interesting talking about how Pestilence, one of the four horsemen is going around and trying to initially kill everyone and then this girl named Sara Burns knows this and tries to kill him without knowing that she can’t kill him. He basically kidnaps her and holds her hostage and it’s implied they have a Beauty and the Beast type of love happen. Overall it was a weird synopsis to read and was decent, but it wasn’t great and truly doesn’t make me want to read it all. This could be someone else’s cup of tea, but not mine.

The Fine Print

Author: Lauren Asher

Series: Dreamland Billionaires

Genre: Romance

Colors - 4/10

The colors on the cover are mostly plain with it just being different shades of blue. It doesn’t exactly catch people’s attention. It’s still a nice palette which is why I gave it a four, but there could be more colors than just blue and white.

Attention drawing - 6/10

When you look at the cover at first glance your eyes are instantly drawn to the building manor in the background and the dark strip to where it seems like the paper has been ripped to show the title of the book. They make it to where you have to notice the title of the book since it’s one of the two places where dark blue is the background. The inverted colors of the background of the title of the book also give it attention.

Symbols - 7.5/10

The symbol of the book is the building on the front. Most avid readers of the series can recognize it for the blueprints of the building in the front of all the books which gives it a pretty distinct symbol. This also makes it memorable and sometimes easily recognizable when seen.

Synopsis - 6/10

It started off a little slow with it going out of the main guy character Rowan talking about creating fairy tales to quickly getting my attention by saying he kissed his hire, Zahra the main woman character, and then texting her under an alias. This then goes to her side of the story where she thinks her boss Rowan is insufferable and that he can’t fix things through money. I thought it was good and it truly piques my interest how he can go under an alias to contact her and how long it lasts before he gets caught. It also makes it seem like Zahra may be a strong main female and won’t just be a pushover. I would like to possibly even try to read this book later.

Powerless

Author: Lauren Roberts

Series: The Powerless Trilogy

Genre: Fantasy

Colors - 5/10

The colors on this cover are black with the purple hints from the flowers attracting you along with the green vines. The pop of the purple makes your eyes go to the silver and see the hilt of the sword.

Attention drawing - 7/10

This book, like the first one in this review, has to where the black background makes you focus on the sword. They use negative space, an art term saying black space or devoid of something, for you to focus only on the one thing that is in the middle which is the sword which even has detail on the hilt. The pops of color also draw your attention to the sword especially with the purple flowers being more in bloom near the sword.

Symbols - 7/10

The symbol of the book is the sword on the front of the cover. Even on all the other books in the series, there is a sword on the front and it's somewhat of a distinct feature to remember a book by which makes this very cool. It’s easily recognizable, but it can also possibly get mixed up with Realm Breaker, which is another popular book series that has a sword on all their covers, the only difference being a hand on the Realm Breaker cover.

Synopsis - 7/10

It instantly started off with some simple words making it clear that this is going to be an enemies to lovers. The synopsis then goes on to explain this world where the Elites have powers and the Ordinary do not (of course) and that the king sees the Ordinary unfit since he wants to keep his Elite society. He then says that all Ordinary are banished from his society and not having a power becomes a crime, which is exactly what the main female character, Paedyn Gray, is and fakes like she is an Elite so that she can live. She then somehow saves a prince and then he throws her in some Elite competition that shows off a person’s powers and now she has to fend away her feelings and keep hidden that she’s ordinary. This is a pretty interesting story to me and reminds me a little of like the Hunger Games and The Selection mixed with the competition format it has. I want to know how she does through faking her Elite powers through the competition and how long she can go without telling at least one person. I will definitely be putting this on my TBR (To Be Read) list, and moving it up high on the rankings so it doesn’t get completely forgotten amongst the list.

One Of Us Is Lying

Author: Karen M. McManus

Series: One of Us Is Lying series

Genre: Mystery

Colors - 4/10

The colors are just very general with the title being a very bright red on top of all the rest of the neutral color making it stick out for you to see. Overall, the colors aren’t what attract you to the book.

Attention drawing - 5/10

What attracts you to the book is the red lettering making you look at the title of the book first before looking behind the title and seeing the weird yearbook pictures that have the kids' face cut out of it which also makes you look at the book.

Symbols - 2/10

There’s not really a symbol that represents the book series. The closest we get to a constant symbol to recognize that a book is a part of the series is the kids' faces being out of pictures, but this can easily get mistaken for some other books that Karen McManus has done where she covers the faces of people on her book covers.

Synopsis - 8/10

The way it reads in the synopsis kind of resembles a case file presenting all of the main characters plus one extra character. Then it talks about how that one extra character doesn’t make it out of the classroom that all of the main characters are in and how the extra character was going to post incriminating things about them all the next day. They are now seen as suspects, but could the killer still be out there? I really enjoyed the synopsis and the way it was set up, it made me really want to read this book and I will also definitely add this to my TBR, it going high up on the list behind Powerless.

The Priory of the Orange Tree

Author: Samantha Shannon

Series: The Roots of Chaos

Genre: Fantasy

Colors - 8/10

Right off the back the colors are super bright on the cover instantly attracting attention. The background is yellow and orange making it very vibrant along with the other bright colors of dark blue and dark red that is on the dragon. Even with the tall buildings being neutral colors, it just helps contrast the bright background and dragon to have it stand out too which also gives this a high rating.

Attention drawing - 7/10

With all these colors it can easily attract attention. When you first look at the book, your eyes are going to naturally drift to the dragon on top of the tower before even noticing that there are houses on the bottom of the cover. They use bright colors to get people and then have all the clear space to make your eyes notice the dragon. Then in turn you notice the dragon’s mouth is open pointing at the title of the book.

Symbols - 6/10

The symbol for this book and its series is dragons being on the covers. Though it’s not uncommon for a dragon to be a symbol for a book, the certain style that they draw the dragon and the certain colors they put on the dragon give it its own uniqueness.

Synopsis - 4/10

The description started off strong but got confusing as it continued. It started with a normal “a world divided” and then went to talking about a queen who hasn’t been married and needs an heir while she is being targeted by assassins. Then it switches to talk about a mage who is a lady in wait and is a part of this secret mage society, and is protecting the queen with forbidden magic. It switches again to talk about across the sea a dragon rider who has to make an important decision that could unravel their life. Then switches again to talk about the East and West not wanting to make peace and that forces of evil are coming. All the switches to me didn’t make sense and the way it was done felt a little choppy and weird. Maybe it’s hinting at the fact that it could switch POVs (Point of views) through all of these different characters or not, but it was just weirdly set up to me. I think from what I read in between the lines of it, this is a good story idea at the base. Now if it is followed through it could be good, but it will depend on the writing style and how they expect to execute all these different ideas mentioned. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the book, I don’t know if I want to give it a try or not. So for now it will be in a weird limbo of possibly being on the TBR or not.

Lightlark

Author: Alex Aster

Series: Lightlark

Genre: Fantasy

Colors - 6.5/10

For this, the colors of the cover are mostly gold and black, making the red a spotlight and something that draws your attention to it compared to all the colors. They are not plain colors which is why it got the rating it got, but it’s not exactly completely bright in sticking out. The bright gold they use helps out with it.

Attention drawing - 8/10

When you look at the cover it once again uses the black background to force your eyes to come to the only one bright thing on the cover which is the heart, that has really cool details like the weird black ooze and how the top is made of flowers. The gold around the corner also leads up to the heart making you notice that there is some gold in the heart. The gold also helps stick out the title that is right above the heart making your eyes go there too, to see it.

Symbols - 5/10

The symbol for this book series is a crown on the spine of the book. It’s a distinct crown that changes depending on the colors and possibly the contents of the book. Having a crown as a symbol of a book series isn’t entirely unique as the Red Queen has the same symbol and is also very popular. This is why I gave it a decent rating because the crown looks very cool but still is like other symbols.

Synopsis - 7/10

This one begins with giving an overview of the world talking about the island Lightlark hosting a competition called the Centennial that happens every hundred years. The rulers of the six realms are the only ones invited and it gives them the last chance to get rid of the curses that each realm has. In order for the curses to be destroyed a ruler must die. This follows Isla Crown, a young ruler whose curse on her realm is that they kill anyone they love. So she is determined to do anything to end this curse even if love complicates it. This story really intrigues me on how all of these realms have a good reason to fight for their curses to be broken, but to have a curse where you basically can’t love is just so messed up that it’s interesting. Already it being a competition makes me interested, so I’m definitely putting it on my TBR not high up next to Powerless and One of Us Is Lying, but close to them.

Gothikana

Author: RuNyx

Series: N/A

Genre: Romance

Colors - 4.5/10

The colors are mostly like Fine Print, just different shades of black. More on the darker scale of black. There are only hints of gold shown on the cover and it helps make it stick out amongst the black on the cover. Overall the cover is very simplistic and could have used the color black in a more attention-grabbing way along with having the gold attract more attention.

Attention drawing - 4/10

There’s not much on the cover that draws attention to it other than the title of the book which is gold. Your eyes go there first and then it goes down to the rose underneath it since it has a speck of gold on it too, it being bright on top of all the black. With the gold being as bright as it is it almost takes away from smaller details like the gate on top and the building behind it or even the birds flying away.

Symbols - 1/10

There’s not really a symbol for the book unless you can count the rose as one which would make it a basic symbol. I even tried to research and look up to see what could possibly be the symbol of the book but found nothing other than what the character looks like giving me nothing for what represents the book as a symbol.

Synopsis - 6/10

This starts talking about the main female character, Corvina Clemm, who lost her mother and gets a weird admission letter from a university that ends up being an old, secluded castle. Then it goes on to talk about the main male character, Vad Deverell, who is a part-time professor that keeps to himself but knows everything that happens in the university. They both end up meeting because of a century-old mystery where people have disappeared every five years. She gets the clues to figure it out and he keeps an eye on her. This seems like a good romance mystery story that could be interesting to read, but the synopsis seems to want to push this dark and creepy mood that it might not actually have. I thought the synopsis was well put, but personally, it doesn’t make me want to instantly read the book. I will add it to my TBR list but it will stay at where it lands on the bottom of the list.

Through all of this and even books I did quick glances at, it was clear that most pretty books are a part of a series. Most standalone are somewhat pretty but they have more flaws in their covers and they are less eye-catching than series are. I also noticed that symbols that define a book are harder to have in one book than it is for a series that constantly puts it in your face.

One thing that is also very important and the main thing is the definition of pretty. I can see all these book covers as pretty or just cool to look at, but others can see these and think they are not pretty at all. This is because everyone has a different definition of pretty. Some may prefer darker color book covers rather than someone who likes bright colors on their cover. Some like simplistic designs while others may like complex ones where everything on the cover is a hint of something in the story.

This makes us different from each other. Makes us unique. Everyone is not exactly like the person they sit next to or are friends with, we all have different personalities and stories that can be told. So even if a person thinks that their cover isn’t as pretty as someone else’s. Someone else can see that cover as pretty. So no matter what a person's cover looks like, their story deserves to be told so that another person can admire their pretty cover.

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