Cat-o-Covers [1]

Welcome to my newest whenever-I-feel-like-it feature!  I know there are cover features all over the place, but this one is unique because it highlights some of the books I have on hand in a picture with the my darling Fatty!  I will also add comparison covers if they exist and give my humble opinion on what I see, picking my favorites.  I hope you enjoy, so comment if you do! I love hearing from you!

This CoC we are going to cover Sweetblood by Pete Hautman!

The cover of Sweetblood featured above is composed of a girl in red and black halftone with some blood splatter on a white background.  While I like the colors, I don't like what the styling does to the girl's face (almost no nose, which just makes it look weird), but I like that the title is so large and contrasts with the darker image.  In fact, the title is what caught my attention in the first place.

When I saw this cover, I thought the book would be about a girl with some sort of vampire something thrown in.  The cover is abstract enough to keep you guessing about the girl - is she mad, sad, a little of both?  Basically, the cover expressed all the darkness associated with vampire tales while making the girl mysterious in a way that made me want to find out about her.

Here are some other covers:

The first of this pair is not all that eye catching to be honest. If I had seen this cover, I would have thought the book was about some angsty teenage goth who hates the world because of some stupid teenage reason. Boring. I probably wouldn't have picked it up to find out what it actually was about. The truth is Sweetblood is about an angsty teenage goth (dressing) girl, but her story is much deeper than your normal pout-n-shout. In this case, the cover does not live up to the story.

The second of the pair does the opposite of the first - it grabs your attention with the black and red and pink, not to mention the fangs and dripping lips.  Upon seeing this, I would have expected something along the lines of Gossip Girl meets House of Night because that's what I'm reminded of when I look at the font and colors (girly+sexy+vampires=drama).

Not that such a book, if it existed, would be bad, but Sweetblood is not GG mashed with HoN.  It's a story of self-revelation and learning from your own mistakes.  Again, more thought-provoking than regular teen drama, so the cover, while enticing, does not fit with what's on the inside.

So my pick for the best Sweetblood cover is the red/black/white halftone cover.  It definitely fits the story best.