what were YA thinkin? — the golden lily

It’s about that time again, boys and girls. Another Mead novel, another email from my lovely friend Shanna with this as her subject line:

Which basically translates to me demanding asking her to guest post again. Mark my words, one of these days I will read the Vampire Academy series, because I know she loves it so. But in the meantime, I’m enjoying this Mead fan’s out-lashing against all of its cover art. 😉 Take it away, Shanna!


*sigh*

Guys. I didn’t think the second book in Richelle Mead’s new series could possibly get any worse than the first cover. Boy, was I wrong. Upon seeing the cover for the first time, my reaction varied between the following:

Honestly, I don’t know why I was so shocked to see how embarrassing this cover is, considering Bloodlines was equally bad. But The Golden Lily stepped it up a notch on the fugly scale by featuring not one, but two – count ‘em TWO – faces. I just, I don’t even….Why? WHY?

I’ll tell you why. Because there are people out there who are giving these monstrosities positive feedback! Just look at a couple of the gems in the comments on Richelle Mead’s blog:

“The cover looks AMAZING!!”
“I just loved the cover for Bloodlines and now i think the cover for The Golden Lily is amazing.”
“WOW! Nice cover!”
“It is so beautiful.” 

No. JUST NO. STOP ENCOURAGING THEM. When I see comments like this, it makes me want to throw a chair across a room.


As long as these jackanapes are out singing the praises of ugly covers on the authors’ blogs, we’ll never see the end to these embarrassing covers. Should we make a PSA about the danger of using real faces on the cover? Send it to all the publishing houses and tell them to Just Say No? Would that help? Ah well. At least it makes for good blog fodder.

Yes, it definitely does. I’d like to give Shanna extra high fives for including Community and The Office GIFs – I’m pretty sure you can’t go wrong expressing repulsion towards cover art via funny TV characters. Actually, I’m absolutely sure.

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26 thoughts on “what were YA thinkin? — the golden lily

  1. I do laugh every time an author blogs about or tweets their ugly cover! I mean, what are fans supposed to say? But I, too, wish instead of being nice they’d just throw chairs every so often. 😉

  2. Wow! I’m confused that even people that like bad covers would like this one. What is going on with the woman on the right? Maybe she doesn’t want to be on the cover?

  3. LOL, y’all are hilarious! But seriously, the cover’s are pretty awful. They’re so…plain. The font is the most interesting thing about them. Le sigh. Maybe it’ll be like the Vampire Academy and get revamped 6 books later 😛

  4. LOL such a fun post. I am not a fan of The Golden Lily cover either but maybe it will be shimmery or be prettier somehow in person. How long did it take you to find all the NO pics? In defense of the author they get no say in the cover art and the publishing house is going to do what they want regardless of what the readers think. Look at all the outrage over Andrea Creamer’s cover of Wolfsbane not matching Nightshade. People took to the blogs, started petitions, wrote the authors, commented like crazy and it never changed. Great post!

    • Adding texture/embossing can be somewhat redeeming to cover art. I didn’t pay any attention to Cynthia Hand’s Unearthly until I actually saw it in the store. I remember picking it up and thinking, “Oooh. This feels so expensive!”

      Yes, I understand the buck stops w/ marketing & the pub house. I do think it’s cool when pubs/authors have cover contests where readers get to vote on which they prefer. I haven’t seen it happen very often (I voted on the Liar Society cover), but way to give your loyal some audience some say! I’m sure Shanna would love the chance to vote on the next Mead cover. 😉

  5. I have to say I like how the title is designed. But I wouldn’t be caught dead reading this outside the dark recess of my closet. 🙂 The expressions are bored/who-are-you-looking-at weird and there is NO COLOR. If they at least used a more gold color I might almost not hate it. Almost.

  6. Haha… all your animated clips cracked me up. I especially love the Community ones.

    I don’t get the two faces either, it looks odd the way they are arranged, plus they look so much alike it’s kind of confusing. The font is probably the worst part. I hate to see bad covers! What if it’s a good book!

    I wanted to pass on the Liebster Blog Award to you. It’s one of those ways we can recognize blogs we like and share the love! If you want to pass it forward, see this post on my blog for more info: http://agirlandherdiary.blogspot.com/2011/08/blogging-bloggle-blogglestats.html

  7. Oh LOL. This is the kind of cover you wouldn’t want to be caught with in public. I’m sorry, it’s just…not. I don’t want to make other people comfortable with that feeling of the people on the cover looking at them wherever they stand as along as I’m in their line of sight. Kind of like those creepy paintings. *shudder*

    • You feel that way too about creepy paintings?! I’m so glad I’m not the only one. I feel like no matter where I am in the room, these two cover models are giving me Stank Face. I feel like they’re judging my haircut.

  8. I can’t deal with the lack of symmetry in the title. I didn’t even notice the two faces because I was so traumatized by the fact the “T” and all its vines go off the page, but not the “y”. ARGH. I just want to take scissors to it. Even things up for them.

  9. I have to say though, even the worst YA covers can’t touch the cheesy romance paperback covers. I’m talking shirtless dudes and lace corsets; it’s such a cliche and yet they still exist!

  10. After the whole Twilight scare, I’m afraid to read any other teenage vampire books. (Unless it’s by L.J. Smith.)

    But I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
    And the second girl… she looks slightly constipated. Surely the designer/agent/author/whoever would have/could have seen how bad the cover is.

    What is happening to the world of books? 😥

  11. If you think they are so ugly and you love to dog the READER’S don’t be one. Just don’t read the books at all. And then learn from your friend about what you’re missing out on. It’s one thing to not support a book it’s another thing entirely to be a child about it. I’m really trying to be nice but The VA series is my favorite series of all time and I don’t appreciate you quoting people’s comments and then calling them dumb. I’m sorry for commenting on your blog. But please, will you lay off? I’m sorry for bringing this up. And don’t trash an artist’s work. It’s rude. You can not like it, that’s fine, that’s your opinion but if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.

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