I Judge Books by Their Covers! Sue Me!

I’m only human. I am 62.5% more likely to read a book if it has a nice cover. That’s not to say an ugly book is a bad book — but good book design goes a long way in driving readership. There’s nothing more gratifying than picking up a new book on cover appeal alone and serendipitously finding a new favourite read.

When I was drafting up this post, I spent some time doodling in my notebook and ended up creating a quadrant chart that mapped out the four scenarios:

I’m aware some of these are hot takes. I’m ready to defend myself.

The ultimate betrayal is getting catfished by a nice book cover, only to find the book itself a complete disappointment. It’s taken me months to recover, but I’m ready to speak my truth.

1. The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst (1/5 stars): This may take the award for having the most petulant, obnoxious narrator I’ve ever read. He takes every opportunity to be a contrarian and segues into moralistic preaching that feels entirely out of place for a ~12-year-old child. I finished this book with no real sense of what it was trying to say or why it was written — which is maybe on me, but maybe not.

2. The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (2/5 stars): I wanted to love this so badly — if you promise a crossover between The Crucible and The Virgin Suicides, my expectations are high. Like many retellings, I found this a frustrating read. It doesn’t take the source material and reimagine it nearly enough; the plot structure and characters feel directly taken from The Virgin Suicides, and the imagery of women as dogs is such low-hanging fruit when it comes to exploring the patriarchy. I’ve read so many similar books that execute this so much better (Brutes, Organ Meats, Nightbitch, Lady Into Fox…).

3. Weird Fucks by Lynne Tillman (2/5 stars): Tillman’s books have been republished with gorgeous covers featuring art by Hilary Harkness, and despite the intriguing title, this was so much more mundane than I anticipated. There’s a scene of sexual violence in this that gets glossed over all too quickly, and besides that, it’s just regular ol’ heterosexual sex. If Grindr existed when Lynne Tillman wrote this, she could have had a source of boundless inspiration.

A prophecy fulfilling itself… A beautiful cover that homes a beautifully written book. One of life’s little joys worth celebrating.

1. they by Helle Helle, translated by Martin Aitken (3.5/5 stars): An interesting novella that I’ve been thinking about often since I read it. It’s about a mother and daughter navigating the mother’s worsening terminal illness, except it’s not — Helle creates a story about everything except the illness. We follow the daughter through a variety of domestic vignettes where her mother’s illness always looms in the periphery but is seldom addressed by either character overtly. Writing a story about everything but the central theme is a fascinating storytelling approach.

2. Normal People by Sally Rooney (5/5 stars): I will be a vehement Normal People defender until the day I die, and though there are some ugly editions of this (I will not be acknowledging the travesty of the North American cover), the chartreuse cover with Marianne and Connell spooning in a can is simply perfection. It conveys the story perfectly with its minimalist design. There’s an identical cover with an orange backdrop, but something about the chartreuse (a hot take, I know) is so eye-catching.

3. How It Works Out by Myriam Lacroix (5/5 stars): One of my favourite interconnected short-story collections, featuring a sapphic couple embarking on a variety of forays across time and space. Each story is a speculative future that lies ahead of their relationship, and it asks us some poignant questions about identity, security, and romance. An underrated ‘weird girl’ book that was one of my favourite reads of 2024!

I only have myself to blame here, really. I thought, wow, surely this cover couldn’t be a bad omen! I was booboo the fool.

1. We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad (1/5 stars): I love the original Bunny, but creating a cash grab that takes every opportunity to over-explain the original book and ruin its ambiguity was a choice, to say the least! I don’t think fan service is inherently a bad thing, but the length of this book was absolutely diabolical considering how little substance there is. For a book intended to explore the identity of the Bunnies, I’m still left with a vague, muddled understanding of who is who and why I’m supposed to care.

2. The Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cárdenas, translated by Lizzie Davis (1/5 stars): I truly do not know what this book was about or what I was supposed to take away from it. It’s a series of vignettes about colonialism, religion, climate change, race, grief, biology, relationships, and whatever else the author was feeling — let’s throw it all in! A man wanders around, becomes an amateur detective trying to solve his brother’s murder, and then the book ends before any of it really matters. Oh okay.

3. Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna (2.5/5 stars): Do you ever read a book and then, over time, you dislike it more and more? Unfortunately, this is one of those books for me — I liked the writing a lot, but the actual story left so much to be desired. There are too many simultaneous subplots (all of which boil down to adults being unable to communicate), many of which are resolved with the most saccharine and melodramatic conflicts. Not every Irish author needs to be compared to Sally Rooney, I promise!

This is seriously not okay. We need to unionize against situations like this. To see my beloved books dressed in this manner is inhumane. It’s the second-worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

1. Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof, translated by Caroline Waight (4/5 stars): The translator’s name being entirely omitted from the cover is one of my biggest pet peeves — what’s worse is that this cover clearly has plenty of space to add it. Combine this with a stock image that looks 240p, and you’ve successfully pissed me off. But I digress — I enjoyed the book much more than expected. It’s (allegedly) the first book in a septology about capitalism and an insurance scam that killed hundreds of people, and it offers plenty of food for thought about our relationship to money.

2. Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (5/5 stars): Moshfegh’s covers are some of my favourites in literary fiction, yet ironically, my favourite book by her features my least favourite cover. It’s fine — boring and inoffensive — but a book this good deserves something a little flashier. It’s a literary mystery about our sense of purpose and inherent need for fulfillment. If you like cosmic horror stories, I think this fits the bill.

3. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz (5/5 stars): Transit Books, I love you. This is nothing personal, I promise. This may be one of my least favourite covers ever, and my hopes were dashed when the 20^th anniversary edition was only a marginal improvement. This looks like it was designed in MS Paint, and despite this being one of my favourite books ever — I hate every edition. I begrudgingly own the edition published by Vintage, but someday I’ll learn bookbinding solely to repair my relationship to this book.

Are you guys mad at me yet? I’m sorry I have strong feelings and an inability to shut up. I’m doing my best.