I received a copy of this book in the mail, and I stared at the cover for a good five minutes trying to figure out what in the name of potpourri was going on there. Take a look:
First, this is one of the worst Photoshopped covers I’ve seen in forever. I can’t even find a digital image that truly showcases the hatchet and machete job of cut & paste that’s going on up in here. In the actual book cover, you can see this fugly line around the couple where they were dropped in front of the rocky background, and it’s so obvious you think it’s embossing, but no, run your finger over it and it’s flat. Maybe someone got crazy with the drop shadow and outer glow tools.
Hold up, here’s a scan.
Check out the outer glow under her bum! Glow fart?! Illuminate the dark in a WHOLE NEW WAY?
But wait, there’s more! On the cover itself, there’s a sheen to the background but not the drag-and-drop couple of Photoshop magic. So his legs, and her leg that’s wrapped around his hip just… disappears entirely. Guess it didn’t make the transition from one page to the next. But they have NO LEGS on this cover. They are legless and floating in mid-air, people. NO LEGS. I just checked twice and nope, not an ARC. You might think based on that graphic that there are legs in the shadows but I am telling you, there are no legs. None. They are magic floating people. Have a look:
This cover is so bad, it wins the Levon Award. What, you’ve never heard of it? That’s because I just made it up.
Levon is a song by Elton John that has really interesting music and the most fucked up lyrics you ever heard. John composes the music, and his lyricist Bernie Taupin writes the words, so I always imagined the creative process of Levon with Elton being all, “Oh, yeah, this is great. Nice piano, building harmony, great song! Let’s see what Bernie came up with…. WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS? ‘Jesus blows up balloons all day? Jesus, he wants to go to Venus?’ BERNIE! What the hell did you do to my song?!”
And thus, this cover earns Drake the Levon Award. The book itself might be awesome, but the cover, it wants to blow up balloons all day. And blow it does.
But the truly odd thing about this cover is… what exactly is that couple doing? What is she doing to his nose? Is he checking her breath? Is she about to tweeze his nosehair with her teeth? Do legless people floating in mid air amid giant rocks really worry about halitosis and stray boogers? Let me know: it’s time to caption that cover!
You’ve got 24 hours, and I’ve got a $25 gift card to the bookstore of your choice for the bestest one. Leave your entry in the comments, and feel free to pimp your faves if there’s one (who are we kidding. You is some funny people) – if there’s SEVERAL that make you spit beverages onto your keyboard.
Standard disclaimer: I’m not being compensated by offering this prize. I am compensated by being able to rant about this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING trainwreck of wtfery that is this cover. I’m not compensated by whatever bookstore I contact for gift card purchasing, and the winner gets to go book shopping – this is a good thing! Standard rules apply. Do not remove tag under penalty of law. This end up. We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge. You gonna like it, and that’s a promise.
