It’s a Monday and Mondays are for Cover Snark!
Elyse: Just going to leave this here.
Amanda: Are they at a middle school dance?
Elyse: RIGHT
Ellen: They are clearly trying to leave room for Jesus.
So its a church dance
Sneezy: Looks like my high school dance class
Hello phys ed, what are you doing here?
Tara: You need to leave space for Jesus in between…
Amanda: I also can’t tell if it’s contemporary or trying to be historical
Tara: Ha! I didn’t read up before posting. High five Ellen!
Looking at that title too, I’d bet money on it being a Christian romance
Sarah: OK, that’s the 8th grade sway.
They’re going to sway awkwardly back and forth, and if you’re around my age, it might be “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel, which is really romantic and intense. Then the song ends and then you’re not sure where to put your eyes.
Shana: Yeah, this says junior high dance to me. Our game had improved by high school. Also, they appear to be from rival Disney Princess and country music cons, brought together by true love:
Lara: Are their eyes closed or just looking down? If the latter she is trying to see his penis through his belly and he is definitely looking at her breasts. Also, 0/10 for photo editing. A simple Insta filter would have been less corpse-like.
CarrieS: judging from the color change in the font maybe it will segue into horror as we discover just what she’s looking at. Could it be…SATAN?
Catherine: Plot twist! They thought they were leaving room for Jesus between them, but instead they left room for Satan!
Lara: My first thought was bestiality. I’m not sure what that says about me, or the cover. But it’s unnerving.
Sneezy: Hahahahahaha maybe the bear’s planning on pulling a praying mantis. A lay and a meal all in one.
I’d always thought long hair is insta hot on dudes. Now I see him.
Amanda: I feel like this is one of those moments in movies where the dude says, “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” After getting caught saying something stupid.
Elyse: MULLET
Shana: Cool, cool. So if you want bears to find you hot, wear a mullet. Now we know.
CarrieS: Sigh. Same comment, different post. What do I keep telling you about bears and safety? Bears do not want to have sex with you unless they do. If they do, you won’t enjoy it. Don’t make me say this again.
Catherine: Lara, it’s not just you. But on reflection, I think the bear just isn’t that into him.
From Jeannette: I’ve enjoyed the entire mechanical advantage series. The cover, however, is just, well, staring at me.
Sarah: is the nipple the protagonist? Or a joystick?
Shana: All I see is a partially cooked chicken wing. With tats.
Lara: Shana, and it’s a sad chicken wing that has been boiled, not even given the dignity of a grill. Also… is he supposed to be a cyborg?!
Catherine: Why does he have an extra nipple on the middle of his chest? Or is that a USB port? Also, the white of that tattoo background is just disturbing, unless you assume he is shapeshifting into a unicorn or something.
Sneezy: It looks like a grey, ugly fish is trying to swim out of his chest. And is it just me, or does his neck look out of proportion with everything?
Jeanette: The third in the series, Break the Mold, could also be a cover snark – as there appears to be a lion’s head in the middle of the guys back.
Sarah: All of the muscles are looking at me so I am going to go hide now, thank you bye.
Elyse: Omg those are back testicles!
Tara: They are!
Kiki: His back is like a Rorschach Test.
Tara: Also, I don’t like how the neck looks like a birch tree on that green one.
Amanda: I don’t understand what’s happening here.
Sneezy: …is he holding a tray on his head? A very small and empty tray.
Also, this is where long hair can be redeeming. Cover that Door Knocker Guardian face in his back.
Lara: He’s clearly experiencing a lion-shifter issue while at a rave in the Antelope Canyon.
CarrieS: This cover confuses me. I looked up the book and it actually sounds interesting, although I’m not sure I’d say it sounds good. I think this person is a woman judging from the plot synopsis. Which could be awesome if the cover wasn’t so confusing – I can’t tell anything from it.
Catherine: I read the title as ‘Break the Mood’, which is what that cover does for me.
I know we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers but these covers are really testing my patience.
The bear’s hit-and-quit reminds me of actor Danny McBride (whose name I had to look up although he’s in everything and very distinctively typecast). I would maybe watch that interspecies rom com, but the cover’s not doing it for me as a reader.
@Ren Benton I thought he looked like that guy from Horrible Histories (the one who plays Stupid Deaths)
The first three (3!) times I looked at the Fix the Game cover, I thought it was a giant hand cupping the guy’s right breast. The title really should be, Fix the Cover.
The color gradient on the title in the first one is bothering me more than anything else. It looks like a restaurant signboard with burned-out letters, so the first thing my eye sees is “EEMED”. Even when I catch what the title actually is, I still see it.
I read “Viola Grace” as “Voila, Grace” and thought it was some sort of French spiritualism. You have to admit, with those WTF covers, anything is possible.
@Ren Benton, I also thought he looked like Danny McBride, and something about the way his eyebrows arch reminded me of Jason Momoa. That hair is not hot, though, so maybe more of a store-brand Jason Momoa.
I, too, thought “leave room for Jesus.” Then I thought about the phrase and how it sort of suggests that you’re in some kind of menage a troi with a deity who has been known to become corporeal. Then I had to find some brain bleach, because that’s kind of messed up.
Also, the title looks like Red Eemed. And no clue what an “Eemed” is
Those people in the first cover look flat; there’s no appreciable shadows or highlights. They look like paper cutouts that came from two separate drawings and were just sort of fitted together so they sort of looked like they were in the same photo.
Mr Mating Season is either being used by that bear or answering the age-old question about bears in the woods. Either way it looks difficult and very painful. Not sure whether I should offer him some lube or some Ex-Lax.
What is with those vast chalky white areas on the Viola Grace covers? Are those supposed to be their cyborg parts? If so, instead of fixing the game they need to fix his pecs, as the one is clearly bigger than the other. Meanwhile his friend is wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask on his back.
@Ren Benton, @Grace: I guess there’s something in the air! When I saw the cover to Mating Season, I thought, “There’s Danny McBride in a Jason Momoa pose.”
In the third cover…I’m not the only one who thinks it looks like his face is growing outwards, away from his neck, am I? I think it’s just that his beard is superimposed over a bush or something, but it’s disturbing to look at.
Great selection and commentary as always, ladies!
P.S. @Amanda: Apologies if this is not the right place to do this, but did you get my (very late) reply to your comment on “Ten Days with a Highlander”? Just curious.
@SBsarah – we must be of the same vintage because the first thing I thought of when seeing that first cover was dancing to Peter Gabriel with Elliot Schwartz in Grade 8. I went to public school in Canada so we weren’t concerned so much about Jesus though.
In Fix the Game, I think they stole ET’s neck for their cyborg.
I guess I am the only one who thought that on the first cover, she was either about to break his neck or give him a chiropractic adjustment. Maybe she is looking down while deciding which.
So do no one else think that someone just slapped a frown and a mullet on a picture of Luke Evans for the Bear-shifter novel? Just me?
I mean, …
I am still convinced that is a giant deformed hand attempting to attach a mechanical breast on Fix the Game.
Redeemed: His hand is flat, not curved around her- are we sure he has ever actually touched a woman before. Why are both of them wearing ugly black wigs.
And, yes, she might be trying to break his neck. My lab partner in college physics many years ago was an OG turned VN vet by the miracle of the draft. He taught me a number of ways to kill someone with my hands. I never did get the break the neck one but I think her grip is wrong. (And I tutored him and helped with his lab homework.)
@Vicki: In the original image, the woman’s hair is brown and the man’s hair is short (and the dress is orange and bedazzled—the awkward hands haven’t been changed, though!). Someone decided it would be better to paintbrush her hair and cut-and-paste a baby mullet over her hand than change a couple of words in the book to adapt to visual design limitations.
https://depositphotos.com/38933349/stock-photo-cowboy-woman-orange-dress-arms.html
Photoshop (and other software) can do magical things in the hands of someone **with a high level of skill**. It’s that last part where most of the snarked covers go awry.
@Chillyjen: Team Eighth Grade Sway all the way!!
Disturbing. Just horridly disturbing.
@Merle I too thought she was trying to choke him. Or pull his hair instead of saying eyes up here,buddy. I think she’s looking down because she’s trying to figure out if the B in the author’s name is being held up by gravity. (Spoiler alert….it’s not!)
Ahhh book two. I think that guy sat next to me on the PATH train today. Didn’t see the bear though. Luckily as we got on at the World Trade Center station and I cannot imagine a bear wrecking havoc in the Oculus.
Mr. Fix the Game needs to go to the doctor stat. I think he has no rib cage. Or just…a pufferfish in his upper torso?
Mr. Break the Mold looks normalish compared to his bulked up Flat Stanley on steroids friend. But yes, I think I see a Baby Yoda inkblot somewhere on his back.
Wow, the Viola Grace books. Images usually look MORE not LESS Uncanny Valley on invert/negative colours.
Like the bear guy – in this mode, I can’t distinguish his hair from the furry patches on his clothes. Guess it’s good camouflage.
Is that from religiously-warped Sex Ed – ‘leave space for Jesus’? Because the way I remember *Inspirationals* was more that the climactic kissy bits commenced with “I prayed about it, and I got the go-ahead; Jesus is looking down and blessing our committed relationship.” (And the characters found that sexy – the cue for passionate kissing, maybe a discreet cutaway from the scene. I didn’t.)
My worst takeaway from *that* was “God likes to watch” – but not throw cold water/phlebotim.
And btw, that’s still weaksauce scare-’em-straight Sex Ed compared to the worst of Oz, unless you throw in gruesome details about gonorrhea like they did on my cousin’s class.
The Redeemed (or Red Eemed) lady looks like she’s feeling his glands to make sure he hasn’t got something contagious.