Welcome back to Cover Snark!
Sarah: The whole set of new covers is killing me.
There are forwards by Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood and Alexis Hall and others.
Elyse: I don’t remember a court jester in those books
Maya: In every iteration, the checkerboard pattern shirt makes no sense to me
Elyse: Also are people going to pick up those books expecting the characters not to be white?
Sarah: I didn’t know Emma was a poly romance
it looks like a rather smoking hot triad from the cover. Is this a revised edition?
Amanda: Okay a couple questions. They say that there are forewords by prominent YA authors. Half of them aren’t. Like Alexis Hall and Tessa Bailey.
Sarah: yet another example of ‘clearly I am not the audience’
Amanda: Also the covers make them seem like contemporary retellings but I don’t think they are?
Sarah: Very contemporary. How far is the distance between the vibe of the cover illustration and the actual text of the book? Miles? Nautical miles? Light years?
Amanda: Nothing in the jacket copy could tell me either way.
Carrie: He looks like he’s cold but can’t figure out how his zipper works
Sarah: Shirts! Shirts are a great choice!
Kiki: Wash your belly-button, bud.
That tattoo is reminding me of a radioactive symbol.
Sarah: I think it is?
No, it’s not I’m wrong.
Kiki: I thought it was too, so I have to assume his belly button has got some stuff going on.
Amanda: It’s a biohazard sign which I think might be worse.
Kiki: That’s it! Yeah, that’s absolutely worse.
Sarah: You don’t want your belly button to be a biohazard.
I remember when mine nearly turned inside out while I was pregnant. I looked like a torpedo, all out in front. But I wasn’t a biohazard. I was cute.
Amanda: That looks like a child.
Sarah: oh gosh, yeah…it does.
Lara: Major ick.
Sarah: I wonder why that is. The height difference, for sure, but also the hair and the long nightgown looking dress?
Kiki: I think all of that, combined with her hiding the mop behind her back, is really giving it a “I hope dad doesn’t find out!” vibe.
Sarah: It’s really interesting that we’re agreeing but there are so many little things leading us to that impression
Amanda: I also think there’s a teen movie where the main character wear’s converse to prom, but I’m blanking.
Sarah: Also that the illustrated dress looks too big for her, like she’s wearing an adult’s clothing and she’s small.
From Melodie: Today’s bears seem to be smirking? The one on all fours seems to be outright laughing. Do they know something about the cover model that we don’t?
Sarah: Those bears are not rescuing him. They’re mocking him.
“Aw, look who went out into the frigid national parks with no fur and no clothes!”
Amanda: Is he interrupting the bears having sex?
Sarah: If so they don’t seem too mad about it.
Interesting that two of the four covers are from a major imprint and they’re both Penguin. Assuming they still have a cover art dept and it’s not all AI, they might want to revisit their design choices. Also, the dude’s shoelace is untied in the Painter.
Wow…nothing about the Northanger Abbey cover says romance with gothic vibes, unless she’s actually trying to strangle him with her hand on his neck. I must not be the target audience – the cover is off-putting and that it’s supposed to be Jane Austin just makes it worse.
Why did the bears rescued this guy? He certainly looks ready to join them in something…
In and of themselves, I like the Jane Austen covers. I just don’t see how they’re Jane Austen covers.
Oh, well, at least it’s better than this cover I saw of Pride and Prejudice saying “The basis for the BBC miniseries!” Wow, really? The book Pride and Prejudice is connected to the TV miniseries Pride and Prejudice? Who could have guessed?
For a wealthy dude in evening gear, the white socks say 50s greaser.
The people on that Northanger Abbey cover look like Adam Driver and Florence Pugh to me, which is totally distracting from the Jane Austen, gothic-ness of it all.
The Amazon listing for the Jane Austen books features a graphic saying forewords by leading romance authors, although the Penguin website just says YA authors. The Penguin website also confirms that it’s the complete unabridged text, which opening a sample on the Amazon ebook page confirmed.
I agree that I don’t think these covers properly prepare readers for what’s inside. Like, we can agree that Jane Austen wrote romance and still recognize that it’s not nearly as accessible to modern teens as modern works.
Why are most of the women in the Jane Austen covers giving Targaryen vibes? Why does one of the characters on the Emma cover look like she’s scheming to do murder with a pair of scissors?
I feel like someone in that marketing meeting said, “You know what kids love these days? Checker patterns!”
I hate these so much. I’m not totally opposed to more illustrative, vibrant covers, but this ain’t it.
Personally I thought the “Twilight” style rebrand of classics that came out when I was a teen were way more compelling.
How are the Austen covers not satire????
The race swapped Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy for some reason crack me up…. There are going to be some very confused readers.
Those cartoon Austen covers are WRETCHED.
The bears are smirking because they know that there’s nothing behind his hands, just below the “c” in “Rescued.”
Teens and adults will get a big surprise after getting one of those Austen books. No checked shirts in any of the stories and covers convey nothing that is in the books. This is so tragic.
The Austen covers are more bait and switch than anything. lol
Maid for Each Other seems Cinderella-ish.
Keeper looks as if he has an old burn scar below his navel to his left (your right). Or maybe he missed a spot in the showwer?
Her feet in the Maid cover are also, proportionately, very small. Like Barbie.
The biohazard bellybutton is cracking me up. Odd choice
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who does not run screaming from that Northanger Abbey cover must be intolerably obtuse.
Maid for Each Other exasperates me because with just a few small changes it could have been a Cover Awe.
But, hey, only two visible nipples among four covers? On balance, I think we’ve come out ahead.
@Louise: I feel like we need to have an over/under poll on nipples for future Cover Snarks.
Those Jane Austen covers are vile! Sense and Sensibility is giving me Frozen vibes (two sisters, one with summery colours and the other with Elsa’s braid)… and that’s the one I dislike the least.
I quite liked the Shakespeare covers that Penguin released in a similar vein. They’re not quite as in your face, and stagings of Shakespeare that retain the original text but use modern or abstract costumes are very much An Established Thing.
However, the Austen ones just don’t work. I’m not a fan of most of them independent of the context, but they also don’t fit the mood or vibes the novels.