Nineteen Minutes
"Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people."
Do either of these covers convey this?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
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6 comments:
Thats so funny. I never would have guessed that's what it was about, and now I'm actually interested in reading it. The holding hands business and my unfamiliarity with her work led me to believe it was something else entirely -- something I wasn't interested in.
People are very positive about Jodi Picoult. Her books have been circulating through book clubs for awhile now. I skimmed through a copy of My Sister's Keeper once and I wasn't very impressed. It was about a girl genetically bred to provide her ill older sister with blood/organs. It sounds edgy, but it wasn't. These covers and that summary settle it: I'm not at all interested.
Oooh, sorry, this is off-topic (design), but I gotta say I really like Picoult's stuff. I particularly like My Sister's Keeper. You're right, it's not that edgy. I think Picoult's real interest is in exploring her characters, and she likes to put them in out-of-the-normal situations and see where they go. I used to be a bookseller and never even considered reading Picoult until I watched my sister-in-law unable to put one of her books down for an entire family visit. She lent me one, and now I intend to read them all.
I absolutely agree about the cover though. What's with the kids on that second one?
When I used to work in a bookshop, my boss always used to describe Jodi Picoult books as novels for people who don't actually like to read. I've never read her myself, but that description, delivered very witheringly, has rather put me off.
The hand-holding image makes me think of teenagers and an emotional moment, which suits the story as far as it goes, but it isn't very strong.
As for the little kids: Huh?
No, neither remotedly conveys that theme. The hands-clasped version looks tediously "young adult." The beached children version suggests a family tragedy: children drowning in swimming pools or a cancerous mother orphaning her kids. I can't imagine what was going through designers' heads. Or Jodi's for that matter.
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