YA’s Image Problem
YA is facing a serious image problem. Before you immediately sharpen your knives and proceed to go after the usual anti-YA targets, let me say that I’m not talking about those snooty literary types who will occasionally deign to admit that a YA novel ‘is almost good enough to be shelved with the adult fiction’ – as if to imply that the very best of YA is still not as good as the latest Laurel K. Hamilton train wreck. No, I’m talking about YA’s other image problem, one that is going almost unnoticed in many YA circles and which might just be (whisper it) entirely justified.
Put simply, YA is becoming the laughing stock of the speculative fiction world. I’ve now lost count of the number of times I’ve seen (amateur) reviewers assure their readers that a book is ‘not YA-ish’ despite the presence of a teenage protagonist; or, conversely, they might criticise a book for being ‘embarrassingly YA’. They’re not discussing YA as a publishing category here. It is a matter of objective fact whether a book is published as Young Adult or as something else. No, what’s at stake here is whether a book possesses a certain YA-like quality, one that a good portion of readers seem to intensely dislike.
What exactly are we talking about here? Rather than rehashing what’s wrong with the content of many YA books these days, I’ll just point you to the post I’ve already done on the subject (or if you’re not in the mood for that much long-winded negativity, try The Sparkle Project for something that manages to make many of the same points while also being entertaining). YA, or popular YA at least, is turning into a clearing house for dozens upon dozens of badly-written, amateurish romance stories that – let’s just be honest here – would probably never pass muster in any other publishing category. But that’s something that only becomes apparent after you’ve read a good deal of YA and kept abreast of the latest trends, and people who are put off by anything with a teenage protagonist are unlikely to put that much effort into following the industry.
So how do they know what YA books are like, if they rarely ever read them? How do they make up their minds about what constitutes ‘embarrassingly YA’? Simple: they walk into a bookstore.
I swear I've seen this model on five or six different books recently.
Rather than harping on about the contents of YA books, today I’m going to focus a little bit on their exteriors; the face that YA shows to the world, to put it in slightly dramatic terms. And Jesus, but that face is getting more worryingly shallow by the day.
I remember when it was fairly common for YA books to have abstract, illustrated or even downright artistic covers. There seemed to be an unspoken rule against showing any of the main characters directly, something that still holds true in a lot of adult genre fiction; now every second book has an adult model acting as an odd stand-in for what I assume is supposed to be a character from the book. I’ve seen these covers described as ‘glossy’, which is the perfect word for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were assembled from the same clip art repository used to assemble the back pages of the likes of Vogue.
This is what teenagers look like, right?
Do you know what these remind me of? The vapid, unrealistic images of women that are already clogging up virtually every form of media in existence. The women are thin, blandly attractive and photoshopped so heavily that they look like they’re on loan from Madame Tussauds. The men, when they’re present at all, are either hilariously inappropriate body builders or rejects from the cast of The OC (or whatever godawful imitator has stolen its crown).
Uh-huh.
And you know what? For the most part, those covers aren’t lying. Oh sure, sometimes it’s a case of a publisher slapping a generic photo onto a book that deservers much better (look at this and then this: same book, two different editions), but a lot of the time those glossy, brainless covers are entirely appropriate for the story they’re supposed to be advertising.
Do I need to point out that this isn’t a good thing? Do we really want to get to the point where there is some justification for calling a book ‘embarrassingly YA’?
Oh, and it turns out that it isn’t just book covers that are part of the problem. Thanks to Phoebe, I was recently introduced to the horrifying phenomenon of ‘book trailers’, which I had previously read about but never seen firsthand (I must be some sort of eccentric, because I can’t help but think that a low-budget movie trailer isn’t the best way to advertise a novel).
Here’s a screenshot from the trailer for Torment by Lauren Kate:
Yes, really.
If you’re feeling masochistic, you can watch the whole thing here.
Imagine for a moment that you’re not a ‘YA person’. Maybe you tried a few of the blockbuster titles and were put off when you realised that half of them appear not to have been edited (trust me, that’s a blog post for another day). But surely, you might tell yourself, all YA couldn’t be like that. Then you walk into a bookstore or look at the NYT Children’s list and see nothing but this:
Keep in mind, you don’t know much about YA. (And before you demand that our hypothetical reader become better acquainted with a publishing category before dismissing it, ask yourself how much you really know about epic fantasy or chic-lit or whatever genres you’ve decided you don’t care for.) You don’t know about authors like Justine Larbalestier or Meg Rosoff; there’s a good chance you won’t even realise that contemporary YA still exists, so rapidly has it vanished under a rising tide of badly-written pap.
I certainly wouldn’t blame you for thinking that YA begins and ends with this season’s ‘big name’ paranormal/dystopian romance. Which is exactly why YA has an image problem.
Now, on a more positive note, I’ll give you a few examples of what I think are good covers. If you’ve got some of your own, be sure to mention them in the comments (links probably work better than trying to embed images).
NOTE TO PUBLISHERS: This is how you use stock images in your covers.
I think this might be my favourite book cover ever.
I cannot get a copy of this soon enough.
And finally:
If you haven't read this yet, go buy it.
That’s the old cover. The new one looks like this.
Enjoy your weekend!
28 comments
lmfaoo gosh you make so many points that ring true now that I think about it. Some things that you pointed out also made me cringe. It’s a good reminder how we tend to block things because we would rather not look too much into things. Your right, why can’t there just be a teenage girl or boy that goes with the MC in the book on the cover. Why models and the over-dramatic art that has nothing to do with the book. I had to cringe at the man with fluffy angel wings LOL. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the trailer
Your posts are always so insightful. Thanks for this! 
Sean, I agree with you to some extent, but I think this topic has to be approached with some caution:
a) Some of the covers you have chosen are eye catching, colourful and attractive. What you think is a ‘good’ cover doesn’t necessarily apply for everyone.
Furthermore, remember that as adult YA readers we may have a different perspective on things like cover art to the teenage market that publishers are largely aiming for.
b) Cover art in many genres has become formulaic. I like the cover for the Vespertine, but it’s very much in the mould of other women’s historical covers – historical dress, almost faceless woman…YA isn’t the only culprit.
Something I really dislike is when covers try to play too much on past successes (i.e. the rash of red/black/white covers following Twilight – was thinking this about the UK cover of Shiver this week, which was changed from the US blue colour scheme). However, we have to recognise that these things will always move in trends. Today’s photographic covers might well be the hand-drawn illustration of the past.
Those are good points, of course. I’m all too aware that these things are primarily dominated by monetary concerns, that teenage readers do seem to like these covers (most of them can be found on Goodreads lists with names like ‘Best Cover of 2010/2011) and that publishers are following a definite trend. However, I think certain aspects of these covers, like the use of models who portray an extremely unrealistic body image, can be seen as negative even after factoring in the problem of taste.
My point is that you don’t need to use an airbrushed model of a unrealistically attractive model in her twenties to create an attractive or eye-catching cover – just look at the God of Small Things cover up there, or the Life of Pi one. Publishers seem to have chosen, collectively, to go this route, and I’m afraid they’re eventually going to wreck YA’s credibility.
Not that the poor quality of so many YA titles wouldn’t do that anyway, but still. The covers don’t help.
Most of those covers look like they belong in the Mills & Boon section.
For my sister’s 16th last week I wouldn’t buy her books with people like this on the covers cause I made assumptions about the content that (9 times out of 10) were probably right
Most of those covers look like they belong in the Mills & Boon section.
Yes, exactly!
For my sister’s 16th last week I wouldn’t buy her books with people like this on the covers cause I made assumptions about the content that (9 times out of 10) were probably right
That was probably a good move. ‘Wither’ apparently bucks the trend by having a cringe-inducing photograph advertising a really dark and complex story, but for the most part you really can judge these things by their cover. Which is a shame
Wow, that new Patrick Ness book has an awesome cover. I’d seriously frame that and put it up in my room.
The recent trend in YA book covers is all the more annoying considering the fact that it seems as if book covers in general have improved greatly over the last ten years or so.
Yeah, I think publishers are putting a ton of money into covers now…or they were, up until it became obvious that you can move books with some poorly-edited stock photos.
Literary fiction is probably the home of the best covers at the moment, followed closely by ‘commercial’ fiction. For my money, fantasy novels still have the worst covers around.
I was caught saying “Feed is so good it isn’t necessarily YA” yesterday. But I don’t really blame myself, since I say the same thing about children’s books. And I say the same thing about adult books, too, but in the form of, “It’s adult, but it’s not overly literary.” You just drag out these arbitrary delineations when you recommend something.
Funny, I suspect we have really different taste in covers!
I prefer heavily illustrated ones. Aw, fuck it. To me, the perfect YA cover looks something like my paperback edition of Dragonsong which looks like this. Sure, the girl is pretty. But she’s also dressed appropriately to the universe (no inexplicable prom dress), and the composition is great. Plus, dragons!
(Other covers I like? This original Silver Phoenix cover, which is shopped, but also interesting. The cover for Eon. Almost anything by Michael Whelan. Or the Hildebrant brothers. Or, ooh, almost any of the covers for Mercedes Lackey’s books, which make me want to don white and jump on a magic horse).
When it comes down to it, shopped covers are used because they’re cheap. Illustrations are expensive and don’t test as well, but it creates a vicious circle because teenage girls are really only used to seeing glossy-type, highly edited images. But these images seem to make girls feel bad just as quickly as they sell books. And that's a more pressing problem to me than whether these books evoke respect out of readers!
Wow, yeah, we definitely have different taste in covers. That Dragonsong one is the kind of thing that keeps me away from the Fantasy section of bookstores
I’m sort of torn on the Silver Phoenix one. It certainly looks interesting, but the gaudy colors really don’t do anything for me. I actually prefer the ‘whitewashed’ covers…except for the fact that they’re whitewashed.
And that’s a more pressing problem to me than whether these books evoke respect out of readers!
I only briefly touched on that, mostly because it’s not something I’d feel too confident writing about. But you’re right, the message those covers sends to teenage girls is completely ridiculous and harmful.
You’ve got a post coming up next Monday, if you’d like to take a stab it
Ha–I just might.
I LOVE brightly-colored covers. The white-washed covers of Pon’s books aren’t only problematic because they’re whitewashed, but because they misconstrue the genre (they’re high fantasy, not paranormal romance, contrary to what’s suggested by the cover). I think at the very least readers should be able to tell what genre of book they’re in for by looking at a cover. These don’t do that.
(As for the covers you linked, the only one I like at all is the Ness cover, which is reflective of the genre and interesting. The rest are just entirely too bland for my tastes, and communicate almost nothing about the contents within.)
(I really hate the way WordPress nests comment replies…)
You don’t like the Life of Pi one? :0 But it’s so good!
That one actually embodies a lot of what I like in a cover: it’s ‘from the book’, in that it shows a sort of loose depiction of a specific scene, but it’s not showing the main character up close or depicting anything too specifically. Also I think the slightly dream-like quality of it fits the novel’s tone nicely.
(I checked on Goodreads, and even Life of Pi got the photo treatment. And I just now noticed that you can see a bit of the tiger behind him, for extra cheese factor.)
I was wondering what you meant when you said that the whitewashed Silver Phoenix covers made it look like a paranormal romance, so I also checked Goodreads on that one…and apparently I was thinking of the cover for a completely different book. Whoops. The actual whitewashed cover is atrocious
You hate nested replies? WTF? Nested replies organize stuff so well! You are so weird.
And I agree with you, Sean, about the covers. I do not like seeing people on covers.
It’s not that I hate nested replies, it’s that you can’t directly reply to any comments that are nested too deep. Like, I’m not replying to one of Phoebe’s comments up there, rather than yours.
I know it amounts to the same thing, since this is going to appear under yours anyway, but it weird me out
Fixed!
Oh I can change that setting. I agree, I think they should nest deeper.
Now they nest deeper! Thanks
I’m not a big fan of covers with faces on them, but I really do like photographs more than illustrations. So, for the most part I like the covers you pointed out as cheesy or bad wayyyy more than the ones you like (sorry!) To a certain extent I think it’s a matter of taste.
Myself, I prefer plain black covers. Remember the original Lord of the Rings covers?
I’m sick of badly photo-shopped covers with models that look like they’re 25. Cover artists are supposed to be artists, instead they’re borrowing Deviantart images and getting payed to adjust the color and contrast. I’m with you for illustrated covers. My boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia from the 80′s has some very pretty art on the covers.
Speaking of boxed sets, you can get (or could get) a boxed set of the His Dark Materials books that had really awesome covers. Lemme see if I can find it on Amazon…
Ah, you can see the first one here. It’s not obvious from this picture, but the cover has this really awesome texture. The book is also an unusual size, almost square, and the text on the pages is printed REALLY nicely.
My brother doesn’t let me read them in case I’ll damage them >.>
Ha, I saw this comment and immediately assumed you meant this box set, which I have and is all shiny.
Should have known better.
Oh, those were the first versions I had! I liked those, except they stopped me from reading the first two books (the only ones out at the time) because I thought they were adult horror novels (the UK publisher, Point, was mostly known over here for horror back then, and ALL their books had covers that looked exactly like this).
I actually like some of the covers you pointed out that was uh…chessy or bad lol. I don’t mind the cover models, I think they look beautiful and sure, it maybe unrealistic but the image doesn’t bother me that much. And I also think that Vespertine is a beautiful and lovely cover.
I think it depends on the tastes. I actually though the ones you pointed out as great covers look outdated and flat.
I have to say all of the covers are vivid, but the point is to sell the book. Publishers seem to stick with the formula that’s working.
So very, very true. I just blogged about something similar a few days ago. I see this paranormal romance junk taking over–as you said, something most publishing houses wouldn’t deign to consider in any other genre–but I think this is also happening with the dystopian YA genre now.
I am going to mention some very nice YA covers:
-The Hunger Games trilogy.
-Harry Potter…does it fit?
-Howl’s Moving Castle and its sequels have beautiful covers
-The Caster Chronicles have such pretty covers…
-The second cover of Across The Universe (it’s a map of the ship)
Can’t help but notice that the covers you liked are all adult novel covers, so that’s kind of comparing apples to oranges. YA publishers are going to go with covers that fit into the YA genre. To be honest I love most YA covers. I think there are way more beautiful ones than cringe-worthy ones.