The Book Stacks

Happy Halloween! Hello and welcome to the second round of Battle of the Book Covers: The Horror Edition. Last week we had the first ever battle between to Sabriel covers. This week we have two recently released horrors. One is a horror novel and the other is a horror anthology.

Join in and do what we’re all told not to do – judge a book by its cover.

VS.

I don’t know about you, but this is definitely a tough one for me. I’ve been watching horror movies and reading scary books since I was a little girl. I’ve learned to appreciate all different forms of horror.

Dark Lullaby has a great cover. A lot of people agree when it comes to one of the scariest things can be children who do evil things. That may or may not be what this book is about, but the cover implies some connection to children, or a baby. Evil and children? Scary stuff.

My criticism of this cover is first of all the font of the title. It’s big, it’s red, and it says (to me), “Hulk big! Hulk smash! Hulk be scary!�? The crib implies a subtle perhaps psychological sort of horror, but the big font takes away from the unease the cover could create.

Otherwise, I could just be a traditionalist with the placement of the author’s name, but I do believe a different font and different position is in order for this book. The author’s name, like the title, takes away from what the cover could achieve by being right nearly in the middle. One or the other (title or author’s name) might have worked in the middle like that, but not both. I’m distracted from the crib and background, which you don’t want.

In Bad Dreams also has a great cover. The crow has long been associated with horror and fear. The picture-within-a-picture type framing works a lot in the favour of this book. The crow and branches seem to be coming out of the picture but not out of the outer black frame, which makes me feel ‘safe’ but your subconscious wonders if the crow and branches will be coming out of that frame next. (Did anyone else see The Ring?)

My criticism of this cover isn’t all that much and is purely of personal preference. I simply would have made the black stand out more and all other colours paler so the crow could have made more of an impact.

Otherwise, the font works for me, the positioning works for me, and the colours work for me.

Overall, I have to declare In Bad Dreams as the winner!

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.