ALLEGIANT Cover!

So, how are you today?

I myself am doing quite well.

Why, you ask?

Well, this:

LOOK at it. Isn't it gorgeous?

Joel Tippie at HarperCollins is the creative force behind this cover, and he is so talented and always works so hard to get everything just right. (Also a shout out to Amy Ryan and Barb Fitzsimmons, also at Harper-- you guys are awesome!) I have been so fortunate to get three covers that I love. I couldn't be happier with this one and I can't wait to see all three books lined up on my shelf!

A short note about that symbol: no, it is not a faction symbol. It is, however, a symbol that appears in the book. I can't really share more than that-- you'll have to read it for yourself! (I can't wait for that either!)

Also, yes that is O'Hare at the bottom. No, I can't say more. AHH! Too many secrets.

If you missed my Today show interview with Ryan Seacrest in which we reveal the cover for the first time, you can watch it here: http://www.today.com/video/today/51828575

I am a lucky girl, to have so many amazing opportunities and great people supporting me. So much to be grateful for today.

Book Recommendation: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart.

---

I started this book in London Heathrow Airport and read it all the way through my layover in Munich and all the way to Cluj, Romania. This is saying something, because I was running on about four hours of sleep and usually when I try to read while tired I fall asleep on the book and drool all over it. Not so with Shadow and Bone, guys. 

What I appreciated most was the setting of this book. It was Russia but it was not Russia. There was magic but it was a different kind of magic. There were strange, vicious creatures I'd never seen described before. There were friends and enemies and enemies who looked like friends. It was unfamiliar and imaginative and it totally played into my mental love affair with all things Eastern European while still being its own world.

I also loved Alina. First of all, she was funny, and as someone who spends all her time writing from the perspective of the deeply serious, often humorless Tris, that was really refreshing. I don't see many funny heroines these days. She was also strong in a new way--not because she never made mistakes, or bad judgement calls (she did), and not because she could totally beat the crap out of someone (she couldn't), but because she had a strong sense of self that carried her through some fairly difficult times. I love a good flawed-but-strong character, and I especially love when authors allow their characters to make mistakes.

The most important thing, though, was that I actually wanted to read it again once I was finished. This rarely happens to me, even when I love a book. The only reasons I really read something again are that I want to immerse myself in that world again, or that I feel like I will get something different out of the book the second time. Both of these things are true of Shadow and Bone.

Best of all: it's out now!

CoverLove: IF I LIE by Corrine Jackson

Awhile ago, one of my writer friends Cory (aka Corrine Jackson) needed someone to read the first thirty pages or so of her work-in-progress, and I volunteered. It was one of the only times when I've read a work-in-progress for someone and completely forgot that's what I was doing, because I was so absorbed. It was so beautifully written then-- I had some serious writer envy-- and I'm sure it's even better now.

Okay, I'm going to post the cover now:

Ah! So pretty and expressive! And an interesting spin on a "there are people on the cover" cover.

And here's the summary:

A powerful debut novel about the gray space between truth and perception. 

Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Being branded a cheater would be bad enough, but Quinn is deemed a traitor, and shunned by all of her friends. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s serving in Afghanistan and revered by everyone in their small, military town. 

Quinn could clear her name, but that would mean revealing secrets that she’s vowed to keep—secrets that aren’t hers to share. And when Carey goes MIA, Quinn must decide how far she’ll go to protect her boyfriend…and her promise.

IF I LIE comes out August 28, 2012 (so far away, I know!). Here it is on Goodreads. And you can see her thoughts on it here.

Coverlove: Larkstorm by Dawn Miller

My friend Dawn has this book. She's releasing it as an e-book later this year, and I've been itching to read it since I heard about it, many months ago, but haven't gotten the chance to yet. Today she revealed the cover, and I have to say, it's one of my recent favorites. Check it out!

Gorgeous. So dynamic and interesting.

Here's the summary:

--

In the years following the destructive Long Winter, when half the world’s population perished, the State remains locked in battle against the Sensitives: humans born with extra abilities.

As one of the last descendants of the State’s Founders, seventeen-year-old Lark Greene knows her place: study hard and be a model citizen so she can follow in her family’s footsteps. Her life’s been set since birth, and she’s looking forward to graduating and settling down with Beck, the boy she’s loved longer than she can remember.

However, after Beck is accused of being Sensitive and organizing an attack against Lark, he disappears. Heartbroken and convinced the State made a mistake, Lark sets out to find him and clear his name.

But what she discovers is more dangerous and frightening than Sensitives: She must kill the boy she loves, unless he kills her first.

--

If that summary beckons to you, you can add the book on Goodreads here, or follow Dawn on Twitter here. Sweet!

New UK Cover! And General Thoughts on Covers

HarperCollins UK designed a new Divergent cover!

For those of you wondering why there's a new cover, this is the B format paperback edition, to be published in February 2012. This is the equivalent of when books are published first in hardcover and then in paperback in the States-- sometimes covers change between hardcover and paperback here (or rather, there, because I'm in Romania), and sometimes covers change between trade paperback and B format paperback in the UK.

There are a lot of reasons this happens. As far as I know, it's to make a book more appealing to readers who haven't picked it up yet. For example, you might have been one of the people who saw the first cover in a bookstore and went all grabbyhands on it. The person browsing books next to you might have looked right past it, but she might go all grabbyhands on the new one.

I think of covers and flap copy (the book summary on the inside flap or the back cover) as either windows or walls. A cover that is a window allows you to "see inside" the book before you ever open it-- it gives you a sense of the tone of the book, and what the story might be like. A cover that is a wall prevents you from seeing the book as it is, and keeps you from picking it up, or from seeing it as it really is inside. Ideally, you want all your covers to be windows, right? But the problem is, this is a highly subjective thing. A cover might be a window to one reader and a wall to another. So a cover re-design helps to resolve that problem.

So, yes: Divergent is a book that is accurately represented by a bold fiery symbol and a skyline and a gathering storm. But it is also about a girl who is somewhat isolated, in character if not literally, who marks herself with the figurative representation of one of her worst fears (the birds). This design emphasizes something different about the story, which I loved seeing.

Other things I like: you can't see the girl's face, so you still get to imagine her, yet she looks sort of scrappy like Tris is. And the birds! Of course I love the birds. And the color is eye-catching.

So, UKers: I hope you like it!

Road Trip Wednesday: This Kind of Thing, I Like

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This week's question:

What are your all-time favorite book covers?

Answer: *splutter* THERE ARE TOO MANY COVERS! HOW WILL I EVALUATE ALL OF THEM TO LOCATE MY FAVORITES?

I don't like many book covers, to be honest. Most of the time I find them to be too busy or too loud. One of my favorite covers, for example, is this one:

Pretty plain, right? But it gets the point across, it's not dragging your eye in six different directions, and yet it somehow manages to convey the tone of the book, which is: disturbing.

So as not to risk thinking about this question all day and completely forgetting to work on Insurgent, I'm just going to present a type of cover I have come to like, and it is the illustrated cover. I find that I gravitate toward these because they stand out in a genre that is largely dominated by pictures of girls. (Not that covers with girls on them are bad. I often like those too. There are just a lot of them.)

Now, this type of cover really wouldn't work for some books. It wouldn't, for example, work for Divergent. I think it does work for more poetic works, or fairytale retellings, or gothic-style books, and so on. Which is what I have to show you.

And at first, I wasn't sure what to think about these Penguin Deluxe Editions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but I have finally landed on the side of liking them:

Especially Heathcliff on the left up there. Perfect.

Anyway. To the illustrated covers, I say, carry on!

INSURGENT Cover!

You may have seen this already, since it was up on Entertainment Weekly's website yesterday (thanks, EW!), but I figured it would be good to post here, too. And this one is larger, for those of you who want to make it their desktop background *coughMEcough*:

All I can say is: Joel, Amy, and Barb...you've done it again.

My reactions were:

1. Ooh.

2. THE TREE IS AWESOME.

3. Look, a train!

And then, when I was capable of coherent thought, I was able to appreciate the color of the clouds (which are that greenish color you get right before a storm hits-- appropriate, I think), and the fact that the tree is sort of mid-decay, with the leaves swirling away from it, and also, that little line above my name that is so very nice to see.

A few questions answered:

1. Is that tree thing the symbol of Amity? Yes.

2. What happens in the book? You'll find out soon enough.

3. When does it come out? May, 2012.

4. Can I get an ARC? You can request one, but not from me, because I'm not the one who decides where the ARCs go. I will provide you with an e-mail address to send your request to as soon as I have it. (I will put it in the FAQs and at the bottom of this post.)

5. Do you like the cover? Are you kidding? YES. And I am excited for you to read what will be behind it.

Thanks to those of you who have shared in my cover!excitement already!

Bookanistas: Sci-Fi/Dystopian Cover Love

Recently I found myself with the great fortune of being invited to participate in the Bookanistas, a group of YA authors who write about books on a weekly basis. And to this invitation I said YES PLEASE.

Recently I have also found myself paying attention to book covers more than usual. This happens often in life-- you're thinking about getting a haircut, so you pay attention to everyone's hair; you're looking at houses, so you start knocking on other people's floorboards to see if the wood floors are real or fake (that might just be me). Anyway, because I was getting so jittery about posting my cover, I started paying special attention to book covers, which is why I'm going to be gushing about some covers this week.

More specifically, I will be gushing about sci-fi/dystopian book covers, because A. I love this genre, B. I write this genre, and C. I am SO pleased that sci-fi/dystopian is really getting a foothold right now, because it's what I've always liked to read and I find it extremely interesting. So, some gorgeous sci-fi/dystopian covers of upcoming books, for your viewing pleasure.

1. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis (January 11th, 2011)

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

(Must. Read.)

When I first got a look at this cover, it looked like this:

And though there were many covers to look at, at the time, my eye sort of drifted toward it independently of my brain and then fixated on it, because not only is it very different from a lot of the YA covers you see out there, it is also beautiful. While I was perusing Beth Revis's blog the other day, though, I saw that she revealed an updated version that looks like this:


Now, if you had asked me if the first cover could be improved in any way, I probably wouldn't have come up with anything, but after seeing the new version, I keep having to wipe drool off my keyboard. I think replacing the white space with, uh, space space was a great call, because it looks richer now, and I like that the tagline is now in a more prominent place, because I don't think I really noticed it in the first version.

Also, now you get to see what Kiersten White says about the book, which is always a good thing, because Kiersten is awesome. So, in a few words, this cover: different, beautiful, eye-catching. I was initially attracted to the book by its cover (I read the summary a little later), which is the point, yes? SUCCESS.

2. POSSESSION by Elana Johnson (June 2011)

In a world where thinkers control the population and rules aren't meant to be broken, one fifteen-year-old girl is tired of belonging to someone else.



I generally gravitate toward simplicity, which is why I loved the cover of MATCHED so much, and the same is true of POSSESSION. That whole "butterfly fighting its way out" thing is just saturated with meaning, particularly given the concept of the book. It's such a surprising and intriguing image, so I'm glad the rest of the cover allows you to just stare at it and consider it, rather than getting distracted by anything else around it. This cover also has the desired effect of making me want to read the book even more than I did when I just knew the tagline. So: gorgeous and thought-provoking. So excited.

3. DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver (February 1st, 2011)

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -the deliria- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

The ARC of this book had a different cover, which had a more melancholy feel to it, and I liked that one, but not as much as I like this. First of all, it's simpler, and I feel like I am staring into it to discover something about the girl's image. And once I've ogled at it for a few seconds, I can finally piece together her expression, which is interesting in and of itself-- she's got her eyes closed, but her mouth is slightly open, and not in that "I've fallen asleep and I may drool" way. To me that expression looks a little like she's steadying herself as she waits for impending doom, which is absolutely perfect for this book.

It's lovely, just like the writing inside. That Lauren Oliver has some serious talent-- as do her cover designers.

4. XVI by Julia Karr (January 6th, 2011)

In the year 2150, being a girl isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when your sixteenth (read sex-teenth) birthday is fast approaching. That in itself would be enough to make anyone more than a little nuts, what with the tattoo and all – but Nina Oberon’s life has taken a definite turn for the worse. Her mother is brutally stabbed and left for dead. Before dying, she entrusts a secret book to Nina, telling her to deliver it to Nina's father. But, first Nina has to find him; since for fifteen years he's been officially dead. Complications arise when she rescues Sal, a mysterious, and ultra hot guy. He seems to like Nina, but also seems to know more about her father than he’s letting on. Then there’s that murderous ex-government agent who’s stalking her, and just happens to be her little sister’s dad.



This cover and the Delirium one have a similar vibe, but I put them next to each other on purpose-- because I love the idea that two covers could have a similar design concept but come across in completely different and equally amazing ways. First of all, while I was staring into the Delirium cover, the XVI cover is staring at me. I love that the girl holds your gaze-- and therefore, your attention-- and also that she's a little blurry, so the letters are more prominent. Actually, it seems like the letters are stamped across her like a giant label, which, if you read the first chapter on Julia Karr's website (and you SO SHOULD), seems accurate. The black, the size of the title, it's all working for me.

This is also an example of a seriously good tagline. Innocence expires at sixteen. It's just soaked with disturbing, intriguing dystopian goodness.

So, now that I have overwhelmed you with awesomeness (and with my intense cover analysis), this is what the other Bookanistas are up to this week...

Beth Revis and Jamie Harrington are spreading some cover love for POSSESSION.

Christine Fonseca is raving over THE REPLACEMENT.

Elana Johnson has a special Friday edition, where she helps launch the book, EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IN GIFTED STUDENTS.

Carolina Valdez Miller is crying over JOHN BELUSHI IS DEAD.

Lisa and Laura Roecker are crazy over MATCHED.

Shelli Johannes-Wells is tempting us with a DESIRES sneak peek!

Shannon Messenger is showing some serious MG love with MG SPOTLIGHT.