Book cover design is so fascinating to me. It can really tell you what to expect wrt the genre, target demographic, etc. while also being art and highlighting aspects of the story. And it's also very interesting that there are trends here as well.

Anyway, I digress. One of the trends I've seen is colourful covers with abstract shapes. And... it took me a while with those covers to figure out that those shapes actually form a bigger, more coherent picture. Some examples are:

• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett
• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

What I want to know is this... Did anyone else focus too much on the words on the cover and just dismiss the colourful blobs and strokes until one day BLAM you're telling me there are people and a whole ass octopus in there? Please validate me and my questionable visual processing.

Another question is this: What are your favourite covers using this style? What were you most surprised to see in the shapes and colours? Bonus question! What other cover trend do you like/is your favourite/took you by surprise most?

Happy Monday and good reading, fellow Boundlings!

I only ever fill out the overall rating on my reviews, and I’m now worried that I’m accidentally dinging books by not filling out the other categories. For example, if I leave the character star rating blank is that counted as a zero that then gets averaged into the book’s ratings? Or is it ignored as a score unless I put like a 0.5 ?

One thing I am not fond of in the Murderbot series is how easy it is for Murderbot to hack and make machines do what it wants. It feels a little like a cheat code. Like Wells has somewhere to get with the story and the story can't be long so .....magic.....It's probably just a me thing.