The Secret Ingredient - Facade

I do not remember every paying much attention to what books looked like because I was raised to "never judge a book by its cover." Some times the best meals come from those hole-in-the-wall restaurants that look like flophouses. I know authors worry about their book covers. My favorite being Lynn Veihl's post on Paperback Writer blogspot about the "bright metallic glow-in-the-dark pink albino Robin Hood on the cover." She clearly and humorously communicated the frustration of authors with their book covers in Dilemma.

Her concern is legitimate, because last week I decided to go to the bookstore and try to find some books that had strong female protagonist as part of my reading/writing assignment. I even downloaded a list of "Formidable Female Protagonist" from Cybermage. Then I left the list in my car. Rather than walk the twenty steps back outside to my car, I decided to browse.

I cannot remember the last time I browsed. How in the world did I pick a book to choose from before I found those authors I liked, who then lead me to others? I realize that my reading experiences have been dictated by a chain of suggestions for the past fifteen or more years.

So how to decide? I started picking books at random and opening to the first lines, but that became futile quickly. There had to be a better way, and for the first time in who knows how many years - I started judging the book by its cover.

I pulled up the covers of my favorite books on my phone and compared them for clues. 9 of the 10 books had strong female protagonist (I already knew I was drawn to that!). Of the 9 books with strong female protagonist, women were featured on 7 of them, with only one of the 7 sharing the cover with a male. 2 of the covers featured objects instead of people.

The logical conclusion was to start looking for book covers that featured a female, preferably alone, on the cover. With this criteria set I went in search of book covers and found A Secret History: The Book of Ash. There were several aspects of this image that stuttered by attention. I first thought this was a man because of the armor and the hands. Then I looked closer and realized the hair was long and the face more feminine that I original judged. The armor is unexpected because it reflects a bucolic landscape rather than the gore of a battle field. I am drawn again to the hands, which are roughened and red, to the awkward pose and position of the hand holding the sword. The whole composition was unusual and I wanted to find out what the reasoning might be.

Appetizer: "It was her scars that made her beautiful."

I bought the book.

And that is how I chose a book to read, the secret ingredient is the cover and the author has no control over it.

Word Count: 499
Edits: 3