Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover…

As a child, your parents taught you not judge a book by its cover. To bibliophiles, this rule applies too, only on a more literal level. Most book lovers know better than to judge a book by its cover. Why? Just because a book has an amazing cover, doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it’s an amazing book (trust me on this one).

Recently (more like over the past year) I’ve been guilty of it. What you ask? Doing the unthinkable: judging  books by their covers.

I know….

I’m pretty horrible, aren’t I.

Well I have means to justify my case (a.k.a. let me try to redeem myself).

Book covers are designed to attract the reader, but it’s also meant give a sort of picture synopsis for the story.

When I was growing up book covers were pretty cool, but now they’re amazing! Think of books back then as being like standard definition TV and these new book covers are like HD TV. You see what I mean now?

New books that come out have these embroidered, dazzling, sparkling 3D like covers, and its blowing my mind! Older series are re-released with these lovely picturesque landscapes (uh oh! my Romantic literature class is getting to me), and cool character interpretations created by lovely graphic design wizards.

The downside to pretty book covers is being deceived by them. You pick a book with an awesome looking cover spent with your hard-earned money and it’s horrible. So horrible to the point it’s completely unreadable story plot and/or grammar style.

Which leads to your ending up like this…

or this…

You get the point. Just don’t do it. Resist that pretty cover and take the time to read the synopsis on the back and even flip through the book a bit. I’ve learned my lesson.

Do you pick up books based on their covers? How do you overcome this dilemma? Let me know what you think.

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