The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I like it. The script is nice, colours are plain and it seems to fit the nature of the book described by the earlier synopsis for The Casual Vacancy. I’m also a little surprised, delightfully so, that Rowling’s name isn’t enormous and swallowing the rest of the design. Classy move by the publisher. So, thoughts?

Discussion
  • Woodge July 3, 2012 at 7:32 am

    I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a duller, less engaging book cover.

  • Scott July 3, 2012 at 9:09 am

    Yeah I agree with Woodge. It’s utterly boring. I dislike the colour scheme immensely, and when her publisher is contending with books of a like genre that look as gorgeous as P.D. James latest DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLY or the new art that graces Susan Hill’s mysteries, this one smacks of “nouveau” and “hipster” to me. It will stand out on the shelves, but for the wrong reasons…people will ask “What is that eyesore?!” Red and Yellow? Seriously?

    Terrible. Absolutely terrible. I am disappoint.

  • Aidan Moher July 3, 2012 at 9:11 am

    Yeah I agree with Woodge. It’s utterly boring. I dislike the colour scheme immensely, and when her publisher is contending with books of a like genre that look as gorgeous as P.D. James latest DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLY or the new art that graces Susan Hill’s mysteries, this one smacks of “nouveau” and “hipster” to me. It will stand out on the shelves, but for the wrong reasons…people will ask “What is that eyesore?!” Red and Yellow? Seriously?

    Terrible. Absolutely terrible. I am disappoint.

    The bolded is the only thing that publishers and booksellers give a shit about.

  • Scott July 3, 2012 at 9:39 am

    @Aidan. Oh, I’m aware. That’s what makes it worse for me. It smacks of dollar signs and nothing else. Those are McDonalds colours. Gah!

  • BCsmith July 3, 2012 at 10:41 am

    @scott. I assume you are a fan of darrel k. sweet’s godAWFUL covers for the WOT series or sam sykes’s laughably-bad covers for his books?

    For me it’s a nice, understated cover that’s a nice change of pace and tone for rowling (and this is coming from someone who isnt a fan of harry potter).

  • Scott July 3, 2012 at 10:48 am

    @BC, actually I loathe both those artists for those covers. Sorry, I’m not sure why you’d assume me a fan of those covers because I dislike the above garbage…something does not compute in that train of thought on your part.

    I’m not asking for a lot here. There is no creative effort in the above cover. Go ahead and Google DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, a novel in the same genre, and tell me they are remotely in the same category. Were I a multimillion dollar earning author and this is what they threw at me, I’d be pissed. I wonder what JK thinks of it. My 4 year old niece could do better in MS Paint.

  • Scott July 3, 2012 at 10:59 am

    Wow, I think I’m harsher on cover art I dislike than you are Aidan! LOL

  • Locusmortis July 3, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    The cover is as dull, boring and unoriginal as her writing.

  • Jesse July 3, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    Yeah. like everyone else, I hate this cover. Working in a bookstore, I see thousands of covers each day and I can say that this is one cover I would blow right past if it wasn’t J.K. Rowling. That name is about the only thing on the cover that would make me actually stop and look. Otherwise I would just go to the next thing (like The Map of the Sky by Felix J. Palma which comes out a few weeks earlier).

  • Weijian July 3, 2012 at 7:34 pm

    Her name on top gives the designer lots of license to be artsy and subtle or whatever, at no risk to the book’s fate as a bestseller. The uneven lines in the borders and the font make me think old mystery, which, like you said, fits the book. Even so, fit doesn’t make it good–the cover still sucks.

  • Thomas Swift July 6, 2012 at 4:18 am

    I actually like it; for a one off.
    If it becomes a thing then; awful, awful, awful.