When you were a teen, I’m sure you had some insecurities. Perhaps you weren’t good enough at sports. You were terrible at math. You couldn’t fill a B cup. Or perhaps, like so many teenagers (me included), you suffered through daily bouts with dreaded acne.
Now imagine someone who took that insecurity just a little too far.
Yes. This is a real book cover. And yes, the first sentence of Skin’s summary on the back reads:
It looks like a pizza exploded on Nick Barry’s face.
It’s really easy for me to hop over to an online bookseller’s horror section and find a cover that completely freaks me out and throw it under the What Were YA Thinkin bus. But this cover didn’t even really have to try that hard. I feel sorry for this protagonist, really I do. That acne isn’t the worst of his problems — apparently he’s got an EVIL living inside of him, too. Talk about a bad day.
Yikes. I have to agree with you. There are other ways to portray acne on a book cover without A) making them look like bright red bugs crawling right under the skin of your face, and B) needing the whole paranormal/horror/suspense emo-look.
SHOOT ME! Is this real?! How could this be real!? Goodness.
EWWW. I would not pick up this book because of the cover. Blerg.
Eww! what the heck?! Why would anyone pick up a book with a close up of a dude’s zit heads??? this is so gross. And so disturbing.
Whoa…yeahhhh I wouldn’t pick that up. No offense or anything, but I dry-heaved on that cover :/
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Ööhhhmmm, this is NOT acne, he has like three zits. Acne is when you have hundreds of them on your face. Both my male-best-friend and my sister had acne, they both have scars on the outside and inside. Anyway, I still think that’s a bad cover if you actually want to sell the book. But it’s not the zits ( don’t think they’re that gross actually) but the problem is the EYE, what’s up with that?
I agree with you. The cover is unpleasant, but that really doesn’t represent what acne looks like to me either. My cousin had it, and even now that he’s 30, his skin is still scarred from it.
I think the problem though is that we’re so used to not seeing people in the public eye with even a couple of pimples that this seems completely repugnant with the black and red blotches all over his face. Rather than an illustration, I think they would have been better off using a real picture of a teen with acne.
I hate when I have to look at pimples that crop up on my own face. I certainly don’t want to see any close up. Icky icky!
Yeeeeeeah, I had acne for many years, and that is NOT bad acne. Bad acne is when it covers your entire face, not with just spots, but with inflamed, swollen red skin between the spots, too, and also covers your back, chest, shoulders, upper arms… I was lucky to be eligible for Accutane, the miracle drug.
The cover doesn’t make me feel sorry enough for this kid. Boo hoo, you have like five zits, so what? I’m scarred all over.
Also, I knew a Nick Barry in high school, so that just makes me laugh xD
Must be an interesting story…but I might not get it with that cover. An ebook, perhaps?
But yeah, poor Nick.
I think it’s also the contrast that is just a little ick. I do love Lerner though, so I would read this.