I can almost guarantee you that every other What Were YA Thinkin? post will be dedicated to a cover that gives me heebie jeebies. Like this one:
I’m not going even going to address the type treatment for The Waking or the fact that I can jump on the all-caps bandwagon for this cover art. What I can do is be instantly reminded of the film The Ring and run screaming in the other direction. It’s not a surprise to me that Bloomsbury is debuting a new cover for the book this summer.
I’m suddenly reminded of what I said in an earlier post this week: If I could shape this week’s theme of posts around one word, that word would be “thought-provoking.”
THIS POST OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT APPLY.
Wait, the second one’s the new cover? I thought it was an old original 80s cover. It looks like one of those old Nancy Drew covers. Man, neither of these really make me want to read the book unfortunately.
I like the top cover. It’s very creeptastic and reminds me of The Grudge. The second one looks home made.
Holy creepfest! That first book cover is going to give me nightmares!! Seriously C. You need a disclaimer before showing that hideous thing!
Seriously though – the eyes are just wrong. I hate creepy eyes. And that 2nd cover? I agree with Erin – 1980′s Nancy Drew much? No thanks.
CREEPY. I didn’t see the face on the first cover at first but when I saw it…eeeep. What were they thinking indeed?!
Second cover…so so. I’m pretty sure I won’t pick it up when I see it. :/
I think the second cover is kind of cute but the first one, not my cup of tea.
I actually like the first cover better simply because it’s a lot more attention-grabbing. If I had seen the book in a store with the second cover, I would have ignored it without a second thought.
While I hate the type chosen for “The Waking” on the first one, I actually like the cover itself. I like creepy when it is supposed to be creepy. Since the premise of the story is set in Japan and is very much like a Japanese horror, it makes sense that the cover reminds us of movies like The Ring and The Grudge.
The second cover ages the book 30 years and doesn’t evoke anything of the Japanese demon horror storyline. I don’t think that is better.
Oh, they nailed creepy on the head, for sure. I don’t do scary. At all.
Nightmares! NIGHTMARES!!
Seriously, I can’t even look at that cover. *shudders*
I love the first one! I was just about to see if our library system had it on order when I saw the second one, and thought “That looks like a book I don’t want to read.” But obviously I’d take creepy over generic any day. To each her own!
I thought of The Ring before I even read what you said! It was like she was crawling out of the TV all over again *shivers*
I love your, What were YA thinkin? posts! Just sayin’
Wow, I, uh, wouldn’t pick up EITHER of those. But for different reasons. The first one is definitely a riff on The Ring, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies because of the eyes.
With a title like that, I think I would’ve done something spooky, but with a Noh mask involved…
Ugh, totally creepy. Too much like a Japanese horror movie. Granted, the Japanese do have Noh, and perhaps that was intentional… (I know nothing about this book)