Thursday, November 17, 2011

What about those shirtless book covers?

You know the book covers I'm talking about. The ones with the super ripped guy on the front who has, I hate to break it to you, photoshopped abs. Normally these covers are popular in the adult romance genre, but lately I've been seeing them show up in the YA section. The most popular shirtless guy cover of YA is definitely City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.


Why hello shirtless Jace! You're looking mighty fine today. :P

Does anyone else feel a little uncomfortable walking around holding this book because I know I do. I feel like people are just staring at me thinking "What is that girl reading and why does it have a shirtless guy on it?" Okay so maybe people aren't really thinking that but I still feel self conscious about reading City of Bones in public. >.<

The newest edition to the YA shirtless cover family is The Fallen series by Thomas E. Sniegoski. I saw these while walking through Barnes and Noble one day and I was like "Hello! Ummm why don't you go put some clothes on?"


I mean is the shirtlessness really necessary? I don't think its possible for someone to read these books in public without feeling awkward. Just saying.

However I will say that the book covers apparently used to look like this:



Yep. That's just not as enticing as a shirtless guy. XD

Fortunately these are really the only YA books I could think of that have shirtless guys on them. Of course I could be missing some.... If you can think of others let me know! Personally I hope this isn't gonna be a new trend in YA covers. There's already an onslaught of "We're getting our schmexy on" covers in YA (yes I'm talking about you Simone Elkeles!) and I feel like more shirtless guys is the last thing we need. Of course publishers could be thinking "It was good enough for Jacob Black so its good enough for us!" Please Lord let that not be the case. >.<

So I wanna hear from you. Do you like shirtless guys on your book covers? Or do you not really like it? Or do you not even care? Do you think you would be more or less likely to pick up a book if it had a shirtless guy on it? Why or why not? Let me know!

Julia :)

10 comments:

  1. I don't like anything shirtless on book covers - male or female. I do care and, if a book featuring somebody's naked torso is worth buying, it wears a jacket as long as I read it. In my humble opinion a shirtless guy preening himself on artificial abs is laughable and generally it doesn't bode well for the content. It's like the last resort to get people (ok, more women than men) interested when nothing else works.

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  2. I am not a fan of the latest trend of sshirtless charatcers on YA book covers. It actually makes me not wnat to pick a book up- even if it sounds like a goodone- because I don't want to be out reading in public with that kind of cover.

    The new covers for Tom Sniegiskie's Fallen books are very misleading since there isn't much in the way of romance, and as far as I remember there wasn't any shirtlessness in the books. So glad I have the other covers. =)

    Orchid @ The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

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  3. I'm not a fan of shirtless guys on covers. Like you said, people give you weird looks! Plus, the shirtlessness almost never actually relates to the story (and I love my covers to be meaningful, however rare that might be).

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    1. But in this book, City of Bones, which I just finished reading yesterday, it relates to one of the main characters, Jace Wayland, who is said to be very sexy, which is shown perfectly by this picture, and is one of the most relevant people in the book. He's pretty much the focus of Clary [main character]

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  4. I really could do without the shirtless guys, thanks. |:

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  5. does not care 4 me, hope this not a trend

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  6. Agreed. A shirtless guy to me signals 'erotica' and I want nothing to do with that. If the cover is any indication of what's inside the book, and if the cover looks like the cover of an adult erotic story, then I wouldn't pick it up.

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  7. I actually just borrowed City of Bones from the library this week, but I didn't notice the shirtless-ness of the book until this blog post! I typically don't pay too much attention to the book cover (clearly, considering I didn't even notice this book's cover), and since I typically read books at home, I'm "safe." I usually end up bringing my Kindle with me when I go out, so no one judges me on the title of that book. (Does that sentence make sense? Meh.)

    But if I see a book and notice it's got a shirtless dude on it, I probably would pass over that one. Like Elanor, it signals intense romance and erotica, and I typically don't read those genres.

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  8. I don't mind the shirtless men (so long as I can drool in private haha). I know what you mean - I feel awkward ;)

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