For the second installment of ridiculous book cover changes, I offer up This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. How - on earth or in hell or in space or in the mind of anyone - is it a natural progression from Exhibit A (the original US hardcover) to Exhibit B (the US paperback reissue)? I'll admit the original cover was vague and disappointing (what is that on the murky blue background?) and so offered much room for improvement. It was a chance for that rare moment when the reissue cover could have been better - could have communicated so much more about the book. Alas, it was not meant to be. The mountain lion image coupled with the title makes it seem like a book written by Jon Krakauer. It should be noted that A.M. Homes commented on this (then) forthcoming cover when she did an LA reading and she thought it odd as well.
But let's be honest, the real crime here is the insane leap from Exhibit B (Penguin Paperback 2007) to Exhibit C (Granta Books, UK Paperback 2007). Yes, the protagonist in the novel does get donuts at the restaurant down the hilly street from his Hollywood Hills home. He hails a cab from there and has some very profound thoughts whilst pondering donuts. But again, the image + the title makes this seem as if it's not a work of literary fiction but that it is a diet book of some sort. The anti-thesis of Skinny Bitch or that French girls don't get fat book and more along the lines of...eating donuts will save your life. I'll admit that it is at least quirky enough to catch one's attention.
So which is it? Mountain lions will save you or donuts? Or the book? None of these covers do the book justice - no matter what country you're living in. I may also have to start a separate series - the series of what the book covers should have looked like instead. For this book, as it is about living in glass houses and rarefied air in Los Angeles but being human anyway, why no dark & arty images of a Richard Meier house jutting out precariously over the hills? Perhaps that would be too obvious. I'd argue that it would at least be closer to the novel than any of these.
Previously: Book Cover Switch-Up: The View from Castle Rock