Crazy-For-Books.com has a weekly book blog hop. It's a great way to meet other book blogs and find ones that are to your interest. I found this and loved it to death once I started!
This week's question is:
Do you judge a book by its cover?
My answer: Yes, I do! If a cover does not look interesting or appealing to me, I skim over it. I do judge a book by its cover a lot because it kind of gives me an insight into what the book will be about. Let me give an example. (I do that a lot....)
Star crossed by Mark Schreiber is now my favorite book. When I first looked at it, there were two things that caught my eye. The girl and the title. The girl was different, she was young and pretty but had red marks on her lip and eye, that got me intrigued as to why. Then there was the title, Star crossed immediately set off my Romeo & Juliet sensors. I love romance stories and this one seemed like one to me, I read the synopsis and knew I had to check this out. This was an amazing example of what could happen when judging a book.
This is a book cover gone wrong, okay? So, when I saw this at the library, they were selling it for two bucks! I looked at the cover and saw the cute interracial couple. The guy was holding the girl so obviously she's either scared or lonely. Something like that. He's trying to protect her from whatever it is. In the background is the city, which gives me an idea on where the setting is. So, I bought the book after reading the synopsis and thought it seemed like a pretty good book. Not even 15 pages into the book, I marked this as a "No one should ever read this and if they did, they need to burn it" read. I hated it. It was written as though a sixth grader wrote it. The plot was being sped up too fast. One minute we're in Harlem, or wherever it was (I forget), and next we're at a private school the guy goes to. I was too confused, there was too many grammar/spelling errors, etc. I stopped reading it and to this day, that book is collecting dust on the shelf because I can not give that thing another chance.
So, sometimes judging a book is a good think to do but it can also be a bad thing too. I suggest you do what teachers and librarians have always told you to do, read the first three pages. If it doesn't hook you in by the third page, put it back on the shelf.
What do you think? Do you judge a book by its cover?
P.S. To anyone who visits my blog from the Hop and leaves a comment, I automatically visit your blog and add you to my Book Blog Buddy list.
Peace and Fangs,
Alisha
