Cover Analysis (3): Between by Jessica Warman

First and foremost, I am going to point out the swings. I just don’t get them. There was maybe one scene where there were swings. A very minor scene. It looks good on the cover though, I guess.

Is the girl the right choice? Well, she’s skinny. You can see that. That’s basically all you can see of her. Good representation of the anorexic main character, but it doesn’t show how supposedly gorgeous she is supposed to be. I wish the artist would have shown her face instead of her looking down with her hair covering everything.

I love the theme, though. If you really look behind the title, it looks like water, right? And then obviously there’re clouds at the bottom. I wouldn’t consider this a spoiler, since it happens right at the beginning of the story, but Liz dies by drowning. And by setting the model between the water and the clouds, it’s like she is “Between” life and death... trying to move on after dying.

My favorite part of this cover is the title. It’s a simple word, really. “Between”. But the effects placed on the type sticks with the theme. There’s a blurry copy of the “Between” both above and below the bolded title. The bold is BETWEEN the two others. This really proves that I can never become a cover designer because I don’t have that kind of creativity.

Check out my review of Between here.

Review: Between by Jessica Warman

Goodreads description:

Elizabeth Valchar-pretty, popular, and perfect-wakes up the morning after her eighteenth birthday party on her family's yacht, where she'd been celebrating with her six closest friends. A persistent thumping noise has roused her. When she goes to investigate, what she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her life, her friends, and everything in between. As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she will find that no one around her, least of all Liz herself, was perfect-or innocent. Critically acclaimed author Jessica Warman brings readers along on a roller-coaster ride of a mystery, one that is also a heartbreaking character study, a touching romance, and ultimately a hopeful tale of redemption, love, and letting go.

Between was very, very good. As a fast paced read, couldn’t put it down. It was the first thing I thought of in the morning, and the last thing before I went to sleep.

I loved this book despite unlikable characters. Because honestly? I hated the characters. Even the main character. The main focus was on a group of rich popular kids. They were just so mean to everyone who wasn’t like them, and even were mean to each other.

And they do drugs. Mostly just marijuana, but still. I think it was the 2^nd page that drugs and alcohol were first mentioned, and I really considered not even reading more. But I’m glad I did. It was good to read a book where drugs are present within the main group, because, really, drugs are also present in the real life. It was good that Jessica Warman brought it to attention that these popular kids, the ones that everyone thinks highly of? Yeah, the do drugs. They aren’t as good as some people think.

Liz, the main character, yep I hated her. She thought everything revolved around her and that everyone loved her. By the end of the story though, no I didn’t like her, but I came to understand her. She was anorexic, a habit picked up from her mom. My heart literally broke when Liz flashed by to when she was 9. Her mom was basically lecturing her about the calorie/fat content of peanut butter. What 9 year old deserves to have to worry about that??

It was a little difficult to be shocked at a lot of things in the story. They were actually kind of predictable. But there were parts like “whoa, I did not see that one coming.” It made the book more enjoyable, the mixture of predictability and shock.

Overall, though in reality I should have hated this book- I mean, I hated the characters, the drugs, nearly every detail- as a whole, the book came together beautifully. It went by smoothly, I liked the change of not actually liking the main characters. I would definitely recommend Between to anyone.

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