Jul 13
Since The Vampire Diaries is getting more than its fair share of attention lately, I’m throwing some love to Night World. With the recent omnibus editions released in NA and the UK, we got photo covers that don’t really match the characters. Even more cracktastic, however, are some of the accompanying audio book covers. On tap: Secret Vampire, AKA NW01.
The photo is the same one used for the 1-3 (Secret Vampire; Daughters of Darkness; Spellbinder/Enchantress) cover, so it’s a familiar image. It’s clearly meant to be Poppy, although you can’t really tell what colour the girl’s hair is. The eyes are green, and at least an attempt was made to make them a darker green, if not full-out emerald. And before I launch into the criticism, I’ll give a blanket disclaimer and say that all the cover models used are pretty in their own ways, so I’m not insulting them personally; they just don’t always fit.
In this case, the model looks too old. I’m not saying she looks like my grandmother or anything, but when I picture a sixteen-year-old who’s described as “elfin” and like a “pixie”, this is not the type of face I see in my head. I see someone more like Kristen Bell, who apparently still gets given the “kids’ menu” at some restaurants because she’s so small and—say it with me now—elfin.
Maybe part of it is the age squickiness. There’s not a huge gap between her and James, but the reality is that he still has the ability to age while she does not. She will be sixteen, physically, forever. “Forever” carries a lot of ramifications, more than most people take into consideration when they say “Wow, being a vampire would be awesome!” Regardless of the publisher’s motivations, this model just doesn’t look like Poppy to me. It’s more than having the right hairstyle and the “proper colouring”; it’s about a look.
Cover from The LJS Cover Resource; click to enlarge.
