Teen Fiction Is the Stock Art of Literature, Except When It's the Stock Art of Stock Art

I came across two books today. The first when I was asked if it was available in paperback. A little girl handed it too me. The second book came just three minutes later, off a cart of brand new books that had yet to see a shelf.

The first: "You Have Seven Messages" by Stewart Lewis. Here's the GoodReads page.

The second: "These Girls" by Sarah Pekkanen. (Its GoodReads page.)

One by a man with two first names, the other by a woman with a surname that makes one wonder why she didn't just pick up a nom de plume. And in her defense, "These Girls" is listed as adult fiction, but I would surmise in the same way that Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Leo DiCaprio vehicle Romeo + Juliet was an adult movie made for adults and not for teenagers but for really adult adults.

But maybe I could be forgiven for thinking they are the same book.



No, these aren't the same book at all.

Not in the slightest. Nope. Uh-uh.


However, yeah, the back covers both credit GettyImages after cover designers and photographer.

Apparently, in book publishing, this is nothing new.

Oddly, it's the teen fiction on the left that I feel has the better design, with sharper focus and more saturated color.

Plus, with the higher contrast, the girl doesn't look like she has a big square crease in her ass. No teenage girl wants to empathize with a flat-butted protagonist. Although it shows the woman's foot, and we all know that pretty women hate their feet.