Got roasted at my book club for picking a book based on its cover

Last month at our downtown library book club, I brought a novel that had this killer cover design. Three people called me out for judging a book by its cover, but the actual story was terrible - thin plot, flat characters. Has anyone else ever picked a dud based purely on the artwork and regretted wasting a whole month discussing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciareed6d ago

Oh man, that's rough. A buddy of mine did the same thing with a sci-fi book that had this insane spaceship on the front. He hyped it up for weeks at his club, then the story turned out to be some boring political drama where nothing happened until the last ten pages. He said everyone just stared at him when he tried to defend it. Ended up being the only guy who finished the book, and the club voted to pick something else halfway through the month.

murphy.linda6d ago

And the worst part is, I totally doubled down and said the cover art was "metaphorically complex" when really I just liked the font (which, spoiler alert, is not a valid book review strategy).