Friday Face-Off: Doors
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Knock, knock…who’s there?”
~ a cover featuring a DOOR
Mogsy’s Pick:
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
So I fudged today’s topic a little, since the theme actually calls for a closed or slightly ajar door. But being more general afforded me some better options, so this is my story and I’m sticking to it. At its heart, A Head Full of Ghosts is a possession story (a complicated one, but let’s just roll with that). It stars the Barretts, a seemingly average suburban New England family hit by hard times. When John Barrett lost his job, his wife Sarah became the soul breadwinner. Finances became further strained when their eldest daughter, fourteen-year-old Marjorie started getting sick, displaying symptoms of psychosis. Doctors, however, were unable to help. Reluctantly, the family decides to turn to the Catholic Church. A priest called Father Wanderly suggests that Marjorie could be under the influence of a demon. A TV production company was also contacted, and they in turn offer the Barretts a large sum of money if they will agree to be filmed for the exorcism.
Fifteen years later, the Barrett’s youngest daughter Merry, who was eight at the time, breaks the silence about what really happened.
Let’s take a look at the covers:
From left to right:
William Morrow (2015) – Titan Books (2016)
Bulgarian Edition (2016) – Italian Edition (2017) – Slovak Edition (2016)
Portuguese Edition (2017) – Hungarian Edition (2016)
Turkish Edition (2016) – Indonesian Edition (2017) – French Edition (2018)
Polish Edition (2016) – German Edition (2018)
Winner:
Lots to choose from this time, and a few that are actually really good. My favorites are the Portuguese edition (I really love the cool effect of the light and shadows made by the doors in that creepy hallway), the Hungarian edition (which is unabashedly trying to be reminiscent of The Exorcist), the Polish edition (because that color scheme is very interesting to me), and the German edition (even though it makes the book look like it’s about a haunting). Ah, decisions decisions decisions. After going back and forth, I finally narrowed it down to a winner.
But what you do think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Hungarian edition!! I thought this lady was floating out of a casket or something but then realized it’s actually a door and the wrong way
I love the colours and the creepiness^^
The Slovak edition looks like ‘The Ring’
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Yeah, I’m not crazy about the Slovak edition…too creepy!
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Freaky! I’ll go with the titan edition and the Slovak edition- I like both.
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Gah, you like that disturbing scary Slovak cover! 😀
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I love your pick! The colors speak to me lol.
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The color scheme is my favorite thing about that cover 😀
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They’re all very different
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Yep, I like the variety!
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So many people love this book. I should really find out why some day. I actually think I like the Titan edition which is odd, because it also really seems to be the one that doesn’t fit and which also has no door. Crazy huh?
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I loved this book when I read it too! Unfortunately, his next two were not that great.
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I’m actually partial to the William Morrow edition, I think tilted or upside down scapes are so creepy! I also love the Portuguese edition for some reason. Great choice!
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Yeah, it took me a while to figure out what I was looking at in the William Morrow cover, had to tilt my head to see it!
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Good choice, the color scheme is indeed intriguing. I also like the first cover, the one from W.Morrow: like Tammy, I believe that the tilted view adds to the weirdness of the theme… And in this hot summer, a few chills are exactly what we need! 😀
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Yeah, it’s a very cool cover. I notice a lot of the other editions also use the tilted or upside down effect to achieve the creep factor!
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I like the Titan books cover as it is similar to the cover I have for Cabin at the end of the world!
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Yeah, I find it pretty cool that the Titan editions of his books all look similar!
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I have to go with the Hungarian one cos it looks cool
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That one’s pretty awesome. Reminds me of The Exorcist 🙂
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Its between the Polish and the French for me! The Turkish is my least favorite, it is super weird
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I don’t like the Turkish edition either. I don’t like the art style at all.
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Wow – what a lot of amazing covers. I like the French and the Polish but my favourite is the German cover – I love it.
Lynn 😀
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That one’s in my top three for sure!
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I love the original US cover, the Titan one, and the Hungarian one – I feel like all 3 of those just “suit” the story so well in one way or another – but honestly, I kind of dig almost all of these!
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Yeah, I’m a big fan of the Hungarian edition. It reminds me of the Exorcist!
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These are a great selection of covers – haven’t there been an amazing bunch of books chosen for this theme this week? And I love your choice – the Polish one is by far the most beautiful. It’s the lighting that sets this one apart, I think.
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Yes, I loved going around the blogs this week and seeing everyone’s awesome picks! They’re all so different and interesting 🙂
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Everyone very much rose to the challenge this week, didn’t they?
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I love how varied these are! And I *just* realized that the US cover is a photo of a hallway turned sideways! I’m torn between the clean aesthetic of the Titan version and the Polish one.
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Yeah, I love the sideways perspective – it’s amazing how much creep factor that one small change can make!
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Nice picks! My eyes literally went to the three covers you had trouble choosing between, and I ended up going with the Polish one too. 😉
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