Friday Face-Off: Upside Down
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:
“Ludo … down”
~ a cover that is UPSIDE DOWN
Mogsy’s Pick:
The Outsider by Stephen King
These days, I’m not as keen to jump on every new Stephen King book as I used to be, though I’m really glad I picked up The Outsider. The book opens by laying out the details of a horrific crime, setting the scene for a detective story. A little boy named Frank Peterson has been murdered, and based on the mountain of evidence available, including multiple eyewitness accounts and DNA and fingerprint samples, Detective Ralph Anderson arrests Little League coach Terry Maitland at a baseball game in front of the whole town. The problem though, is that Terry insists on his innocence. And despite everything the police have on him, he also has an airtight alibi. So what gives? How is it possible that a man can be in two places at the same time?
In the end, I had a good time with this book, and I loved the old-school King vibe that it had about it. But now let’s take a look at some of the covers:
From left to right:
Sribner (2018) – Hodder & Stoughton (2018)
German Edition (2018) – Finnish Edition (2019) – Serbian Edition (2019)
Hungarian Edition (2019) – Portuguese Edition (2019) – Chinese Edition (2019)
Slovak Edition (2019) – Ukrainian Edition (2019) – Bulgarian Edition (2019)
Winner:
I really like the upside down image of the dark figure on the original Scribner edition, but I also love cool blue tones of the Portuguese edition. Interestingly, I think the German cover combines the best of both worlds, and it even has the added sinister effect created by the creeping tree branches. So I think I’m going to have to go with that one.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Scribner looks scary so I will go with it
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I do love how creepy that one looks!
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I quite like your selection here. It’s been quite a while since I tried something by King but I got a few free that are sitting around my house!
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Same with me! He is so prolific, and my husband used to be a huge fan so I have a ton of King’s older stuff lying around the house as well that I have yet to read.
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This actually sounds really good! I think I like the Portuguese the best, with the woods and everything else. That German one though is chilling, with the upside down guy and the eyes.
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It was a great book! The best King has written in a while, imo 😀
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This is the one I planned to use but then the week got away from me. Glad it still got coverage 🙂 I do like the German one but there is something about the Portuguese one. And I think the Bulgarian one is super creepy. I loved this book and love seeing so many great covers! Of course, I need the Holly book NOW!
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Haha, yeah I had a few options, but this one stuck in my mind because I loved the book, and as a bonus, it had a bunch of available covers 😀
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There are actually quite a few of these I love! My favorite is the Ukranian edition😁
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Yeah, it’s hard to believe there’s a creepier cover than the Scribner one, but the Ukrainian edition managed it 😀
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The Slovak edition captures the core idea much more effectively, in my opinion: that… Doppelganger effect is right on target . 🙂
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Yeppers, indeed that one is quite in-your-face about it…pardon the pun 😀
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Great pick! I love the Scribner version myself (it’s so impactful) but I agree yours has a good balance of the blue tones and creepy imagery. 😉
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Yeah there are a whole bunch of creepy ones in this batch, but I think the Scribner edition is one of the most dramatic – it’s so simple yet still so imposing!
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There are some very creepy covers for this one – I have to admit I kind of like the first – probably because I’m familiar with it.
Lynn 😀
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Same here, I’m the most familiar with that one, and it is also a great cover stylistically 😀
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Love your pick!
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