Friday Face-Off: Dark Road
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:
“The road goes ever on and on”
~ a cover featuring a DARK ROAD
Mogsy’s Pick:
The Other People by C.J. Tudor
When it comes to dark roads, surely none can be darker than the one traveled by Gabe in The Other People, a novel about a father’s desperate quest to find his abducted daughter. Gabe spends his days driving up and down the same stretch of highway where he last saw his little girl in the back of a rusty old junk bucket covered with gaudy bumper stickers. Her terrified face in that car has haunted his dreams every day for the last three years, and he vowed he would never give up until he found her. Eventually, his search does bear fruit—though perhaps not the kind he wanted.
Let’s take a look at the covers:
From left to right:
Ballantine Books (2020) – Penguin (2020)
Penguin Paperback (2020) – Random House Audio (2020) – Dutch Edition (2020)
Winner:
There’s no doubt this week, my favorite one is the Ballantine cover. It also stresses me out a little, a testament to how effective it is. Looking at it reminds me of why I don’t like to be out driving late at night, especially on rural highways around here where you can go for miles in the pitch blackness without seeing a single streetlight or another car on the road.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
I like that Dutch edition. It just creeped me out 🙂
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Yeah what is up with creepy little girls on covers with their creepy blank stares 😀
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Pingback: The Friday Face-Off: The Road Goes Ever On and On – Books by Proxy
Hello Mogsy. My favourite is the one with the highway drawn on it. Very atmospheric.
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Love that one too!
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If choosing based on the theme I’d pick the same as you, with that dark curving road. But my favorite overall is the Penguin Paperback. Not sure I can describe the feeling it gives… not exactly creepy, but foreboding, maybe.
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I agree. I don’t know that the pb cover fits the story, but it really is quite unsettling!
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Indeed there is nothing that spells “incoming danger” as a car traveling on a lonely road at night… 🙂
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Agreed! Gives you all kinds of bad vibes.
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I definitely love your pick! So creepy😬
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I thought so too!
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This is an excellent choice for this week’s theme, Mogsy:)). My favourite is the Random House audio – I love the clever way in which the author and title fonts are in corporated on the back of the car…
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I love it too! Actually it was the first cover I’ve ever seen for this book, I think it was intended to be the US hardcover, but they went with the highway cover. I’m glad it lived on for the audiobook edition though!
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Yes – it’s always heartening when a good cover isn’t allowed to fall between the cracks:))
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For some reason, I’m really drawn to the Random House Audio one as well. There’s just something about it. Great pick this week!
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It’s a good one – the color reminds me so much of a school bus though! 😛
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I would choose the same as you!
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AWesome!
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I really like the penguin paperback and Dutch editions! They’re so creepy and dramatic with the stark whites. My favourite is the Random House Audio though – I love how the title looks like it’s printed on the back of the car. 😀
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Yeah, it’s a great effect!
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I like your choice with the slightly psychedelic colour and also like the Dutch edition, there’s something quite startling about it.
Lynn 😀
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You’re right, I never really thought about the color, but it’s actually quite psychedelic 😛
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I definitely agree with your pick! The Random House Audio (2020) version is a close second though! 🙂
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That’s a great one too!
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I like the random house audio, it seems to fit
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Oh good one. For some reason I keep forgetting this has a road on the cover, but of course it does. 🙂
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I like your pick!
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