by Kachi Parado

I needed to take out and look over all my books for this article because I didn’t want to be unfair to any of them. I’ve read tons of books but I also have a lot stacked and untouched, so I’m going to talk about book covers of titles that I have and haven’t read.

For the book that I have read, I’m going with Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame Smith. This 336-paged paperback is the 2011 edition by Grand Central Publishing.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is Seth Grahame Smith’s sixth novel. He has written for TV and two movies, “Dark Shadows,” and the film adaptation of this book. Reading this book made me consider reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (also by Smith).

The front cover is an old-school, full-body picture of President Abraham Lincoln but with smudges of blood on his coat and on the background. If you look closely, too, you can see he’s holding an ax behind his back.

Flip the book over and the expression “business in the front, party in the back” fits perfectly with this design – the view changes and shows the former US President from behind, holding a bloody ax and clutching a chopped vampire head. This just makes me smile. Also, the color scheme of the cover is red and black so obviously, this isn’t your typical “light read.”

The cover tells us a lot about the book. This is basically Abe’s secret diary, explaining how vampires have always been involved in his life: from his mother dying to vampires being the real reason for the Civil War.

Simply put, if vampires do really exist, I’d totally believe Abraham Lincoln would have been a vampire hunter. The movie, though, wasn’t a hit for me. I was excited about it but it turned out flat. The book, however, is definitely on my recommended list of vampire reads.

For the book cover that I love but haven’t read yet, it’s The Shining by Stephen King. I saw this at BOOKSALE and immediately grabbed it. If you’re always at BOOKSALE, you know that if you find a book you really like, you have to get it pronto, period. A book never stays in one place at that place so once you see the treasure, take it, head on to the cashier and win in life.

Do I even need an intro for Stephen King? Fine. He’s an acclaimed author of tons of horror, suspense and sci fi literary reads that have been adapted for both TV and film. I mostly know him through films, though. I’ve seen six of his films, including the adaptation of The Shining, but I haven’t read any of his books (though I have two of them). This cover is the 2002 paperback edition by Gallery Books and has 505 pages.

The story is about a writer named Jack who, along with his family, takes up a job as a hotel caretaker during the hotel’s off season. While there, the reader discovers that Jack’s son apparently has supernatural powers and Jack becomes cray cray, leading to him hurting his family.

The movie gave me goosebumps. I was scared for three days straight. Things kept running in my mind for no reason at all and my fear of being alone in huge places and being trapped increased.

The cover is a fresh take on a very dark story. The glaring eye is a dead giveaway, of course, but the colors are bright pink and yellow – inviting. The colors literally bleed in an entire row of books. The bubble thought on the front and the font used for the title and blurb make it very comic-y, too.

They say don’t judge the book by its cover but here, we kind of do, haha. If you’ve read these books, let us know what you think! ☁