Beautiful Dead Girls

Recently on her blog 'Trac Changes’, Rachel Stark highlighted a disturbing and worrying trend in teen/YA book covers in which female characters were depicted as dying, beautifully and tragically. Her post “Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death?” discussed why the imagery of dead girls has become so popular in teen/YA lit. She considers that these images are “less the product of an overt “male gaze”, and more the product of teenage girls’ morbidity...anyone who has worked with teenage girls will know that many have an astonishing taste for that which is melodramatic, desolate and downright morbid.” Rachel Stark explores the idea that, at least in part, this fascination is a product of the internalised misogyny of teenage girls. You can read the whole post here - .http://trac-changes.blogspot.com/2011/10/cover-trends-in-ya-fiction-why.html?spref=tw

This post comes in the same week as the trailer for the film The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins hits the airwaves. If you haven’t read the series, Katniss Everdeen is the main character and she has gripped the imagination and emotions of thousands upon thousands of people, from pre-teens, young teens, older teens, young adults and adults, and she is also one of the strongest heroines to have emerged in recent years. Yes, there is lots of violence in the books, a love triangle, a terrifying dystopian world, but at the centre of it is a captivating heroine who refuses to die.
The book covers for the Hunger Games Trilogy do not figure a beautifully elegant dead girl. Yet the books are best sellers and they have captured the imaginations of girls and boys alike.

The covers of YA books are typically designed by publishers’ in-house designers, who usually first read the book to capture the mood and the story and who will then discuss the design with authors. But editors, and importantly, the sales and marketing department, have a huge say in book cover design.

Personally I believe that the design of book covers is largely in the hands of the publishers rather than stemming from a demand from teenage girls. I do buy Rachel Stark’s line that there is a strong undercurrent and receptiveness towards images of “beautiful morbidity” amongst teenage girls. But I’m not prepared to believe that this receptiveness has grown explosively. I think it’s down, as usual, to the sales and marketing department’s tendency to hunt in packs and to copy the latest fad. Perhaps too some authors get less of a say in the look of their cover than others.

But to whoever decided that beautiful dead girls on covers sell books and to those who continue to endorse the trend, isn’t it about time for a trend change?