Book Jackets With People’s Heads Cut Off

When I was a bookstore rep a common worry I heard was about how so many YA books feature young women’s bodies… with their heads cropped out of the image. Many bookstore owners and managers found this sexist and demeaning. Personally, I don’t mind this because I hate when the cover image doesn’t match the way the characters are described. I prefer to picture them my own way, without the jacket designer’s influence (and art designers know that which is why this is such a common practice.)

Yesterday when I posted all those memoir covers, I noticed that six of them had images of people on them. Only one showed her face, which is an image of the actual author. The rest all cropped out or obscured the face (under a box, behind binoculars) and of those five, three were images of men. So I think perhaps all the alarmists who are so upset about young women’s self-esteem being affected by their heads being cut off perhaps need to realize this is an equal-opportunity art technique. (More books are written both by and for women, so I’m sure there are more covers with women’s heads cut off, but perhaps not so disproportionately as assumed.)

So I thought I’d go on a scavenger hunt for more jacket images with men’s heads cut off. After all, it’s only fair. Funny that with these I have two more covers with people wearing a box on their head.