Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so I’m back with another Top Ten Tuesday courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. I’m going completely off piste this week as I did the favourite animals in books topic a few years ago & I don’t think my list has massively changed since then. So instead, inspired by talking about differences in UK and US covers in my post last week, I decided to do a UK vs US book covers post. I will freely admit, that I’m probably quite biased towards UK covers as they are what I’m used to, but I did try to get some US covers I liked better in there as well. So here we go, with Which Cover Did It Better, UK or US?
- Ink and Bone-Rachel Caine
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
These are both nice covers and to be honest, the US cover probably gives more of an idea of what the story is about, but for my personal preference, I prefer the UK cover. I like the colours better, I think the butterfly design is gorgeous and I love the way that you can see the book pages hiding within the butterfly wings.
2. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue-VE Schwab
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK Cover
Again the US cover’s constellation of stars has a more direct connection to the book, as they represent Addie’s freckles but I just think the UK cover is prettier. It’s more colourful, and I love the little forget-me-not flowers. The US cover is more minimalistic, which is unusual, as it’s normally the other way around (the UK having more minimal covers than the US).
3. The Daevabad Trilogy-S.A Chakraborty
UK covers
US covers
Winner: UK covers
Again both sets of covers are pretty, but I prefer the designs of the UK covers, I think the colours and patterns are nicer and I particularly love the deep purple of The Empire of Gold cover. I also think they look better together as a set.
4. Caraval-Stephanie Garber
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
Again, I like both and I may be slightly biased to the UK covers for this series as they have the very pretty hidden covers, but even discarding that, I like the UK cover better here. I love how the background is kind of like a starburst and I think the combination of the black cover with the splash of red and gold works really well. I also prefer the typeface on the UK cover.
5. Spin The Dawn-Elizabeth Lim
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: US cover
Finally one for the US. I do think the UK cover is pretty, but it looks more like a children’s book cover rather than a YA one, whereas the US one looks more like it’s aimed for the target audience. I also think you get more what the book is about in the US cover, with the dress being the focus, it’s clear that it’s about the tailoring competition whereas the UK cover isn’t so clear.
6. Kingdom of Ash-Sarah J Maas
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: US cover
The UK again went more minimal on the Throne of Glass covers than the US, with a white background rather than a coloured one and for most of the books I didn’t mind, but for this one, I think the colour gives it the edge as the actual design is largely the same. The US one just looks more striking with the golden background, as opposed to the white background on the UK cover.
7. Call Down The Hawk-Maggie Stiefvater
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK Cover
It wasn’t even a contest for me with this one, I think the UK cover is much nicer. The colours are much nicer and though the design is similar, I much prefer the watercolour style of the UK cover to the more computerised style of the US one. I’m really sad that the UK cover of Mister Impossible is the same as the US one except in paperback because I honestly hate the cover for that one!
8. The Girl From Everywhere-Heidi Heilig
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
Again this one is a no-brainer, the US cover is ugly! I hate the typeface, the design is boring and there’s not much colour. The UK cover is far more eye-catching, bright and colourful, with a much prettier design.
9. Rebel of The Sands-Alwyn Hamilton
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
I have freely admitted how much I dislike people on book covers, so it’s probably not a surprise that I prefer the UK cover to the US one here. The colours and the design on the UK cover are for me, much prettier than the US one.
10. Salt To The Sea-Ruta Sepetys
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
I’ll admit, I do think the UK cover looks like it’s aimed at a younger audience, but in terms of what I prefer from covers, I like it better. I’ve always been more of an illustrated cover person than a stock photo cover person.
11. Circe-Madeline Miller
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
Another no brainer for me, the UK one is prettier! I don’t know why they went for such a boring design for the US cover, but it looks so dull, whereas the UK cover has a much more elaborate and gorgeous design.
12. Ariadne-Jennifer Saint
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
This is a very similar case to Circe’s cover, the US went for a fairly minimalist design, whereas the UK cover is far more striking. I also think that the UK cover looks more Ancient Greek in style, with the mosaic style mazes around the outside and the Greek style figure of Ariadne. I also really love the blue and gold colours, I think they’re very striking.
13. City of Spells-Alexandra Christo
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
I will admit to being somewhat biased towards the cover I have, and I don’t actually think the US cover is bad, in actual fact I quite like it, but the red of the UK cover just stands out more to me. I love the black silhouette of the city as well, and the way that the vine design twines around the outer edges of the cover, I think it’s a more visually interesting design than the US cover.
14. The Court of Miracles-Kester Grant
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: UK cover
The colours are definitely what stuck out for me on the UK cover, the gold and blue are incredibly striking. The US cover definitely has it’s good points as well, I think it gets across the contrast between luxury and ruin quite well, but from a personal standpoint, again I just really like illustrated covers!
15. Moxie-Jennifer Mathieu
UK Cover 
US Cover
Winner: US cover
I do love pink, but the design for the US cover is much better. It looks like it could be the cover of the zine in the book, and I think feels more for its intended audience whereas the UK cover seems like it’s aimed at a younger audience.
Final scores:
UK: 12
US: 3
Sorry, US, I’m afraid in this round the UK covers trounced you soundly!
I want to hear your thoughts! Which of these covers would you have chosen (it’s totally okay if you don’t agree with me!)? Have you read any of these books? Did you like them? Which is your favourite cover? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back with another Top Ten Tuesday next week, with my Ten Most Recent Reads (so you can all see how bad of a reading slump I’ve been in this year!).
bookloversblog 
Ohh I do love thoses posts! While i’ve been used to US covers, some of them i’ve never seen before! I’m with you on that one, tend to prefer the UK covers more.
Thanks!
What a fun exercise. If you had made the covers one size smaller I could have seen them in one frame rather than having to scroll down just to see the whole cover.
Thanks for the feedback, I have changed them now! I’m still not used to doing picture posts in the new block editor, so it’s a bit of a learning curve 🙂
What lovely covers! It’s interesting to see how they vary from one country/area to the next.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-rabbits-from-books/
Yes it is! If I’d been really ambitious, then I would have included some of the foreign language editions of these books, but the WordPress block editor is so annoying to add multiple pictures in!
What an interesting post. I wonder why they always publish completely different US and UK versions – I’m sure it’s based on lots of research about what attracts buyers, but you wouldn’t expect the two markets to be so different.
Thank you! I don’t know, like you I reckon it’s something to do with marketing but you would expect them to have more crossover than they seem to.
I agree with a lot of your picks. OMG, that Ariadne cover is gorgeous! I think I like the Daevabad trilogy covers equally. I do prefer the US cover for Addie Larue, because what doesn’t come across in the photo is that the gold is foil, so it gleams brightly against the black background. It’s a very striking cover IRL. Oh, and I bought Spin the Dawn on the basis of the (US) cover alone, though I am definitely looking forward to reading it.
Thank you! I know right, I’m almost sad that I got an e-ARC of it, because the cover is so pretty. Ah see I’ve not seen a US cover for Addie IRL so I didn’t know that! I actually have a slightly different cover of Addie LaRue to the one pictured, I got the Waterstones Exclusive edition, so it’s a black cover rather than a blue one, it has gold foil on the cover and gold sprayed pages, the one pictured is the regular UK edition. I think that’s why I was interested in Spin The Dawn in the first place too, the gorgeous cover.
This is such a great list! The covers are so different, and I agreed with you on just about all of them.
Thank you!
US reader here but I actually agree with most of your choices. I don’t particularly care for people or stock photos on covers either, so I think that’s what skews me toward the UK covers. I was inclined to like the UK cover of Spin the Dawn more until you mentioned that it’s a YA book, not MG. They did miss the market with the UK cover. The Daevabad books are a close call for me. I marginally prefer the US covers for 1 & 3 but the 2nd cover always makes me think of a spaceship beaming someone up!
Fun post!
People on book covers does seem to be more of a US trend, it’s not something that seems to be very popular here in the UK, so I definitely get that. The UK cover of Spin The Dawn is super pretty, it’s just wrong for the audience. Yes, the US cover of Kingdom of Copper is super weird, not sure what they were going for with that one. Thank you 🙂
I’ve always been intrigued by the difference between UK and US covers. I’m not even sure why they do this. I agree with you on the The Daevabad books. The UK covers are more striking for sure.
My post for this weeks’ TTT: https://books.thetechchef.net/top-ten-tuesday-56-animals-in-books/
I think it’s just a marketing thing, what publishers think will appeal to their particular audience more. Yes, also I think more cohesive as a set? You can definitely tell they are part of the same series, whereas the US ones don’t seem as cohesive to me.
I agree with you on some, but disagree with you on others. Some are both really nice, I think. What I like best of all, however, is that we often have access to both covers if we like one more than another. Back in the olden days, it was so hard to get something from overseas.
That is fair! A lot of them I do think that both covers are really nice and it just came down to personal preferences, like colour, not liking people on covers, or personal design preferences. It is great that books are so much more accessible now and that we can get whichever cover we like.
Great job! I love seeing all the different versions of a cover and always enjoy a good cover post like this one.
Thank you!
That’s so interesting–I love the UK Moxie cover for being so bright, and I don’t like the US one as much for having a real face on it, haha!
I don’t usually like faces on books, but I think because Moxie is an illustration rather than a stock photo, it works better for me. It’s interesting to hear how people react differently to the different covers!
That makes sense! I definitely prefer illustrated people on covers to stock models–much less invasive to your own imagination, I think!
Definitely!
Love this post! I really like seeing the differences in design between different countries.
Thank you!
This was a fun post!! I agree with you on most, but I like the US covers for The Court of Miracles, The Girl from Everywhere, Caraval, and Addie La Rue! The only one I’ve read is Caraval, though! Addie La Rue is one I want to read soon, and so is Spin the Dawn and obvs Kingdom of Ash (I’m putting it off 🙈)
Thank you! I think for a lot of those it came down to colour for me, I really like a more colourful book cover (the Caraval one was really hard to choose, both covers are lovely). I hope you enjoy the ones you haven’t read yet.
I love cover posts like this. 🙂 I like the UK covers for the first three. Caraval I’ll go US, and Moxie too. Ariadne and Circe though- wow UK all way!
Thank you! I do like the US cover for Caraval, that one was probably the hardest one to decide because both covers are really pretty. I know they went ALL OUT on the Ariadne and Circe covers in the UK!
I would say that I tend to like the UK covers a little better than the US ones, but the truth is that they are all beautiful.
They are, I definitely wouldn’t say I dislike the US covers for most of these, just that I prefer the UK ones.
Great list! It is interesting to see the similarities and differences in the two versions. Thanks for visiting Long and Short Reviews!
Thank you 🙂
Wow, I agree with you on all of your choices. The UK really does have better covers in most instances. The UK Circe is gorgeous!
Thank you! Yes it is 🙂
Interestingly I tend to prefer the UK Covers too. I always feel like they fit a tad bit better. Though I agree with you on the Elizabeth Lim one. That one doesn’t quite fit.
I don’t know if it’s because they’re what I’m used to, but I agree! Yeah the Spin The Dawn one definitely looks more like a children’s book than a YA one.
I always love looking at how different the covers can be in different countries! It’s so interesting. I absolutely LOVE the UK version of Spin the Dawn, though. I totally agree about The Girl From Everywhere, though. I was shocked to see how ugly the US one is! Especially since the UK version is so colorful and gorgeous.
It is fun to see how different countries take different approaches, it would have been fun to compare a few more countries’ covers, but it took me long enough just doing two, the WordPress Block Editor is not really good for doing posts with lots of pictures. I do think the UK’s cover of Spin The Dawn is really pretty, I just thought it kind of missed the market, it looks like it’s aimed for younger readers. Yes, it’s such a shame the US Girl From Everywhere is so plain.
I love looking at and comparing covers, and (as an American) I also notice that many UK covers in particular tend to be much prettier than their US counterparts. I haven’t read many of these, but I do agree with the majority of your choices. I am very intrigued by Rebel of the Sands though, as my library has the UK cover, and I honestly had no idea until seeing this.
Yes it’s always so fun to do. It does seem to be the case most of the time, though I do like a lot of US covers too. Oh really? I think Rebel of The Sands was initially released with its original cover in the US and then they changed it when the sequels came out? Not sure though.
I always love seeing the differences in UK/US covers. Most of my books are US covers but that’s just because I haven’t purchased any UK ones. I love the books you chose for your list 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by my TTT.
Me too, it’s super interesting to see the different approaches publishers take. Most of mine are UK, the only US ones I have is where a book I wanted wasn’t published in the UK. Thank you! No problem 🙂