Saturday, August 17, 2013

By Its Cover: Beautiful Boy


I didn't pay close attention to this cover before I started reading the book. (For such a visual person, it's surprising how often that happens to me.) If you had asked me what it looked like, I would have just said it was a white background with plain text in the middle. I didn't really notice the jumping boy off to the side.

When I did notice it, though, I thought it was good design. You don't see a face, so it could be anyone (though it's pretty obvious it's supposed to be Nic). He clearly looks joyful, and young, which is something David likes to remember: the simple happiness of his kid's youth. Except the photo does that without sounding really flowery like I just did.

I like the cover a lot.  I like that the kid is off to the side, running, because I think that's exactly how David Sheff felt: Nic was running away from him.  His childhood disappear, NIC disappeared and became this elusive, unreachable thing.

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