“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

We’ve all heard that bit of advice. (And if you’re interested, when I Googled it, I learned the origin of this expression is credited to a longer statement that conveyed the same meaning in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss.)

Nowadays, the adage is used broadly and is applied to many things beyond books. For instance, you can’t know a person’s true heart or friendliness by simply looking at them. You don’t always know if you’ll enjoy a meal simply based on how it looks on the plate. 

While I absolutely agree that you can never know someone’s full story or what they’re going through simply based on appearances (including my own invisible disability), when it comes to books, I think you absolutely can, and should, judge a book by its cover. 

When I scroll through books offered in a Goodreads Giveaway, I have limited information available to me. I have the title, a small photo of the book’s cover, and the first few lines of a short summary of each book. And I absolutely look at that cover image first. 

A book’s cover is an advertisement and a promise for what is included within the pages of that book. 

A dark cover featuring a sharp knife? I’ll skip that one, thank you. 

A pink cover with a woman and man facing each other? I’ll stop my scrolling to read the blurb. 

A green cover with holiday decorations? I’ll read that blurb also.

A black and gray cover with a set of eyes peering back at me? That’s one to skip.

While I’m not at that stage yet, I do sometimes think ahead and try to envision the cover of my memoir. I picture lavender or some other shade of purple. I think of sunflowers, my favorite flower, and a symbol for the chronic illness community — something I didn’t know until fairly recently. 

“The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower is a simple tool for you to voluntarily share that you have a disability or condition that may not be immediately apparent – and that you may need a helping hand, understanding, or more time in shops, at work, on transport, or in public spaces.”

I’m curious, readers. How do you decide which book to pick up at the bookstore? To check out at the library? To enter a giveaway for? Does a book’s cover play a part in influencing your decision at all? Let me know in the comments.

And, if you have any thoughts regarding my own future book cover, feel free to leave those in the comments section, too.