My Name Is Kriston, and I Judge Books By Their Cover

I admit it, I am easily influence by clever advertising, snappy tag lines and visually appealing book covers. Now I'm not all shallow, I do picks books based on intriguing summers and recommendations, but sometimes I just plain buy a book because I love the covers and want them on my shelf.

Here are a few of the books that I have bought strictly based on the cover alone.

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordian. So of course I read all the Percy Jackson books and was kind of tired of them by the end. But when I saw the mechanical dragon with three new demigods I was interested.

What appealed to me the most? The colors. I love the teal.

Did it live up to the cover love? Yes. But this book alone. I loved the new demigods and new story line. So what a huge disappointment it was for book two, to be about Percy. What? His story is over. Lets give the new kids a chance. But no such luck. I recently broke up with The Mark of Athena. There are just to many characters to care about now. We have the old ones, minus Grover, and now five new ones. And where's Jason's point of view? I get all hooked on new characters just to have them over shadowed by the same ol Percy.

Faery Tales & Nightmares by Melissa Marr. What appealed to me the most? The creepy cabin in the woods and the mysterious girl in the puffy dress.

Did it live up to the cover love? Yes and no. The writing is of course is beautiful. But, this book is an anthology of previous published short stories by Melissa Marr that they rounded up and stuck in one book. There are a couple original works, but a good portion are related to the Wicked Lovely series.

Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins. I do not know why this cover appealed to me, but it did. I use to visit my beloved Borders every single week and I was always drawn to this book.

Did it live up to the cover love? Not at all. I did not like Mocking Jay one bit. I found it depressing and the characters unrecognizable. But I am very thankful for Mocking Jay. Because when I bought it I bought the whole series and without it I would not have read The Hunger Games, which happens to be one of my all time favorite reads.

I have three more to share, but I fear one of them may also make it into a Book Break Up post. I have my fingers crossed that we can work things out.

Please tell me I am not the only person that has done this? Are there any books on your shelf that you bought just because of the cover? I would love to hear about them.