Judging Books by Their Covers - Part 1!

You've heard the adage "never judge a book by its cover." Well, that's just no fun. In fact, a lot of times a book's cover is way better than its actual content. Here, we'll go over a few books I've found lately and give you their full synopsis. Without having actually read the synopses.

(OK, so after re-reading this post before publishing... I'll just apologize in advance.)

First up, we have a psychological murder-mystery, Did I Do That? by Dorothy Laux.

Ms. Laux is really a master of suspense, because in this story the main character, Sausage (shown on the cover), is plagued with extremely early-set Alzheimer's. He's a great kid, gets good grades, does the chores, but he never seems to remember what he's done during a lot of the unusual goings-on in the neighborhood. 

This Mememto-esque work is an internal struggle with Sausage as he tries to unravel just what happens during his blackouts. He doesn't drink, or at least if he's an alcoholic he doesn't remember, so he doubts these are the fun kind of blackouts. His family and friends are starting to wonder why Sausage always looks so bewildered and carries that silly rake around with him everywhere. 

The scene pictured above is a really great part in the story. Sausage, loving to use his rake any time he can, is raking all the leaves off of the trees in his yard, as can be seen in the picture. This makes his parents furious, but Sausage simply cannot help it. He's addicted. *Spoiler alert* One day, his dad scolds Sausage, "Boy, I done told you once, and I done told you twice - stop pickin' them leaves off o' my maple!" In the middle of his verbal thrashing, Sausage suddenly awakens from another blackout to see that the end of his rake is covered in blood, and leaning against the tree near him is his bloody father. You can see the look of confusion and sadness in Sausage's face, an expression which defines the book's title, "Did I Do That?" I'm really surprised the publishers decided to use such a pivotal point in the story as the cover picture though.

Next up is a book called Sleepover Friends #11: Stephanie's Family Secret, by Susan Saunders.

Pierre and Stephanie are the best of friends. They get along great but they have an insatiable addiction to spying. They spy on the neighbors, their teachers, squirrels in the yard, and even their own parents. You can see Pierre in the cover picture above using his prized binoculars doing just that - catching his parents in the act. "What act might that be?" you may be asking, which is a perfect lead-in to me telling you what act they were doing. They were caught having sex, but not just any sex - they were FURRIES. 

For those of you who don't know (yeah right), furries are people who dress up like their favorite animals and bang each other. Just check out that link in the previous paragraph. Anyway, this wouldn't be THAT unusual, except that Stephanie's parents were there too, along with the family dog and cat. 

That all happens within the first chapter of the book. The rest of the story is mainly focused around Pierre and Stephanie watching every night as their parents and their "sleepover friends" (the book's namesake) all get together and do it like bunnies - literally. The scene captured on the book's cover is from night #143 during a particularly erotic moment of passion. You can see Pierre saying, "That is super hot. My weiner is straight up, like this!" To which Stephanie replies, "I know, right! My nips are straight out, like this!"

Finally, we have Paula Danziger's autobiography, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit.

This book was written in the early '90s during the rise of political correctness. This being a book for young adults, they couldn't openly say words like "vagina" or "cunt," so they instead opted for "cat." From the cover, you can see Paula sitting on the bench of the sauna trying to sweat away those pounds. But more on that in a minute.

Paula's family had never been into the whole "hygiene" thing, so she'd never really learned how to wash herself properly. The kids at school would call her names as she walked by and say mean things, like "As principal, I must suggest you take a shower and change your clothes." Really awful stuff. 

Well, Paula didn't understand what everyone was talking about; she picked the fleas off at least every week, and even used Frontline (when her parents could afford it). So she continued stinking up a storm. Every day for gym class, Paula wore her favorite shorts. She pulled them up and looked at her butt in the mirror, and noticed that they had the word "ASSY" written on them. "Well that's strange," she thought "just last week I could have sworn these shorts said 'SASSY.' Hm." A week later, she checked again, and to her surprise the shorts now simply said "ASS." 

The inevitable had happened. After all the years of not washing herself, her "cat" had finally gotten rancid enough to start eating at her clothes, starting with the letters "S" and "Y." And then, suddenly, the cat ate her gymsuit. A brilliant book title, really. So, seen above, is Paula Danziger sitting in the sauna, in her normal clothes, in thoughtful, stinky bliss. Sitting next to her is a ball of yarn. Ya know, for her "cat." 

This concludes Judging Books by Their Covers! Tune in next time for a few more great titles.

...Please don't judge me.

[Part 2 here!]