What’s with all these perpetually exhausted women on book covers?

I used to work in a bookshop and, while I was there, we had Faithless by Alice Nelson on display in our New Release section. The cover features a woman draped over a desk, exhausted.

And it made me wonder: why are there so many book covers of sad, exhausted women?

Journalist Rafqa Touma had the same question in February 2022, which she explored in her Guardian article ‘Well-dressed and distressed: why sad young women are the latest book cover trend’.

So, why are they so tired? And where did this trend come from?

Sad girl hours

That saying about not judging a book by its cover is a lie. The whole point of the cover is to communicate something about the book itself, and help you decide whether it’s worth your time. 

The perpetually exhausted woman tends to grace the covers of literary fiction. The novels are generally about twenty-something-year-olds, usually women, going through the motions of early adulthood. This means they are experiencing overwhelming despair over their love lives and careers, and the general malaise of existing in the modern world.

I recently turned 25, and I’ve noticed my general demeanour has changed significantly since I was a teenager. At school, I was known for being cheerful and energetic. Although I can still be those things, I feel how that uninhibited joy has been tempered by the last five years. My early twenties have felt like an endless purgatory. Waiting to finish my uni degree. Waiting for Covid lockdowns to end. Waiting to have the means to move out of home. And now, waiting to feel like I’m ‘making it’ as a creative person.

I know I’m not unique in feeling this way. This is just how it feels to be a twenty-something year-old. And to process these feelings, some of us are doing what we do best – letting that overwhelming despair fuel our art practice.

The feminine urge to be well-dressed and distressed

So, your early twenties can be an emotionally-charged period of time – and maybe the makings of a great story.

But that doesn’t explain why all the women on these book covers look the way they do. Remember the title of that Guardian article? ‘Well-dressed and distressed’, and they have a habit of hiding their faces too.

At first, I found this parade of faceless women disturbing. I worried that, without any identifiable features, all they had left were their beautiful clothes and their sorrow.

But I also found these images dynamic and interesting. I like the billowy sleeves and expensive-looking fabrics. I like the velvet chairs. I like the pastel colour palettes. There’s something loosely ‘vintage’ about them that I enjoy, like the old-fashioned sconces on Dana Spiotta’s Wayward:

And the overstuffed fruit bowl on Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation:

In her Guardian article, Touma speaks to Mietta Yans, vice-president of the Australian Book Designers Association. She also created the cover for No Hard Feelings by Genevieve Novak, which features a heroine who is ‘hungover, underpaid and overwhelmed’, her face obscured by a pistachio green sleeve. Yans says this “adds an anonymity that lets the reader imagine the story as their own.”

Maybe these faceless women aren’t as disturbing as I first thought. Instead, it’s an artistic choice that sets the tone of the novel – romantic, poignant – and encourages you, the potential reader, to recognise yourself in it.

Just follow the trail of sad young women

That’s one way to design a book cover.

In her Guardian article, Touma speaks to Mark Campbell, head of HarperCollins’ design department. He describes the “saturation of illustrated covers” that flooded the market following the release of Normal People by Sally Rooney – a novel that features a sad young woman. 

As Normal People sales skyrocketed, publishers packaged some of their titles in a similar style: illustrated covers in sad, muted tones. We know you liked Normal People, it says. We think you’ll like this book too.

Cover design should be a reflection of the book itself. But it’s also about creating a cluster of books with a similar feel. Looking for something like Normal People? Just follow the trail of washed out drawings.

Except Faithless has a photographed cover. When did we make the jump from illustrations?  

Campbell recalls that Kokomo by Victoria Hannan was one of the first novels in this style to try a photographed cover, even though it could have easily suited that Normal People knockoff style.

And it’s believed that Sorrow and Bliss helped to launch this particular style of book cover photography – especially that well-dressed and distressed look – because the novel was so popular.

This could also explain why My Year of Rest and Relaxation started out with a cover in the style of a Regency-era portrait, which was then updated in January 2022.

The book has been rebranded so it can sit alongside these other titles. Just follow the trail of sad young women.

What’s next?

At the time Faithless was released, I’d noticed another melancholy image was gracing the covers of literary fiction: Close Up of Woman’s Face.

This image has recently graced the covers of Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down – winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2022 – Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors – which features struggling artists and high-functioning alcoholics – and Marshmallow by Victoria Hannan – the sequel to well-dressed and distressed Kokomo.

In fact, Marshmallow looks like an upside down, colourised version of Bodies of Light, right down to the elegantly-bent elbow:

These books are worlds apart. They all deal with despair in their own way, and they are a pleasure to read because of it. I hope we see their influence in the literary world – beyond their cover designs – for a while yet.