Cover Explanation

I chose to use black as the background color for my cover design for multiple reasons. I initially
decided on the color black because it is a gruesome novel, and black can represent death.
Although it is not necessarily filled with blood and gore, and there are some bright moments,
almost everyone close to the main character ends up dying, and plenty of other peoples deaths
are mentioned in the novel. Along with death, black is also a color closely associated with evil
and mystery, and there is plenty of both in the novel. Both evil characters and mysterious events
play major roles in the plot, and affect the mood of the novel. However, at first glance, using
black, which represents death, may contradict the theme of the novel, which is immortality. Life
is usually represented by brighter colors, such as green or yellow. But, when taking a deeper
look, I realized that the action in the novel revolved more around the death of others, rather than
immortality. I chose black as the color for the background because I want to completely represent
the book and its overall mood, and I feel as though black is most closely associated with the
events that occur in the novel.
Syringes are the catalyst for the development of the action in the novel. This is because the cure
is administered with a syringe. I decided to place the syringe on the cover in a way that looks as
though it is the cause of explosions in the novel. The explosive descent into a chaotic and
disordered world is fueled by the fighting between pro-cure and anti-cure forces, symbolized by
the syringe which brings either freedom from death, or the downfall of society. A syringe placed
on the cover of the novel represents the mood of the book because pressing the plunger on a
cure-filled syringe equals the result of detonating a nuclear weapon; both initiate a chain of
events that result in redefining physical and mental landscapes in horrifying ways. To most
people, the image of a syringe conveys uneasiness and discomfort. The picture of a syringe on
the book cover puts the reader on edge even before turning a single page.
Explosions occur fairly regularly in every section of the novel, and that is why a mushroom
cloud is placed on the cover. Explosions are a massive and destructive part of the narrators life,
and are to blame for many deaths in the novel. While explosion-related deaths occur quite

frequently to those who are close to the narrator, the narrator also reads reports of explosions
happening in other countries around the world, and describes how the constant fear of explosions
affects peoples daily lives. When people think of explosions, they do not think of happy and
joyous times; rather, they think about death and, sometimes, mystery. The image of a mushroom
cloud is especially terrifying because nearly everyone knows it is associated with a nuclear
explosion, which means massive death and destruction. I wanted the mushroom cloud, combined
with the black background and the syringe, to represent the overall mood of the novel, and I feel
as though I accomplished that feat by using these images to make the book cover unsettling and
mysterious.