NB: This week, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite and our most popular pieces of writing this year. We’ve got a week of best-of posts to share, with reviews, cover snark, and more. We hope...
NB: This week, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite and our most popular pieces of writing this year. We’ve got a week of best-of posts to share, with reviews, cover snark, and more. We hope you enjoy revisiting our archives, and most of all, we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday and a happy new year – with all the very best of reading.
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Say hello to the top five Cover Snark posts of 2023! These are the most viewed Snark posts from last December to now! It’s such a joy to put these together and I hope you all get as much joy from reading them.
Let’s count them down!
5. Apologies to Jake Gyllenhaal (July 10)
You know it’s going to be a good Cover Snark when we’re all trying to decide which famous actor or actress a model resembles. There are also wolves, lions, and nipples – oh my!
Best reader comment is from DiscoDollyDeb:
Because I’m an old lady AND a disco dolly, it will come as no surprise that “Jake” actually puts me in mind of 1970s era Barry Gibb of the BeeGees. I don’t know the model’s name, but he’s popping up on SBTB all the time recently because he’s also on the cover of Felice Stevens’s IN A NEW YORK MINUTE—which, while I know is being advertised on the site and you don’t want to buy the hand that feeds you, could easily qualify for its own cover snark entry since it looks like “Jake/Barry” is either showing off his underarms or overwhelmed by the odor emanating from his pits.
/Leaves the room, shaking it to “Staying Alive”
4. What a Smarmy Face (October 9)
Many of us had such a strong reaction to one particular cover model’s face. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Cover Snark without a peek-a-boo nipple, right?
Best reader comment is from Kimberly:
My friend’s husband has what I call Resting Douche Face. I’ve never met him in person and I have no reason to think he’s anything but a good guy, but in every picture I’ve ever seen he looks like a half-tanked frat boy laughing at his own idiotic prank. Not quite the same expression as the JAL cover, but the exact same vibe.
3. We Have Llamas (April 10)
RJ Blain’s wild urban fantasy novels make an appearance because, come on, like we’re going to pass up an opportunity to talk about llamas on a book cover.
Best reader comment is from FashionablyEvil:
The Greek letters on ASTERION are killing me. That’s a sigma and a theta, not an E and an O.
“Ths Cthurt Thf Ths Undsrwthld”
2. Leave Room for Jesus (March 27)
Bendy legs are always a classic for Cover Snark! But so are crotch splash zones and lens flares – we have both in this edition!
Best reader comment is from Zuzus:
I’m sorry, but are we skimming over “A Cock Tales Romantic Comedy”? Does he shape shift into a rooster? Is that his comb in the glass?
1. I’m So Sorry (March 13)
This is a collection that gets more and more bizarre as your scroll down, going from weird to downright horrifying. Yes, I did feel like it warranted an apology.
Best reader comment is from the aptly named OuchOuchOuch:
Once, in the 1980s, my cousin and I decided that we wanted to have a rodeo. We are not American to begin with and we were forbidden to go near the cattle, so we tried it with goats instead. It was fun until I got a goat horn up my nose, which undoubtedly served me right, but 30-odd years later I still can’t breathe properly through that nostril so frankly, TLDR, I want to warn the main characters in “Bucked by the Alien” that no orgasm is worth a deviated septum.
And that’s our top five! What do you think? Did you have any Cover Snark favorites this year?