Cover Stories: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Where She Went, the sequel to Gayle Forman's lovely If I Stay (remember that Cover Story?), is finally out! Yay!

Though it's told from Adam's point of view, that's Mia on the cover, obvs. Here's Gayle to share the story of how this book's cover came to be:

"The image that kept coming to mind as I wrote was the Brooklyn Bridge. It plays a pivotal role in the story and for some reason it just stuck because it's so strong both from both a visual and literary standpoint.

I believe that Penguin did experiment with using the bridge initially but decided that it didn't work.

"The challenge for the US publication was marrying the US If I Stay paperback cover--the eerily half-dead-looking girl--with a new hardcover look. But I had to make it extra tricky because, unlike If I Stay, which is from Mia's perspective, Where She Went is in Adam's voice. So how to create a cover that seemed like a package with the paperback but was from a guy's perspective?

"We were obviously departing from the quieter US hardcover look, with the flower, tree and branches, which I loved but would not work at all in terms of a new book about a rock and roll guy, so I'm so glad we had the paperback cover to use as a jumping-off point.

"In the end, in sort of a duh, why didn't we think of it sooner epiphany, we all realized that the US cover had to have another Mia. Because even though the book is from Adam's POV, it's still about Mia. It's about where she went. So the covers are meant to be bookends. One horizontal, one vertical, one passive, one more active. There's no Brooklyn Bridge, and yet the covers are, in my opinion, such a perfect bridge..."

Read Gayle's full Cover Story on melissacwalker.com.