Battle of the Sexies

I think it's time we had a show-down between book covers, and only the Judge will declare the victor! And what makes a head-to-head competition even more exciting, a la WWWF or beach volleyball? Sexiness.

The contenders:

Snuff

Chuck Palahniuk

Doubleday, 2008

VS.

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper

Diablo Cody

Gotham, 2005

(In super-intense wrestling commercial voice) It's gonna be a killer tonight as Palahniuk whips out every raw and racy pornographic punch he's got! Can Diablo bank on her sexy striptease, or will Palahniuk leave her just a pregnant teen with a hamburger phone? It's SNUFFED versus STRIPPED on tonight's BCJ-SMACKDOWN!

I'll start with Snuff. With the exception of the dreadful movie-poster copies, Palahniuk's book covers usually follow a stricking, graphic formula, echoing his mind(moral?)-shattering prose. His novels are usually stark white, with a blindingly vivid image centralizing our focus. The text accompanies the illustration, always stylized cleverly to reflect its story. In the case of Snuff, he altered the formula ever so slightly and amusingly with the background not crisp white, but blow-up doll peach. Even the letters' cleavage (tee hee) shows the taut wrinkles we'd expect to find in, say, the armpits of an air-filled young lady.

Meanwhile, Ms. Cody's cover takes a boring literal route with an image of herself (I'm assuming) that looks less like an edgy journalist and more like a character from the Babysitters Club with lip gloss and a temporary tattoo. Judging by both the LA Times' praise on the cover and the dreamy pastel colors, this "frothy fun" memoir will do little more than solidify women's place on the stipper-pole pedestal of our Playboy-bunny-obsessed society.

So although both sexy covers fail to generate any interest from me in picking up the books, at least Snuff arguably intends to make my skin crawl. I've read Palaniuk's books before, and though they aren't exactly my cup of tea, I respect him for doing something different both inside and outside of his books. Candy Girl's singing an old tune, and its message is hardly sweet to me.

DING DING! Candy Girl hits the floor! Looks like the competition is SNUFFED OUT for good!

Perhaps another good match would have been Candy Girl versus:

Female Chauvanist Pigs

Ariel Levy

Free Press, 2005

But then I think there would be no contest at all.