My Sister Blurbs Books Based On Their Covers

Hello everyone!

Don’t you ever feel that sometimes we readers are so engrossed in the book community that we fail to realise how ignorant others are? Like at this point I can tell you the vibe of a book based off a book cover and give an idea of the genre and age group as well but that’s not something other people can do. It’s a reader superpower I guess 😉

Anyway, my sister, Tanvi, is the furthest cry from a reader you’ll find and she actively ignores me whenever I talk about books so I decided to ask her to blurb some of my favourite books based on their cover alone. This was followed by a lot of eye-rolling and grumbling as well as assurances that she gives zero fucks about this but here we are 😛

(Note: I saw someone else do this with their friends and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a couple more people do something similar. It’s not my original idea but I thought I would have a go at it because it seems fun.)

100 Days of Sunlight

Tanvi: I don’t know why this just seems like there’s a a sick patient who can only live for 100 days in the sun. Like they have some disease that they can’t really go out in the night and they can only go out in the sun and they only have 100 days to live? And then it’s kinda like the Five Feet Apart story like love and all.

Charvi: *cue laughter and tears* You were right in only saying that there’s someone who’s sick and yes 100 days are involved but absolutely not because this person is the opposite of a vampire, lol. This book is about:

When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down. Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.

Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.

Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism”, convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Tanvi: It just sounds like two people went to a café and one of them is a waitress and the other person is like ‘oooh give me some coffee’ but oh no it’s cold and then they fall in love. At least that’s what a Wattpad novel would sound like and those are the only ones I’ve read.

Charvi: *dies of laughter*

This was so far off oh my god XD Here’s what the book is actually about:

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

The Ones We’re Meant to Find

Note: This is a book that I recreated the cover for when I was at the beach with my sister. Of course I excitedly told her what this was about but I was a 1000% sure she had tuned me out as usual so in a way this book blurb is my revenge on her, lol. Here’s the cover recreation for reference 🙂

Tanvi: Oh this is the book that you had me pose for on the beach.

Charvi: Yup! I told you the story but I was sure you wouldn’t remember it.

Tanvi: I have no clue what this is about. I know you told me but I don’t think I was listening. I don’t really care. Obviously this is related to the ocean. Are these mermaids?

Charvi: Oh by the way the genre is science fiction.

Tanvi: Since when did you start reading so much science fiction and why is this science fiction?? I don’t know, they must be ocean researchers or something, maybe they are both scientists and sisters and they are searching about things that are in the ocean. And then they’ll become those things in the ocean? I DON’T KNOW.

Charvi: Uh…wow. You couldn’t be further off but to be fair nobody can guess what this book is about just from the cover.

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay, and it’s up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara lives in an eco-city built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But nevertheless, she decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.

Rent a Boyfriend

Tanvi: What? This sounds like a Wattpad novel like these things and plots are on Wattpad where you can rent a human??? This girl just wants a boyfriend to make someone jealous so she’s like ‘oh lemme just go rent a boyfriend’. I think that’s human trafficking!

Charvi: LOL, you were so thrown off by the title but it’s kind of what you said except the boyfriend is being rented to impress parents and their high standards. Here’s the Goodreads summary:

Chloe Wang is nervous to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, because the truth is, she hasn’t met him yet either. She hired him from Rent for Your ’Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents. Drew Chan’s passion is art, but after his parents cut him off for dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, he became a Rent for Your ’Rents employee to keep a roof over his head. Luckily, learning protocols like “Type C parents prefer quiet, kind, zero-PDA gestures” comes naturally to him.

When Chloe rents Drew, the mission is simple: convince her parents fake Drew is worthy of their approval so they’ll stop pressuring her to accept a proposal from Hongbo, the wealthiest (and slimiest) young bachelor in their tight-knit Asian American community. But when Chloe starts to fall for the real Drew—who, unlike his fake persona, is definitely not ’rent-worthy—her carefully curated life begins to unravel. Can she figure out what she wants before she loses everything?

A Spark of White Fire

Tanvi: Okay… this is related to astronomy? It has a rocket on the cover but it sort of looks like a human? I don’t know why this looks like a tiny superman.

Charvi: Whaaaat? Omg it actually does? XD

Tanvi: That’s the only thing in my mind…. you said it’s a science fiction and also mythology? Must be related to gods, everything in Indian mythology is according to me.

Charvi: Yeah seems like the ‘superman’ here really stumped you. This does have gods but probably not in the traditional way you imagine. I just have three words: Mahabharata in space.

In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back. Raised alone and far away from her home on Kali, Esmae longs to return to her family. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable, sentient warship Titania to a warrior that can win his competition, she sees her way home: she’ll enter the competition, reveal her true identity to the world, and help her famous brother win back the crown of Kali. It’s a great plan. Until it falls apart.

Inspired by the Mahabharata and other ancient Indian stories, A Spark of White Fire is a lush, sweeping space opera about family, curses, and the endless battle between jealousy and love. 

Tweet Cute

Tanvi: From the cover it seems like they are neighbors or sort of live in similar apartments. And they don’t know they’re neighbors but they find each other on Twitter? I don’t know how they did that, maybe they use Twitter a lot? I don’t know, maybe they were a part of a Twitter war. They just tweeted and fell in love in tweets I guess?

Charvi: Hah, I’m surprised she got the Twitter war part right and well, the falling in love was obvious. But here’s the Goodreads summary:

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built. As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate ― people on the internet are shipping them?? ― their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.

With the Fire On High

Tanvi: What are these confusing titles??? It just have flowers and leaves on it, this girl just likes to eat fruits. Is she in Hawaii? Because her hair are also curly like beach vibes because hair get curled due to humidity. She lives on a forest or a beach. Or is she a farmer? There are so many fruits and flowers around her!!

Charvi: *me realizing she is so done and trying to nudge her in the right direction* what else can be related to fruits?

Tanvi: Does she like own a fruit store or stall? It’s just… her story. Her life. She sells fruits and flowers. And she eats fruits, not flowers. I mean she can eat some flowers that are edible.

Charvi: Stellar job here. She’s a freaking cook, it’s so obvious! Anyway, here’s what the actual blurb is:

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.
Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain—and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life—and all the rules everyone expects her to play by—once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.

Which of these blurbs did you find the most fun?

Do you like this sort of post? I had great fun so I might do another edition with a friend in the future maybe.

Do you like book covers that tell you a bit about the story or do you like to go in blind?