Before I die By Jenny Downham

Although 'Life of Pi' has an adult author it is actually narrated by a young boy, I think it is important to communicate this on the front cover. So I have been researching front covers designed with this similar childish look I'm hoping to communicate.

I have found these designs by Jenny Downham for the novel 'Before I die'

" ... When you read the final pages of Jenny Downham's debut novel through tears, don't say you weren't warned. Before I Die is narrated by a perceptive, witty 16-year-old called Tessa Scott. Tessa has been living with leukaemia for four years. And, by the end of the book, she will die. There's no use fighting this. It tells you right there in the title.
Even with this foreknowledge, it's hard not to feel a stab of resentment as you're confronted by something as sentimentally sucker-punching as Before I Die. This much-hyped novel is destined to drive hundreds of thousands of readers to tears and to swift injunctions to all their friends to read it.


This imagery and in particular use of colour demonstrates well the dark, depressing content of the novel. The top design was used as the final product I think this was a good decision because the style of font and watercolor imagery provides the child tone.
This could be a possible design direction I take for my cover design.
Although I think for clarity the second design down would provide a better background for the type and title of the book. The red type on the final design is bit lost in the green watercolour background.