The Eyes Have It

Single eyes on covers have been drawing my notice lately. I don't mean the half-faces that are legion, I mean the disembodied eyes, the eyes without the rest of the face, often just floating in mid-air. It can give a pretty creepy effect. I've collected a few below. All synopses are from Worldcat and links lead to Goodreads.

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad: In 2019, teens Mia, Antoine, and Midori are selected by lottery to join experienced astronauts on a NASA mission to the once top-secret moon base, DARLAH 2, while in a Florida nursing home, a former astronaut struggles to warn someone of the terrible danger there. Kelly reviewed this title earlier in the year.

The Diviners by Libba Bray: Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation.

Num8ers by Rachel Ward: Fifteen-year-old Jem knows when she looks at someone the exact date they will die, so she avoids relationships and tries to keep out of the way, but when she meets a boy named Spider and they plan a day out together, they become more involved than either of them had planned. I reviewed this one last year. The book's sequels, The Chaos and Infinity, both feature a similar single eye.

Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi: Ostracized or incarcerated her whole life, seventeen-year-old Juliette is freed on the condition that she use her horrific abilities in support of The Reestablishment, a postapocalyptic dictatorship, but Adam, the only person ever to show her affection, offers hope of a better future.

The few below aren't images of disembodied eyes, but they bring us a close-up that shows us something reflected within it, which I think is pretty neat.

Blind Spot by Laura Ellen: Tricia Farni was last seen alive the night she fought with Roswell Hart--a night Roz can't remember. Can Roz piece together the events of that night, despite the eye disease that robs her of most of her vision, in order to clear her name and find a murderer?

Crash by Lisa McMann: Sixteen-year-old Jules, whose family owns an Italian restaurant and has a history of mental illness, starts seeing a recurring vision about a rival restaurant, a truck crash, and forbidden love.

13 to Life by Shannon Delany: Jessica Gillmansen, a high school junior, is hiding information about her mother's death when she meets Pietr Rusakova, a new student with a family secret of his own, and the two bond as she investigates local news stories about werewolves and the Russian mafia. All of the books in this series feature a similar take on this design, although not all of them have something reflected in the eye.

What notable covers have I missed?