The Friday Face-Off was originally created by Books by Proxy:
each Friday, bloggers showcase book covers on a weekly theme.
Visit Lynn’s Books (@LynnsBooks) for a list of upcoming themes.
Please visit also Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy (@tammy_sparks)
thanks to whom I discovered this meme.

This week, the theme is “hate to love“

Last week, when I saw what the theme would be for this week, I had no idea what to do with this. And then I reviewed The Waiting Years, a fabulous classic Japanese novel, and I happened to write the following lines:
“Women are shown in their rich complexity, sometimes even experiencing opposite feelings at the same time, and in their often difficult relationships with men and other women. At one point, Tomo can’t even point out if she feels love or hate for her husband.”

As I realized I had written the words love and hate, I knew this was the perfect book to feature today!

Click on the cover to read my review

Several publishers went with the “waiting” part. Though in other languages, like in French, the title is very different: Chemin de femmes, something like, the way of women, which seems to be closer to the original Japanese.

Click on the picture if you want to identify the various editions
You can also right click and ‘open image in new tab’ to zoom in

WHICH COVER IS YOUR FAVORITE? WHY?

My favorite is the first cover, the Japanese-American edition (Kodansha-US).
It shows less the idea of waiting than some type of resignation and sadness, which is so important in the book. I especially like the dull sepia like colors.
Lots of covers are cute and very colorful, with gorgeous flowers, but really they don’t reflect at all the ambiance of the book.

And I totally encourage you to read this excellent novel.

Have you read this book?
WHICH COVER IS YOUR FAVORITE? WHY?
Next Friday: Made for each other