I just finished reading a book about the slowing of the earth’s rotation called The Age of Miracles. The book itself was a bit blah. It’s a coming of age story about an eleven year old girl reacting to the global crisis in the way an eleven year old would – pining over her crush and absorbing knowledge of her fathers’ infidelity.

Still, I couldn’t put it down, waiting for a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase reflecting the state of general panic and disaster that seemed to be unfolding worldwide. The book’s subtle nature wasn’t cooperating. It was like trying to get a confession out of a drugged up witness.

The book did satisfy the human reality we’d feel if something this drastic were to happen. But on a disaster level, it didn’t really suffice. Perhaps it is more apt to be called the Miracle of Subtlety. It has received rave reviews, a possible movie deal (which, c’mon, will happen, and I’m calling Helena Bonham Carter to play the wacky, adulteress Sofia), and the author received an advance of $1 million bucks before it hit the shelves.

Am I just a Hollywood-entitled hoodrat*?

Watch the trailer above for a book ‘preview’, marketing that interests me more than the book itself.

Marketing to whet a reader’s appetite versus pursuing them to go to a film is vastly different. Anything visual that accompanies a book has to allow the reader to let their own imagination architect the rest. Book covers of blurred jawlines, running feet through tall grass, an abstract house on a stormy beach – all leave you guessing. Then the campaign steps in and when you hear a book’s author has gotten so much money before the printing press cooled, it leaves you intrigued.

What brands pull this off? This vague, abstract ability to let the consumer decide the essence and the story? Does it even exist, or can it?

*hoodrat: The Bachelorette Emily Maynard’s term for a North Carolina badass