Now that we’ve processed the fact that Midnight Sun is being published, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the cover and how it relates to the Twilight Saga.  The covers for the Twilight Saga books have a few things in common:

1. They are all combinations of red and white.
2. They are random objects that have nothing to do with the titles – so no suns or moons.
3. They relate to the plot and theme of the book. 

So to understand the Midnight Sun cover, we have to look at the other Twilight related book covers. 

Twilight has the classic iconic apple image. It represents the forbidden fruit. It’s pure and beautiful. And when an apple is sliced in half, we get a smooth and  almost white interior.  All of these relate to Bella and her journey into the new world she travels with Edward.  

Now let’s look at Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined.  It, too, has an apple on the cover. This time the apple is green instead of red. Green is opposite red on the color spectrum, so it makes sense to swap the color here given that the character’s genders are all swapped.  But the themes and basic plot are the same.

So now we come to Midnight Sun, which is a retelling of Twilight from Edward’s point of view. We don’t get an apple this time, but rather a pomegranate. In latin the word pomegranate means “apple with many seeds.” So, in a sense, we do get another apple.  In fact, it is believed that the fruit on the tree that Adam and Eve ate from wasn’t an apple, but rather a pomegranate. Thus, it is considered the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

Moreover, Midnight Sun is Edward’s story, and he has never seen himself as pure or clean or worthy.  He has always said he isn’t good and that he doesn’t want Bella to be like him.  Hence, we have a very messy image here to represent how Edward feels about himself. The inside look at the pomegranate as opposed to seeing the outside of the fruit can represent how we are getting an insider’s look into Edward’s thoughts and feelings. 

The Pomegranate also has a history with Greek myth.  Persephone was trapped in the underworld and wouldn’t eat or drink. But she was wasting away and eventually ate a few pomegranate seeds, which ends up keeping her bound to the underworld even after Demeter fights for her daughter’s release. This could represent how Edward is bound to his vampire nature but can’t resist Bella, who is not of his world.  It could also represent the idea that once Bella partakes of the “fruit” she would be trapped in Edward’s world.  

Additionally, the cover looks like the chambers of a heart that is dripping blood. When I first saw the cover, that’s what I thought it was! The way the fruit is dripping is actually my favorite part of the cover. 

At first glance, I questioned the cover. But the more I thought about it and gave it the full weight of what I was seeing, the more spot on I think the cover is. What are your thoughts? How do you think the cover stack up to the rest of the covers in the Twilight Saga? We’d love to hear from you!