Beyond the Cover presented me with an interesting thought. Was this just a new way to say “You can’t judge a book by its cover?” Yes, yes it was. Again, this is a site with an easy premise and I would be confused if the site was anything other than something about books.
The design of the site is pretty tight. I love the fact that it is an original site. The author has cool drop down menus in the header and then gives the reader something at the end of the page. The site is a standard three column layout and uses the three columns like you would expect.
Being that this is a blog about books, more specifically book reviews, I expected the author to be well written which she is. I do have a problem with her reviews and some other posts in that she doesn’t have the entire post on the main page. You have to “read more” in order to read the entire review. Sure you don’t always want to read an entire review, but it is just something I do not like.
The other gripe I have is the archive system. The author has pretty much every archive system other than by month. We can find reviews by author, genre, rating, and series. If it wasn’t for a “previous entries” link at the bottom of each page, this could be a nightmare.
Overall this site does what it says it does, and does it well. I cannot fault a site that achieves its goal. Because this site won’t be good for all readers, I give it a 4 out of 5.NULL