Really Sick Designs

So, I'm annoyingly feeling even worse today. Although I again just lay in bed, and wrapped myself around my  laptop and did some work. I spoke yesterday of how I wanted to  pick a few of my designs and  really finish them off. So i chose these two designs:

So these are the original,  I then went on to tweak these a little more. However, I really like the back page design, and in all honesty. I don't really want to change that. I think though, that there still needs to be a lot more done to these.

So these are the newest versions.  I felt as though I had  been concentrating so much on the illustrator point of view of these designs that I totally forgot about  making things a little more realistic looking. So I added a scrape texture to the bullet with the title on it. I also added a  water texture on to the boy to, not only brighten the image but, again make it a little more realistic. I really like these but I feel that they are just images hovering on a page. I feel that there should be more to these, However I just can't put my finger on it.  

I have also decided to send my designs to a family member who is within the audience target age. She is not shy about letting anyone know her thoughts. So hopefully she'll be gentle. I also think that this is great for me, as I don't want the cover to look to aimed towards boys.  So maybe she will like them, or say they need to be a bit more neutral. Here goes nothing....