My sixteenth book review: Graffiti Moon

Graffiti Moon
Genre: Young Adult
Pages: 264
Published: 1st August 2010
Author: Cath Crowley

Summary from Goodreads:
"Let me make it in time. Let me meet Shadow. The guy who paints in the dark. Paints birds trapped on brick walls and people lost in ghost forests. Paints guys with grass growing from their hearts and girls with buzzing lawn mowers."

It’s the end of Year 12. Lucy’s looking for Shadow, the graffiti artist everyone talks about.

His work is all over the city, but he is nowhere.

Ed, the last guy she wants to see at the moment, says he knows where to find him. He takes Lucy on an all-night search to places where Shadow’s thoughts about heartbreak and escape echo around the city walls.

But the one thing Lucy can’t see is the one thing that’s right before her eyes.

My review:
I think the last time I read a book written by an aussie author was Alexandra Adornetto's Halo. Although I live in Australia, I'm very exposed with YA books from America that I just can't differentiate which book is written by American author and Australian author. I rarely specifically decide to read an Aussie author's book unless by coincidence like Halo. But when I went to the library, there are brochures of 50 books you can't put down and this book was featured among them. Australia proudly presents one of their best YA authors, Cath Crowley through her book, Graffiti Moon. The title is so catching. I find myself imagining how beautiful Graffiti can be and how moon goes with the title. The cover is very contrast and simple, but very beautiful. It's just a yellow spraycan with graffiti font of the title and the spray comes with some words: "An artist, a dreamer, a long, mean, night" and boy do I love that phrase! When I read the summary, I knew who Shadow is. It's quite easy to guess when you read the summary, especially that last sentence "But the one thing Lucy can’t see is the one thing that’s right before her eyes." I'm still intrigued to find out more about Shadow and Poet. This book is not only about Graffiti, but it's about art and it's express clearly within this book. Art is something amazing and something we truly can enjoy just by seeing.

Graffiti Moon tells the story of Lucy, a girl who just finished year 12. Lucy is looking for Shadow, the graffiti artist who paints walls in different streets. Shadow is accompanied by Poet which writes some phrases in the artwork and poems too. She suddenly bumps into Ed, the guy she had a date once which ended up terribly :Ed got a broken nose, why? Read the book :]. Ed offers to help her find Shadow, as they check some of the artworks Shadow created. As Lucy and Ed goes for a night search, Lucy finds out that Shadow is right before her eyes. I can write a longer summary than this, but it won't be fun to spoil things! 

This book is truly beautiful. It's set in Melbourne which is very famous for graffiti arts. Many street walls are covered in Graffiti from different people. It's a perfect setting for this book. Melbourne becomes very vivid and real through Crowley's writing. The way she describes Shadow's artwork is so realistic that I can actually imagine what it's like. The words she uses really touched me. I really love the idea of finding someone so hard although that person is right in front of you. Lucy is a very interesting character with interesting family. She is also an artist, and she dreams to find Shadow. She loves his artwork and has been looking for him quite a while. I find Ed a sad character. His life is not as good as Lucy, he dropped out of school and had to work. His way of enjoying his life and making his life worthwhile was to create graffiti artwork along with his best buddy, Leo. Although Ed is very artistic, he is not able to write neatly. This is Leo's job. He signs both of their names in the artwork, writes phrases and sometimes poems too. Leo is a gifted poem. In the book, you will find some poems Leo made. I particularly liked a poem called The Daytime Things:

The Daytime Things

There's a guy down at the servo
With lions in his hair
Matted tails of roaring kings
A dirty song caught on his skin
He can't remember when he lost them
But he lost the daytime things

Daytime shirts and daytime ties
And shiny daytime shoes
Daytime clouds thoughts that drift
In cloudy daytime blues
Daytime smiles from people travelling
While they ride the sunshine home
Daytime TV on the weekend
Daytime talking on the phone

Now he's crying at the servo
Midnight stumbling in his mouth
Hope slowly sliding south
A dirty song caught on his skin
Matted tails of roaring kings
Who knows where or when he lost them
But he lost the daytime things

I love all the poems. But I just thought I had to post that one. I really loved it. I don't particularly like having slips of poems in a book because I am so 'lazy' to read it but all the poems in this book is so good and beautiful that I had to read it. This book is not a typical romance book where a girl falls for a guy and the story goes on. It's about a girl and a guy who falls for each other after spending a night together, searching for basically 'each other'. So I never actually read a book set in only one night (with some flashbacks from the past) and I actually did not realise that it's only a night after the ending. I just had to read, read and keep on reading until the ending. 

Overall: Beautiful. Graffiti Moon is a very realistic, touching and beautiful book at the same time. Graffiti becomes so stunning and ravishing by reading this book. It's sad that graffiti is sometimes considered vandilism and destructive. It's an artwork which people enjoy to make and I really appreciate the author for choosing this as a main theme of the book. I recommend this book to everyone. It's stand alone book set in one night. Interesting right?

5 Forget-me-not flowers for Graffiti Moon!

Favourite quotes from the book:
“Open skies painted above painted doorways and painted birds skimming across bricks trying to fly away. Little bird, what are you thinking? You come from a can.” - Lucy

“For a while, for as long as you're looking at it, that painting is the world and you get to be in it.” - Ed



American authors rock, but Aussie authors rock too! Australia is proud of having Cath Crowley as one of their authors.


Comeback tomorrow for my 1 month blog anniversary + birthday giveaway!