Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Graffiti Moon
by Cath Crowley
Published: August 1, 2010




"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.

I loved it right from the very start, loved it even more until the last page. That's all I really want to say but it would be a shame not to share what I really felt reading this book.

You know that time when you read a book and it's so good you can't write a review because it feels like no words can do it justice? And then there are those that can't make you write a review just because you don't know what to say, or you just have no reaction to it, or you're too lazy to do so (which is mostly the case with me). Graffiti Moon is none of those. I'm not even halfway through but my left hand is already positioned on my notebook ready for anything that might inspire me to write. It's so good that the urge to pour the words out is overwhelming I'm sure I'm possessed by Lucy, Shadow and Poet.

The writing is absolutely beautiful, flowing, lyrical.. yeah, yeah, I know. I've read reviews about this book, too, and I also saw how they've described it. Just like that. But what can I say? It is true. No other words can describe it better and no matter how you put it, it'll just mean that one simple thing: that this book is fugging brilliant. I go absolutely crazy with the way Cath Crowley has written this book, like I am the one in Lucy's or Ed's place instead of just being in a chair, reading. I can picture every graffiti Shadow has painted, every glass Lucy has made and hear every words from Poet, and suddenly craving to see such in real life. The alternating perspectives between Ed, Lucy and Poet captures just the right and perfect amount of beauty to stuff in my head. The plot and the execution of the story is just as good. I didn't even have the time to pause and think for a second of what might be in store for me and just like that, I fell face first into it, unbelieving but at the same time thrilled and overjoyed.

A one-night exhilarating and hilarious adventure between six teenagers that would definitely smother you with laughter and colors. What was once a disaster between Ed and Lucy turns into something more that just a year-end party, an obsession with a faceless artist and the realization that sometimes what you are really looking for is right in front of you and the chance of knowing the truth behind someone without really knowing that he is 'the one'.

Words!

Mum says when wanting collides with getting, that’s the moment of truth.

_____________

‘I’m helping Jake this morning if you’re interested. We can get five hundred bucks each for two hours’ work starting at three am. All we have to do is pick up the van, load it, drive it away.’

‘Are you stupid?’ I ask.

‘That’s what it says on my report cards.’

_______________

‘I had a feeling I didn’t want to be their friend even before they spoke. I’m psychic,’ she said, and looked at me looking nervously at the door. ‘Psychic. Not psycho. I’m Jazz Parker.’

________________

‘You have training . . . somethings? What are they?’

‘Feet platforms. My dad made them for my cousin to use. Step on.’

‘But I don’t have a cool helmet with a lightning bolt.’

‘Your head is hard enough.’

‘Funny.’ I steady myself without touching her.

‘To the train yard,’ she says and pushes on the pedals. We don’t move.

‘Anytime,’ I tell her. ‘You know. While we’re still young and beautiful.’

She pushes hard again. ‘You weigh a tonne.’

________________

‘Bricks aren’t bad.’

‘Say that when one’s sailing towards your face.’