Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

What magic is there in the land that is called Australia? They have such a big staple of great authors who write amazing contemporary YA books and Cath Crowley is no exception.

Title: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
Pages: 272
Release Date: July 5th 2012
Published by: Hodder Children's Books
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

"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 might be one of the last ones to read this book, and if I just knew how good it is, I wouldn't have waited so long. Two love stories unfolding at the same time, for faceless Poet and for Shadow. They fill the streets with their art, and each of them tells a story, a part of their lives struggling to get out from the inside. They're words, colors and paint combined, piecing together and creating Shadow and Poet's story. It's amazing how complex art can be, and yet it's something I appreciated because of this book. There's always a story behind every painting, every graffiti we see.

The characters of this book is an absolute delight to read! Leo's poems made me fall in love with the book even more. Those few short lines says a lot about his life, his family, even his budding feelings for Jazz. But what commanded my attention the moment I flipped on the first page, were Ed and Lucy's voices. Sometimes in our search for something, we look so far and wide, we don't even realize that what we're looking for is right in front of us. Lucy's search for Shadow led her to live one of the most extraordinary nights of her life and all the while she didn't even know that it was Ed she was looking for. That the part she sees in Shadow is just one side of Ed, the one he couldn't show to anyone else. But somewhere along the way, they weren't just a boy and a girl who liked each other but decided to not give it a chance because their expectations weren't the same. Through their trips in the city to find Shadow's hideouts and paintings and the thoughts they shared, they realized that maybe they could work. Maybe they wouldn't always be poor, or jobless, or stuck finding what they want to do with their lives. Maybe they can stop and think that robbing a school to pay a debt is a bad idea, that they can always use their talents to create a choice that will save them all. And suddenly the whole world opens up in front of them.

I am just amazed by Cath Crowley's writing. Her words painted a lot of things inside my head in blue, yellow, red, all the colors you can think of and they all mix to create this beautiful picture. Her words made me imagine everything that's inside her characters, with Ed, with Lucy, with Leo. Their fears, their worries, their aspirations, the things to look forward to, their choices in life, if there's hope for a better life than what they have and if it will ever change. Emotions just leapt out of the pages and I soaked in all of it. Cath Crowley's writing has such a beautiful quality in it, every single word, description and dialogue matters, I was hanging on to every word she writes. Scene after great scene will play inside your head, larger and full of life. It's there and she paints this big, vibrant canvass of the whole story with the struggles, the worries, the fears, love and affection, mystery and regrets of each character and in the end you just find yourself staring at it. Captivated by what you see and feel when you finished reading her book.

Graffiti Moon is just one of the best YA contemporary books I have read in my life. I know I've said it a few times, but Graffiti Moon is now a part of my all-time favorite shelf. It talks about the important things, the ones we can't say and the ones that are always inside of us just waiting to come out. Utterly captivating, Graffiti Moon touched my heart in a lot of ways. Hopeful, beautiful and just simply mesmerizing. This book deserves all the praises it got and a whole lot more.

Do I recommend this book? Are you kidding? Get a copy now!

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):

I hugged this book so far after I finished reading! It's THAT good!

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:

I loved the US cover better, but it's also cute.