Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Title: Graffiti Moon
Author: Cath Crowley
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release date: February 14th 2012 (first published in Australia on August 1st 2010)
Pages: 264
Genre: Contemporary YA; romance
Source: NetGalley - thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing a free eGalley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Find out more: Amazon | Goodreads

Goodreads description:

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.

First sentence:

I pedal fast.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


First off, I love the cover for Graffiti Moon - it's gorgeous! It fits the book perfectly, with the night lights and graffiti-like writing and everything. And it's just so cute!


I knew absolutely nothing about this book when I started it. I hadn't even read the description. So even though the "But the one thing Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes" makes it obvious what's going on with Shadow, it wasn't obvious for me. The plot is great; a little slow in the middle, but other than that, it's interesting. The ideas of what happens to Lucy and Ed are crazy and hilarious and just so much fun.


This book is like a mixture of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (my review), and Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff (my review). The idea is similar to Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - a guy and a girl on a crazy adventure through the entire city for one night - and the characters Ed and Leo (especially Leo) could be street kids from Brooklyn, Burning. Graffiti Moon has Brooklyn, Burning's beautiful writing, too. And since I love both Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and Brooklyn, Burning, of course I loved Graffiti Moon, too!


The writing is what's best about Graffiti Moon. It's gorgeous, so vivid you can imagine everything perfectly. I even loved Poet's poetry. I rarely like when a book's characters write poetry in between chapters - the style either doesn't fit to the character's voice and is basically just the author's poetry, or it fits to the character but is, well, not good. The poems in Graffiti Moon, though, are amazing. Cath Crowley manages to make them authentic but also plain beautiful.


The descriptions of the graffiti are amazing. When I think graffiti, I think vandalism, just something sloppy and ugly sprayed on a wall to get attention or annoy the people who own that wall. But that's not the case at all in Graffiti Moon. The stuff Shadow and Poet do sounds amazing, and it's real art. I could imagine their pieces easily because of the descriptive and beautiful writing, and the pieces sound gorgeous. I wish my town had graffiti artists like Shadow and Poet.


The characters are great. All of them are different and unique, but you can understand and connect to each one of them. Lucy's insecurities and hopes are easy to relate to, and her quirkiness put a smile on my face. Even though Ed is extremely different from me and makes some stupid decisions, I didn't have any problems relating to him and feeling for him, either. The only thing I didn't get is why Ed agreed to go looking for Shadow in the first place. The relationship between Ed and Lucy is great - the way they interact is sweet and hilarious, very entertaining.


I loved the little sub-plots, the secondary characters Leo, Jazz, Daisy and Dylan. All of them are quirky and interesting to read about, and their relationships added a lot to the story. I liked the less important characters like Lucy's parents, Ed's mom, Al and Bert, too - all of them are fully-developed and unique characters.


Graffiti Moon is a surprisingly enjoyable read, considering I knew nothing about it beforehand. With vivid, atmospheric writing, quirky characters, and a hilarious plot, this story will have you laughing one minute and crying the next. Graffiti Moon is a beautiful portrayal of love, friendship, and finding yourself.