Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
My rating: 
3 of 5 stars


Source: Netgalley

Synopsis 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.

This is a really sweet and funny contemporary book that I just devoured. I really liked these characters and felt for what they were going through. These are real teenagers with real problems, and some tough emotional dramas, but I enjoyed their stories, and how everything kind of came together so well.

Both the main characters have such a passion for art, and even though I personally know absolutely nothing at all about art, their enthusiasm was contagious. Lucy is really into glass-blowing and creating sculptures, and Ed likes to paint his emotions and dreams onto walls, but they both have favourite artists and when tey get together they easily discuss paintings and exhibitions that they went to. They both have an appreciation for art in all it's forms, and it was so refreshing to read about.

Lucy is such a quirky and independent character. I loved her innocence, and her optimism . But you can see where she gets her quirkiness from in her artistic parents, and their odd ways. Her Dad is currently living in the shed and nailing up a sign saying 132a "because the pizza delivery guy keeps getting confused". I liked the way the situation with her parents always had an element of humour with it.

Ed I loved for his insecurity but his innate "goodness". He has had a hard time being misunderstood because of his dyslexia but has worked hard and earned the respect of his boss, looked after his mum, and taken care of his best friend. I liked the way he was concerned about the safety of the girls at the party, and how he was always looking out for other people, and never letting on about the difficulties in his own life.

And as they travel around the city together searching for the elusive graffiti arist Shadow and admiring his artwork they learn a lot about each other's lives, and that there is more to the other beneath the surface. Lucy feels that if she could just meet Shadow who paints such beautiful artwork he would be the perfect guy. Instead she is stuck with Ed- whose nose she once broke after he tried to grab her arse.

I really liked the dual narrative switching between Ed and Lucy, which really showed off their personalities, what the other was thinking and feeling and how ultimately through talking their lives through, they make a decisive choice about their own futures. This is a novel about finding yourself and accepting hard choices.

I really enjoyed this book- such a sweet read, beautifully written, very moving and very clever. I loved the mix of characters, and the fact that it is set over the course of one night made it compulsively compelling reading.