Author: Cath Crowley
Classification: YA Fiction, Contemporary
Source: ARC
To be published by Knopf on February 14th, 2012
Overall Grade:
A+++++++
Would I recommend it?
Holy mother of meat, read this book!!!
Add to Goodreads | Pre-order from Amazon
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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.
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My Thoughts:
My Thoughts:
Oh my.
Graffiti Moon is quite simply, the most delicious book I've read in recent memory. It is poignant and at times heart breaking. It is lyrical and quick and hilarious and romantic. It is not just about Lucy, Ed, Poet, Shadow, Leo, Jazz, Daisy, Dylan, Bert, and Al, even though they are important.
It is about the incredible ability of art to translate from that kind of high-art that you see in museums to the kind of high-art that sprays from Shadow's brain onto a brick wall. (Little bird, what are you thinking? You come from a can.)
It is about that feeling that you get sometimes (I got a good feeling... I got a bad feeling... as many of the characters in Graffiti Moon say) that is more about the people you're with than the time of night or the excellence of the party you're at. It's more about how your feelings are echoed by those around you in a recited haiku or a bicycle helmet with lightning on it or a brick wall that traps birds in mid-air.
But if this review doesn't quite do it for you, (don't be embarrassed if it doesn't, I'm not doing a very good job at it), then you'll be happy to hear that Graffiti Moon is also incredibly entertaining. It takes place during one long crazy night after Year 12 and involves some illegal activity, a few parties, an even more cases of mistaken identity. Let the hilarity ensue!
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Overall Grade:
A+++++++
Would I recommend it?
Holy mother of meat, read this book!!!
Add to Goodreads | Pre-order from Amazon
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It was delicious, wasn't it? I really love Aussie contemporary YA books. A few more that have sort of the same flavor that you might like: Beatle Meets Destiny, Guitar Highway Rose, and if you haven't read it yet, Jellicoe Road NEEDS to go on your list.
ReplyDeleteLovely to meet you. :)
Thanks so much for those recommendations!! I've heard of all of those except for Beatle Meets Destiny, but I've haven't read any of them yet. I'll have to get on it! Thanks!! :)
ReplyDeleteBeatle Meets Destiny and Grafitti Moon are still 2 of my favourite YA fiction
ReplyDeleteAn amazing book!
ReplyDeleteMade it to my top 10 for the past 12 months.
Cool Rider: I have yet to read Beatle Meets Destiny... but I really should amend that as I've loved every YA book by Australian authors as of yet. They are essentially batting 1000!
ReplyDeleteMichelle: This is definitely in my top 10 as well... probably my top 5 :)