Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
1st August 2010
Rating: 3/5
Challenges: 2011 Aussie YA
Review: However much I wanted to support homegrown YA, I just wasn't able to scream Graffiti Moon from the rooftops as much as I'd originally hoped. I'm sure young appreciators of art will be overjoyed with the topics regularly discussed in this novel of intrigue and teenage romance.
Lucy has always believed art is more important than money, a lesson learnt from both her creative parents but she starts to question their happiness when her dad moves out of the family home and into the back-shed temporarily. For a long time she has craved the sort of romance her parents once held but she's truly fed up with the immaturity of the boys at her school so when Shadow's graffiti art of social and political messages captures her attention, she sets out to find her one and only soulmate.
In alternating chapters, we learn that Lucy's partner-in-crime, Ed is also in discovery of the real Shadow. Together they bike ride into the night and keep things humorous with regular mentions of the time Lucy gave Ed a blood nose a few years back on an ill-fated date.
Overall, the characters are very realistic and easy to assimilate with any student regularly found hiding out in your school's own art building. If you don't come away from this novel craving your own graffiti artist to swoon over then I'm pretty sure you're entirely dead on the inside.
Graffiti Moon is available for purchase in e-book and paperback from the publisher's website here.
