Graffiti Moon

Publishers Weekly

Crowley (A Little Wanting Song) returns with a moving contemporary spin on disguised-identity romances (think You’ve Got Mail), first published in Australia. The novel is told in the voices of two creative older teenagers—Ed, aka secretive graffiti artist Shadow, and Lucy, a fledgling glass blower—interspersed with the poems of Leo/Poet, Ed’s best friend and graffiti partner. Set over the course of one long night, Crowley’s story slowly develops the relationship between Ed and Lucy, enemies since a disastrous date two years earlier. Lucy is obsessed with Shadow and his art; she tells Ed, “I just want to meet one guy, one guy, who thinks art is cool.” The teens’ artistic sensibilities are richly and affectingly expressed; readers will agonize over their obvious compatibility and long for them to recognize each other as soul mates. The beauty and danger of the nocturnal urban landscape is an effective counterpoint to the growing attraction of the sensitive yet bristly pair. Secondary characters—close friends, artistic mentors, and well-meaning parents—are strongly rendered, layering the steadily engrossing story with credible complexity. Ages 14–up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Feb.)

Children's Literature - Jodell Sadler

Voice drives this novel that every teen should read. It is nice to read a YA book about doing the right thing, freeing your inner artist, and finding your own path among friends, as much as guiding your friends when they need a little nudge in a better direction. Although the reader might prefer to read this from just Lucy's point of view, Ed and Poet play an important role. The way this writer brings in the artistic perspectives of all three characters is exceptional. The way art is described through Lucy, and the way it reveals and defines these characters is magical: graffiti, poetry, and blown glass. Deception is part of the plot and as Lucy and Ed reconnect, it is really ideal to enjoy a story where teens attempt to help one another and really keep everyone on the right track. Lucy only wants to find Shadow, a local graffiti artist she loves who paints birds, color, and sky in a way she connects to, and lose Ed, her ultimate date gone bad. Once she learns that Ed knows Shadow, she follows him all night admiring his many murals, analyzing them, and eventually keeping Ed from helping his friend steal from their school to pay off a debt. Then Lucy learns Shadow's true identity and the ending rings true. Reviewer: Jodell Sadler

ALAN Review - Barbara A. Ward

Senior year has ended, and Lucy and her friends spend the night in pursuit of Shadow, the elusive street artist she desperately wants to meet. After all, they have much in common since she, too, is a glassblowing artist. Inevitably, the girls pair off with some locals. Lucy ends up with Ed, who is nothing like Shadow. Or is he? Things are awkward at times, but the three couples also experience moments of closeness as well. The author alternates the story through the voices of Lucy and Ed as well as interspersing poetry from Ed's friend Leo. While teens often bond through music, these teens connect through images, colors, and poetry. The book's sometimes edgy tone hinting of underlying violence is leavened by its humor. Older teen readers will cherish these quirky characters for their independence and for the secrets they're hiding. One important night foreshadows possibilities for each character. Reviewer: Barbara A. Ward

VOYA - Mark Flowers

In alternating chapters, Ed and Lucy, who once went on a disastrous date together, describe their night-long search for the elusive graffiti artist, Shadow. Based solely on his art, Lucy is convinced that she is in love with Shadow, never suspecting that Shadow is Ed. Meanwhile, Ed has to decide whether to join his best friend, Leo, in a robbery later in the night to pay back Leo's debt to a gangster. The high level of contrivance to the setup requires a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief, but while a lesser writer might have used it for cheap humor or forced emotion, the artifice of the plot reads as very nearly Shakespearean (say, an inverted version of As You Like It), and Crowley mines for deep truths about identity, art, and love. Both Ed and Lucy are strong characters, and Ed's conflict over whether to tell Lucy the truth about his identity—he fears that he can never live up to Lucy's vision of Shadow—is genuinely moving. Less felicitous is the character of Leo, whose banal poems are interspersed throughout the text and whose various romantic entanglements are neither as believable nor as funny as they are meant to be. Though Lucy remains powerfully portrayed, her narration sometimes feels forced. Nevertheless, powered by a deep set of ideas; strong, relatable characters; and the teen-centric topic of graffiti art, this novel should have wide critical and popular appeal. Reviewer: Mark Flowers

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up—This adventure, set in Australia, is one for the art crowd. Lucy, Jazz, and Daisy plan to celebrate graduation by staying out all night. And while they're at it, Lucy is determined to meet Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist who has tagged the city with his soulful works. Jazz is set on finding Poet, Shadow's partner and the wordsmith of his wall art. Daisy just wants boyfriend Dylan to remember that it's her birthday. Dealing with his dyslexia by quitting school, Ed has lost his job in a paint store and is talked into robbing the art wing of the high school this particular night with Leo and Dylan. They decide to hang out with the girls until it's time for the heist. Ed takes Lucy on a search for Shadow and along the way they visit a number of his paintings around the city. Chapters that alternate between Lucy and Ed (who, unbeknownst to Lucy, is Shadow) rely heavily on art-themed metaphor to describe the encroaching darkness, city scenes, traffic lights, and impending dawn. Part gallery tour, part crime caper, and part romance, Graffiti Moon is an artsy spin on the common young adult theme of self-discovery. The references to artists and specific works may intimidate readers who have little related knowledge, but it might also nudge them to learn about Vermeer and others. The aesthetic tone of the story is punctuated with comic relief and some coarse language. While Lucy's and Ed's inner dialogues sometimes seem unrealistically metaphorical, readers will appreciate the original and sympathetic characters. A paint-covered thumbs up!—Karen Elliott, Grafton High School, WI

Kirkus Reviews

Alternating narrators and snatches of poetry tell the tale of love among graffiti artists. Lucy has been searching for the mysterious graffiti artist Shadow, whose work seems to address her fear of romance. Unfortunately, the only guy who knows how to track him down is Ed, whose nose Lucy broke at the end of a disastrous date. Ed knows how to track down Shadow because he is Shadow--a secret he hopes to keep from Lucy while he leads her around town revisiting old haunts. When Lucy discovers that Ed has been lying to her, she must deal with her conflicted feelings over the artist and the annoying man. Readers will quickly realize that Ed and Shadow are one and the same, a fact that Crowley reveals fairly early on. With that mystery stripped away, Ed is difficult to like, lacking both a strong personality and emotional resonance. His difficulty at school due to dyslexia smacks of pandering and isn't well integrated into the overall story. Lucy's personality is slightly more developed; glassblowing is a talent not often seen in teen fiction. However, Crowley's divided narrative doesn't suit the characters, and the decision to intersperse poems into the mix further fractures their interactions. There's splashes of color, but teens will find their interest washes out rapidly. (Fiction. 13 & up)