Graffiti Moon -- a review

Graffiti Moon
Cath Crowley
272 pages


What is it about books that take place in one day that make them so tasty? I think my obsession with the One Day Genre started with Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and evolved into something else completely. I even try (unsuccessfully most times) to read them in one day. The One Day Genre book has been rare and elusive with me; only popping up once every few months to please me.

It goes without at saying at this point that Graffiti Moon is a book set in one day. Or, err, night. The book features another favorite of mine: alternating view points. We have Leo, a poet and graffiti artist, whose story is told through his poetry. There's Ed who is a master graffiti artist and high school dropout. Then there's Lucy who is also an artist (a glass blower) and has a psychic friend.

After their last night of senior year the three--and some friends--spend their time wandering around the city. The real story is between Lucy and Ed. Lucy is on the hunt for Shadow (a graffiti artist who happens to be Ed), and the two spend their time talk about art and their futures.

While the conversations between Ed and Lucy were my favorite part I often had to break from the story to Google the artists they were talking about. I needed visual examples of the art because I'm a visual kind of guy. While a minor complaint I can't really blame Cath Crowley for it: my natural curiosity often gets the best of me in these situations.*

There was one thing that stopped me from giving this book my full support. It hinges on the fact that this is a book about nothing. It's often a problem with the One Day Genre. I've made comparisons to Seinfeld and The Big Lebowski before. I think it's truer for this book than previous ones, and I'm not totally against it. We're just getting a glimpse of a few people for one day, and when lives are examined up close it's often hard to distinguished the overarching plot lines from the little ones.

Cath Crowley--while a newcomer to my ever growing collection of One Day Genre books--won me over with a quirky story containing compelling characters that I'll probably never meet again. It was good while it lasted. Which is how these one day books should go.

Full Disclosure: I checked this out from my local library.

*After reading Wanderlove I spent an entire afternoon reading about South America.