well. i am very glad i started my copy of Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley AFTER the launch yesterday. i started it today instead and while i knew that it was going to be fab, i didn't really comprehend how mindblowingly excellent it would be. which is good, cos it means i saved myself the embarassment that would have been caused by the screaming, leaping, and excitedly but unintelligibly yabbering creature that i would have otherwise become upon sighting Cath. i am not exaggerating. i did it once when Jen Storer came into work and i had just read Tensy Farlow and the home for mislaid children. i was hideous, like one of those crazed fans you see at concerts. i nearly threw my undies at her.

so, thankfully for all of us involved, i am only just now learning how utterly fabbitty fab fab fabaroo it is (thankyou georgia nicolson you have invaded my head yet again). see, i knew that it would be great. it's cath crowley! not only is she an awesome writer, she is like the NICEST person in the world (ok, so i have only met her twice-ish but she was just so lovely) but for those of you non believers out there here are some of the reasons it is so fab:

#lucy. she is a glass blower! how fucking cool is that?

#ed and leo. they are sheddies/graffers just like my ex but unlike my ex they are completely adorable in a roguish way, they paint things that have some meaning as opposed to scribbling tags on a wall, and i don't feel like screaming RUN AWAY everytime they arrive on the page.

#it is just so real. i love it. i imagine the legal graffiti bit that shadow and poet go to in the second chapter as the one that is in degraves street in the city. and the way lucy and jazz talk about shadow and leo is just like how the despicable ex and i used to ponder about bonez and stan. their names are all over the city and word on the street was that stan was dead and bonez was overseas. or in jail. or it was the otherway round? anyway i hope you see my point, which is that Cath has captured so crystal clear this world of streets and teenagerness i just want to kiss her.

my gosh. it's... FAB. and i am only up to page 57. i may or may not write more when i finish. but just in case i dont, Cath, thankyou.