utor & bookmaker

Julie Gittus

author and bookmaker

Saltwater Moons is Julie's first novel. Classified as young adult fiction, the book was published in August, 2008 by Hachette Livre and has received high praise from reviewers, teachers and students. Saltwater Moons was a finalist in the Radio National's Book Show: 'Best Australian Book Award, 2008.'

The writing …
… After it was finished, he kissed me between the eyes and told me I was a fast learner, and I looked down at the painting and I thought: Is this me? Has all my goodness vanished within a week? Good … bad … I decided they were baby words. Meaningless.

The story …
In the beginning it seems so simple. A poem in the mail. A weekend invitation to the coast. But when Sun says yes to a midnight walk, her life becomes suddenly complicated. Saltwater Moons tells the story of Sun Langley during her final months of Year Twelve. There's the intensity of her first relationship, complicated by the fact she continues to exchange poems with her boyfriend's best mate. It's a story about love and betrayal, about constantly longing for the things we can't have.

View teaching notes.

What the readers & the reviewers say ….

'The use of poetry and art throughout is beautifully achieved. Reading this novel is life being swallowed by a warm, calm wave. ... I can't say enough good things about this novel.' Adele Walsh,

'I read this book with a constant pricking of tears - this writing is so beautiful, so subtly balanced, so human, so filled with gentle sadness and understanding. This is a book readers will love.'
Peter Bishop, Creative Director of Varuna, The Writers' House, Katoomba, The Blue Mountains

... While I was reading this book it was as if the book was flipping the pages for me. I don't remember turning the pages at all. Saltwater Moons is one of the best books I have ever read.
Danielle Wood, age 12 years.

Julie Gittus's impressive first novel, Saltwater Moons, brought to mind After January (1996), the debut novel of Nick Earls. ... Gittus writes with insight and sensitivity, and with an acute eye and ear for the social behaviour of these young adults and their interactions. Sun's voice is literate, authentic and realistic. She can quote Heraclitus as well as Czeslaw Milosz, and she observes with a poet's eye and ear: an 'oriental rug that looked like a bed of crushed flowers'; the leaves of the orange tree that 'clattered in bursts like distant applause'. Gittus effectively and movingly depicts the complexities of friendship and sex and the miseries of unrequited attraction and betrayal. ....
Ruth Starke, Australian Book Review, November, 2008

I started Saltwater Moons in the afternoon then finished it late last night and I really like it. I felt a bit disapointed when Sun said, One final note. I was like 'oh no its not over already is it?'
Caitlin Jakeman, age 15

“Unlike a lot of young adult novels, it focuses on how teenagers really are” – ABC Radio Canberra