Recently, I finished a book The Boy in the Black Suit, an 304 page Young Adult Fiction book. Jason Reynolds, the author of the book is a 33 year old man who was raised in Maryland, but now is proud to be living in Brooklyn NY. Jason graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in English. He speaks to a lot of young people about writing and reading. He also relates to kids a lot saying that “I really do hate reading, reading boring books so that’s what I do, try to write books that aren’t boring.”

The Boy in the Black Suit is really popular among young teenagers and adults today. For a book that one published in mid 2015, it has fascinated lots of people to read the book and understand the true depth about how this could happen to someone. I really think it’s important for me as a young adult to read this book and get a good understanding of how life won’t always be perfect and that stuff like this can happen to people and that you can get over it if you really put your heart to it. Upon reading this book I found out the true depth and meaning of how this story played out and the way one thing led to another.

In the novel The Boy in the Black Suit, the main character, Matt Miller, is a boy whose mom died of cancer. He has to live with his dad who doesn’t talk much and who works a lot. He has seen it all, death, relationships ended, all the bad stuff in life. His friends and neighbors start to treat him weirdly. Matt is in a tough point in life right now, that is until he gets a job at the funeral home. Many people find this weird when they found out because they would have thought that Matt has had enough with death and drama. Things all of a sudden start to turn around for Matt. Mr. Ray owns the funeral home and has been through way more than Matt has. Matt also has a job at a fried chicken restaurant which is where he meets a attractive girl who he then develops a nice and tender relationship with. After things get better for Matt, they all turn south. His father gets drunk and has a big accident. From then on, Mr. Ray take care of Matt and becomes his father. Then something big happens with Matt that turns his long term frown upside down.

I liked the way the author included many contrast and contradictions of Matt. Near the middle of the book when Matt was getting better with his grief he started acting weird. He didn’t really talk to anyone and his actions weren’t like usual. His friends even jump in on it. “Matt are you ok because you have been acting weird lately.” (Pg. 127) This is to when he replies in a soft voice “Yeah I’m fine.” When I was reading this book I picked up on this. I was thinking that there’s nothing in his life right now that could get him this down and this weird. I think the author added this to the story to add a little extra suspicion about the true depth of Matt’s life.

I was really surprised when I found out that Matt wears a black suit everyday because his mom died. At first I thought this was because he likes to be classy and wear something nice, but then I found out that he wears it to help crush his grief of his mom’s death. I found this detail very interesting. I figure the author would add this to add a little extra Aha in the story, but he could just do that to add a few extra words and personally I don’t really know.

“We needed to talk, plain and simple. And seeing as though she was texting me, she clearly was opening the door. I just had to be man enough to walk through it.” I feel that this relates to how Matt had to man up and walk through the door for letting his mom’s death go by and think about the more important things in life.

One thing I very do love about this book was that it highlights the author’s extra details very well in it. “Matt how come you wear that suit every single day?” asks one of Matt’s friend. “I wear for my mom.” Just by adding this simple line in the book makes it go to another level. Overall reading this book was a joy and I would reread it again if I could. The Boy in the Black Suit is a 5 out of 10 for me.

 

Sincerely,

Danny Ramadan