A review by vulturetime
The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

I really enjoyed this book; it’s not one with a lot of action, focusing more on the characters (Matt specifically, and how he is trying to deal after his mother’s death). I think the book is fairly well written, though I may be a bit biased, since I lost a grandparent when I was in school and some of Matt’s narration in the beginning really hit close to home as to how I felt when that happened.

The only reason this didn’t get five stars from me is because I felt like the plot got a bit weaker in the second half of the book—we moved away from some of Matt’s relationships to focus on his budding one with Love. This would have been fine since Matt is pretty solid in his relationships, except
I really felt like there would be a reconciliation scene or something of that sort with his father, and that didn’t come. Additionally, I felt like the progression of Matt and Love’s relationship happened a bit too quickly.
However, that critique comes in retrospect; when I was reading this book I still greatly enjoyed it. 

There was also one tiny detail I got annoyed about—Jimmy and Mike in the beginning have Matt’s narration saying that their names are actually Ahmed and Tahir, and then those names are never used again, so I wonder at the point of that. 

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