The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds is about the journey of 17 year old African-American Matthew Miller, after his mother passes away. While dealing with her death, Matthew’s father gets hit by a car after a night of drinking. His dad survived, but this situation added fuel to Matt’s fire of turmoil. Reynolds faultlessly portrays the plight of the African-American minority by illustrating various struggles.

One thing Reynolds does excellently in this book is describing the setting. Throughout of the book, Matthew goes into depth about what he sees around him. For example, ”.. Our cement world of trash cans blown into the street, stray cats begging, stoop sitters dressed  in fresh sneakers smoking blunts in broad daylight, old ladies sweeping the sidewalk, tired nine-to-fivers walking slowly on the final stretch before home.” (Reynolds 75).Reynolds gives Matthew a poetic vocabulary throughout the whole book, and that’s what makes the main character describe his reality so greatly.

Matthew’s language is vastly elevated, but he still has the “urban” language. The way he communicates with the people around him versus when he’s talking to directly to the reader is noticeable. “A’ight man, later.’ I flung the door open. ‘Yo, nice suit, Matty!’ he called after me.” (Reynolds 77). Throughout the entire book, Reynolds has the characters speak realistically to each other. Being that the book is based in Brooklyn, New York, it’s pretty evident that the characters are using the actual lingo that New Yorkers use in real life.

Focusing mainly on Matthew, the way Reynolds developed his character is extremely realistic. Matthew states that he didn’t know how to smile (Reynolds 2). This adds to his shy, awkward personality that a lot of young black men have in real life. This type of personality could come from lack of teaching self-love from peers, or simply just having an introverted personality all together. All in all, Reynolds portrayed a type of black person that’s never truly represented in the black community.

By writing this attention-grabbing book, Jason Reynolds managed to get his point across while representing the actuality of African-Americans everyday life. He does well when portraying the realistic setting, language, and character traits of actual black people. Though this book is fiction, it’s real representation that the black community lacks tremendously.