Jason Reynolds’ The Boy in the Black Suit presents a touching, heart-pulling, and moving novel that walks through the life of a teenage boy dealing with emotional trauma. As we follow along with the book, the main character, Matt struggles to cope with his mother’s death and tries to comprehend recent events in his life. In this novel, Reynolds develops the character Matt by using emotions, imagery, and dialogue to show how Matt deals with his inner conflict.

Throughout the book, Reynolds utilizes strong emotions to express how Matt starts to break down crying whenever his mother is mentioned in a conversation or when he’s asked if he’s fine after her death. For instance, when Matt’s best friend Chris asked him how he’s feeling after her death, “I swallowed hard and reached out for a high-five, holding back a few tears. Do. Not. Cry. Not in school.” (Reynolds 4) This demonstrates how there’s plenty of emotions going on inside Matt’s head that he’d like to spit out but keeps in instead. Another major use of emotion is when Reynolds presents us to the mind of Matt, explaining how he copes with his mother’s death, “I sat in class and replayed it in my mind, over and over again, that watery look in her eyes, the weird thought of her face fighting itself to smile, and the strange satisfaction I got watching it all go down.” (Reynolds 57) Readers get to know how Matt feels when he sees the pain of other people grieving: satisfaction. Words by Reynolds paints an emotion or feeling for readers to understand how Matt deals with his inner turmoil.

Speaking of the topic of painting a feeling, Reynolds also uses imagery to illustrate Matt’s connection and romantic relationship to Lovey, his girlfriend. The author shows how Matt will do anything he hates to fulfill Lovey’s happiness. To illustrate, on their first official date that Lovey got to choose where they’d go, Matt thought, “The Botanic Garden? What? I was stuck. I mean, flowers? Flowers? But I liked Lovey, so I had to go along with it.” (Reynolds 231) On that date, the author does an extraordinary job of typing out an illustration of the Botanic Garden, “Inside was like being somewhere far away from Brooklyn. And I have to admit that part of it I liked. I mean, you couldn’t even hear cars, like as soon as we walked through the gates, we entered a new dimension--some secret land where drama didn't exist. Only flowers.” (Reynolds 232) The way Reynolds illustrates Matt’s relationship with Lovey isn’t just based on how he views her, it all started when they first conversed.

Reynolds builds up Matt’s character by using dialogue to critique him. Matt’s boss and mentor, Mr. Ray, is the main role model for Matt since his mom recently passed and his dad badly injured himself. Through the author’s words, Matt has been given great advice and words of wisdom from Mr. Ray. For example, when Matt had struggled with the start of his relationship with Lovey, Mr. Ray said, “You need to get clicking and clacking on your little fancy phone there to figure out a time for y’all to talk. Really talk. Not this mess y’all doing right now.” (Reynolds 212) When Matt got a job at Mr. Ray’s funeral home, Matt felt uncomfortable since his serious loss but, Mr. Ray didn’t pressure him to do anything he didn’t want. For instance, Matt’s and Mr. Ray’s conversation before Matt accepted the job, ‘“Wait. Mr. Ray.” I reached out and grabbed his arm. He turned back toward me. “Will I. . . uh.. . will I have to touch dead people?” He crossed his arms. “Do you want to?” “No.” “Then no.”’ (Reynolds 16) Matt learns how to deal with his inner conflict and grows from the advice he received from Mr. Ray.

Matt’s character is developed by Jason Reynolds presenting Matt’s way of managing his internal and external complications. Emotions, imagery, and dialogue are used to show how Matt sorts out the confusion he has at the moment in his life. As the novel nears its conclusion, Matt’s coping ability and girlfriend unexpectedly clash and meet. However, Reynolds ends the novel with Matt choosing his significant other showing that Matt’s capable of grieving and coping with his mother’s death without the help of other individuals.