oldmateforty's review against another edition
4.0
A raw and powerful insight into the life of black male living in America. The storytelling will take you a journey of self reflection, questioning your positioning. Would recommend!
jilliebeanreads's review against another edition
4.0
“Greyboy” is part memoir, part journalistic storytelling and part essay collection. The debut author, Cole Brown, comes from a life a privilege. Despite being raised in a mostly white world, he is often ostracized by his friends and teachers for his choices and the color of his skin. Sometimes Cole is too white, sometimes he’s not black enough. Sometimes his friends see his skin color, sometimes they don’t. We witness how he gets stuck in the unknowing. Is he comfortable where he is, straddling both worlds, both colors? Or, should he choose differently? This is the question he grapples with, among others.
The essay topics are what you might expect from a young person: insecurities; revelations of racism; “the talk”; young love; alcohol and drugs; friendship; death; political injustice; police brutality; and family life. As a reader, I found that Cole’s most impressive essays were his takes on relationships, especially whether to choose for love or skin color. I appreciate his vulnerability, his approachable, narrative prose; and his intellect. One of his more powerful essays are of about his “reveal” moments. Those times when he absolutely feels his “otherness,” when reality cannot be unseen. In an early essay, we learn a good lesson from Cole’s father that was taught to his by his mother: “Black people in America don’t get the luxury of making mistakes, so be careful.”
Because “Greyboy” was written over a number of years—starting while Cole was still a teen—I found the level of writing and some of his stories to be disjointed and inconsistent. It’s for this reason that I rate this book four stars instead of five. That said, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading Cole Brown’s future works. I think he’s on his way to becoming one of the gifted storytellers from our next generation.
Special thanks to NetGalley, Skyhorse Publishing and Cole Brown for a gifted electronic copy of “Greyboy” in exchange for my honest review.
The essay topics are what you might expect from a young person: insecurities; revelations of racism; “the talk”; young love; alcohol and drugs; friendship; death; political injustice; police brutality; and family life. As a reader, I found that Cole’s most impressive essays were his takes on relationships, especially whether to choose for love or skin color. I appreciate his vulnerability, his approachable, narrative prose; and his intellect. One of his more powerful essays are of about his “reveal” moments. Those times when he absolutely feels his “otherness,” when reality cannot be unseen. In an early essay, we learn a good lesson from Cole’s father that was taught to his by his mother: “Black people in America don’t get the luxury of making mistakes, so be careful.”
Because “Greyboy” was written over a number of years—starting while Cole was still a teen—I found the level of writing and some of his stories to be disjointed and inconsistent. It’s for this reason that I rate this book four stars instead of five. That said, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading Cole Brown’s future works. I think he’s on his way to becoming one of the gifted storytellers from our next generation.
Special thanks to NetGalley, Skyhorse Publishing and Cole Brown for a gifted electronic copy of “Greyboy” in exchange for my honest review.
pertiwi6's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
tahlia1234's review against another edition
3.0
I don’t think I’ve been so confused by a book when I’ve finished reading it. I was so excited to read this memoir, but the reality was a weirdly structured bunch of essay-like chapters that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. There wasn’t any chronological order to follow, which made things hard to understand in the first place. The notes that I think were supposed to be funny rarely landed because I just didn’t understand them. I don’t even know what the main takeaways from this book are, the language used like ‘token’ and ‘grey boy’ were really poorly explained To be honest didn’t even make sense in how they were used most of the time. Overall, yes there are some nice stories and takeaways in the book, but I think there are way better memoirs to read on the subject of race and class.
lanster84's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
aseel_reads's review against another edition
5.0
This was thoroughly enjoyable to read. Extremely well written and the specific topics were well picked. I actually found myself relating a lot to the token experience, growing up as one of the only hijabis at school, so it was nice to see myself represented
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