The Truth Can Be Ignored, But Cannot Be Unlearned

“Patches of Grey” is a narrative that focuses on the lives of members of the Johnson family. Tony is the oldest son with dreams of college and a white picket fence life. He desires to escape from his current life of abuse and poverty. However, his younger brother, CJ, believes that Tony is also seeking to escape who he is....a black man in America. Lionel, Tony's father, knows firsthand what it feels like to have dreams denied. He wants his son to not have to face the same fate, so he uses abuse as a way to make Tony see the truth. At the center of Lionel's pain is his own failed relationship with his brother, Manny, who decided to live the dream by turning his back on his family. Twenty-five years later, Manny realizes that his dream has become a nightmare.

“Patches of Grey” is a novel about truth, love, family and sacrifice. It is also about the choices that many black men face daily as they try to survive in America. From gang violence to dating across the color lines, Pickering weaves a complex story of hope, forgiveness, love and dreams deferred. I found myself wondering how I would have reacted in certain situations as the author introduced them in the novel. It also made me question some of the truths I have accepted regarding race relations in America.

Although this novel was an advance reader copy (ARC), I was very distracted by the editing issues. There were pages with "white-out" that had words handwritten in. Also, there were many pages where editing had been missed completely. In the beginning, I was so distracted by these issues that I found it very difficult to even read the book. However, the plot began to pick up and so I was able to overlook those errors enough to read the book. “Patches of Grey” would easily be a 5-star read if the editing issues had been better addressed. I would advise the author in the future to not submit an advanced copy in this state. Errors are expected in an ARC, or uncorrected proof, but the condition of this ARC simply proved too distracting.

Reviewed by: Flashette ( )

In a story that at times reminded me of Matty Rich's Straight Out of Brooklyn, Roy L. Pickering, Jr. deftly weaves a coming of age tale of Tony Johnson in Patches of Grey. And while Pickering could have taken the easy way out and strictly focused on one main character, he takes the time to tell not only Tony's story, but that of his siblings and parents as well, each as fascinating as Tony's.

Tony is every inner city youth that dreams of making it out, except he doesn't plan to do it by being a rapper or athlete. He dreams of going to college. Normally you would expect one's parents to be supportive of that kind of dream, but his father's defeatist attitude weighs heavily upon Tony's shoulders.

Even as Tony walks the straight and narrow, his younger brother CJ is on the path to destruction. Completely unimpressed with school and what it offers, CJ belongs to a gang. Somewhere in the middle is their sister Tanya. At the age of 16, she's obsessed with losing her virginity.

I was intrigued with the fact that the younger brother was the wayward one. In most books, the older sibling's bad habits lead to the younger sibling's desire to do better. So it was interesting to see the roles reversed. On the other hand, it could have been that the parents had more time and were less stressed when raising Tony (and his sister Tanya) and by the time CJ came along, he was left to raise himself.

It's also interesting to note the differences between the relationships that their father shared with Tanya and the boys. While Tony's relationship with his father is antagonistic at best, Tanya's relationship with him had me wondering if I was reading about a completely different man. No, really. It took me a minute to realize that this belligerent man who berated his oldest child was the same man that coddled his daughter and offered her words of encouragement.

Through Lionel's back story, the reader finds out why he's so hard on his son and how he came to be in the situation he's in. Undoubtedly, his perceived failures shape the way that he treats Tony. And while he believes that he's preparing him for the real world and teaching him life lessons, he's slowly losing his son's respect and love.

Aptly named Patches of Grey, Pickering proves that, indeed, life is rarely black or white.

What did you like about this book?
As I mentioned before, I love that everyone in the family has a story to tell and is actually allowed to tell it.

What didn't you like about this book?
Not a thing. My biggest regret is that it took me so long to move it up on my "to be read" list.

What could the author do to improve this book?
Can't think of a thing. ( )

Patches of Grey by Roy L. Pickering Jr. is to me, on the border of being a young adult book, as it deals with an 18-year old boy and being an adult book, as there are several somewhat explicit sexual situations. Personally, I do not mind a bit of sex in the books I read, but I know other people do mind that.Essentially Patches of Grey, when one breaks it down, is all about relationships. There is the main character, Tony's relationship to his girlfriend Janet. There is Tony's relationship with his family. There is his brother CJ's relationship to his gang. There is his sister Tonya's relationship to her hook-up boyfriend. There is the relationship between Tony's parents. The interactions between these people provide so much information about the people in so few words. I mean, Pickering does not provide 17 pages of exposition and background, one is just sort of thrust into the world and trusted to come to their own conclusions about the characters. I know several interactions and things I had questions about were later explained through conversations the characters had.I honestly enjoyed the characters. For one, the main character, Tony is African-American. Kudos Mr. Pickering for putting a POC character within your book, and for making Tony seem so real. I mean, Tony is not perfect by any means. To me he seemed like an actual person. He's not some rich spoiled suburbs kid with no problems, as I see in so much YA today. Instead, he lives in the projects, his dad is a bit of a jerk, his girlfriend is white, and his brother is in a gang. Yet, he still has aspirations to rise above that and go onto college. I love that his struggles and what he endures actually mean something. To me, it didn't seem superficial. Also, even the jerk characters sort of won me over, we see that Tony's dad isn't a huge douche, he actually does so much, but I guess it is hard for him to express it.In regards to the writing, this book is very well-written. I feel the sentences were selected with care. It isn't simplistic writing, it is quite literary, so I suppose if you enjoy Jodi Piccoult's writing style, you will enjoy Pickering. The plot kept smashing my soul into pieces. I mean, I was crushed. I would say, don't read this book if you don't have room in your heart, or space in your life, or time in your day to invest in these characters. Just a note - I finished this book last weekend, and I am still thinking about these characters. I think this is definitely a good book to read if you want something more serious or heavy to read. It's not a beach book at all. ( )

Storyline:

What I really liked about this book was how true and honest it sounded. You can go to any inner city and find a kid who has the same feelings as the characters in this book. This could almost read like a true-story account of someone life.

Story Characters:

Tony Johnson was very well written on and about. You clearly get a feeling from him early on in the book and very quickly either love him or hate him. What is unique about this, is that even if you choose to hate him, you care about him. He is memorable.

Writing Style:

There are no pretensions in this book. There are no "this must have been researched" moments either. As you read the book, you notice that it is written by someone who has had all those thoughts in their head. From someone who didn't walk around asking others how they felt and then wrote about it, but from someone who understood those feelings and wrote about them perfectly.

Editing Ability:

This was good. What surprised me about this book, is that I got a version before the final corrected book came out. I knew that going in. However the author went page by page and manually corrected the mistakes. He didn't have to do that. He could have simply said it was an uncorrected copy and left the mistakes. I was incredibly impressed by this and wish other authors would do the same.

Overall Thoughts:

I liked this book a lot. In my opinion it should be read by high school students across the country, to give them a better appreciation of others around them and help dispel pre-conceived notions. ( )

Patches of Grey is a tale of reckless ambition, boundless optimism, ironclad convictions, bitter disillusionment, the complexity of race relations, the confusion of self exploration, naïveté of first love, inevitability of heartbreak, and the demise of innocence. Its narrative focus alternates among members of the embattled Johnson family throughout the course of a tumultuous year. In this time, Tony's collegiate aspirations and interracial relationship put him at odds with his father. Seeing unrealized goals reincarnated in the eyes of his eldest son harshly remind Lionel of what could have been, and what went tragically wrong. Tony's brother is entangled in gang culture; the chastity of their sister is tested; and their mother shoulders the load of marriage to a man drowning his disappointment one drink at a time. When things fall apart, their last hope is that the blood they share will be strong enough to hold them together.