This collection of essays captivated me as the short memoir stories were poignant and relevant to current social justice issues. The writing was articulate, easy to understand and digest. Cole Brown provides an articulate into his life as the "token" black kid growing up in wealth and the impact it has on hist life. In doing this, Cole Brown is able to engross the reader in a coming of age story that is not to be missed - I encourage others who are interested in exploring racial inequalities to read Greyboy.

I enjoyed this. A unique perspective into what is probably a somewhat common situation which I had not thought through until picking up this book. I enjoy books that give a perspective I hadn't considered and make me thing, sometime uncomfortably think about what I may have believed and taken for granted which turn out to be not what I thought.
Any book that makes me think like this is a win in my eyes.

In Greyboy, we glimpse vignettes of Brown's life thus far. We learn through Cole's eyes what it felt like to be tokenized since boyhood, othered by white classmates while also being made to feel not Black enough, and what moving through today's world as a Black boy and eventually, a Black man entails. I really appreciated that Cole not only wrote from his perspective, but also shared his friends' stories and their relationships with Blackness. The most touching pieces in the book were whenever Cole discussed his family members and the impact they've had on him.

I did find the writing somewhat inconsistent, and at times frustratingly so. I didn't quite jive with Brown's writing style in general in many places, but I still enjoyed his stories and especially his dry wit.

This book was an interesting read!

I am fortunate to not understand the troubles that black people go through and so reading this book really opened my eyes. It was unlike anything I'd read before and to be done in a short essay format really worked.

“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.

In this collection of essays, Cole Brown writes about his experience as a "token," or a Black person who, due to class privilege, ran in largely white circles. At this intersection, he makes nuanced observations and reflects both deeply and beautifully about what his identity means to both him and to others. I was taken aback to find that Brown is quite young because he writes with such a sage voice, but it makes sense in hindsight because the youth are really killing it right now with their activism and truth-telling and so much more. I sincerely hope to hear more from Brown and suspect we will as more and more people recognize what greatness he has to offer.

"Greyboy" by Cole Brown is a series of essays about the author's experience growing up as one of the limited number of black people in a majority white environment. Brown's experience as a "token" (his words) range from being one of the only black people vacationing on an island to his experiences at largely white private schools. This book is prescient in that the schools where Cole attended are now being spotlighted for fostering environments where unchecked racism and sexual harassment by other students and staff on various Instagram profiles. "Greyboy" also highlights that regardless of opportunities and privilege, our society's toxically racist culture combined with the experiences of being an adolescent needs to be changed. This is a great read.

Greyboy is a series of essays by a self-proclaimed token black man about finding his place in the world. The writing was beautifully eloquent, the anecdotes heartbreaking. I appreciated a "token person's" view of tokenism and the discussion it led the author to have about being the only in a room almost your whole life thus far. This is is the second book I finished today that addressed the 2016 presidential election through the lens of the marginalized. Such a perspective always hammers home the point for me that America is a messed up place, especially right now, and that people are hurting deeply because of it.

As people flesh out their anti-racist reading lists to continue their lifelong journeys, I would highly recommend this read. This is the second essay collection I've read this year about blackness in America, but this one comes from a very different perspective. I think such diversity within commonality is extremely important for people to grasp. I also think it is more impactful to read and comprehend these true stories of other humans, as opposed to fictionalized accounts, although there are certainly other benefits to diverse and own voices fiction. These essays might also help some people reach their own conclusions outside of reading self-improvement works on the topic, although those types of reads should also continue to be prioritized.

On the whole, I found this to be a heart-wrenching, heart-warming read. It's hard to put my finger on why this is not five stars for me, except that the writing style took quite a bit of getting used to (reading sections out loud seemed to help with this) and that some of the essays seemed repetitive (though this could help hammer home the point for some).