Tyler Johnson Was Here - Jay Coles

Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): When Marvin Johnson's twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid.
The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it's up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

MY OPINION: ***

This book ranged from three to six stars at times and ultimately, I had to give in and rate it a pretty fair three stars.

This book dealt with a lot. It brought light to the BlackLivesMatter movement and the problems with police violence that have been swarming the world lately. It's about a teenage boy whose twin brother, Tyler, is unfairly murdered by a police officer.

I think that no matter how hard you try, you have to compare this book against The Hate U Give, if you've managed to pick up that wonderful book. No matter what. It's inevitable. And that's okay. I admire that so many different authors from different ages and genders are trying to shed light on the situation that is our modern world, as sad as that is to accept. I'm not saying that this book was the same thing as THUG but rather that they dealt with the same topic, but in my opinion, shed light on it in different ways.

Many parts of the book fell short for me. Maybe it's because I finished it in a day and didn't have the proper amount of time to imbibe everything and take everything in. But I felt like parts of it weren't living up to my pretty-high expectations.

To me, the characters were undeveloped. I didn't really get to know much about Marvin, other than that he wants to go to MIT to try to show the world that somebody "like him" can. His brother died and he's faced with this unexpected trauma that's honestly devastating and unimaginable. Marvin still has his gold, if any of you Outsiders fans get the reference. He still has that innocence and I think that through this book, we get to see him open his eyes and see the world for what it really is. However, I would have liked for the book to have gone deeper and delved farther into his character and his emotions and what he was feeling. I felt a broad idea that touched on the surface of his anxieties and fears and worries and heartbreak, etc, but I would have liked to have known deep down every single little thing he was feeling.

We don't get to know Tyler, mainly because he dies fairly early in the book. We do get to see that he had started to make some bad choices because of peer pressure and conforming with society and whatnot and that he had maybe unwillingly, maybe willingly joined a gang, though he hadn't done anything "bad" before his untimely death. We see that he has his own personal tragedies and personal angsty problems and I would have loved to have seen more of that before his death, or maybe even after his death from the characters left over. As misleading as the title is, Tyler is not the main character, so any number of characters could have elaborated on his personality and who he was as a person before and after he died.

Faith and Ivy and G-mo are more like friends who are there to support Marvin but aren't elaborated on and made into real characters. What were they feeling about everything that was going on? I think something that would have made the book amazing-er would have been a heart-to-heart with Marvin and his friends, maybe all at once, maybe one by one, maybe spread throughout the book at different times. But instead, we get some random steamy scene that felt out of place with Faith, and running from the cops and random basketball games with Ivy and G-mo.

A problem I had was that Marvin had the unnecessary need to point out every single white character in the book. At some points, it felt wrong or additional information that wasn't really needed. Yes, we get that this character has pale skin but does that really mean anything to who that person is? This is the exact same with the message of the book. Because somebody has black skin doesn't mean that they are bad or that they are a thug or whatnot. People shouldn't be grouped into bad and good based on the color of their skin.

The writing in this book was simplistic and yet strongly moving and passionate and powerful. I loved how it made light of some of the darkest times, making the book less I-want-to-cry-slash-maybe-die and instead made it more like I-feel-for-you-and-I-hope-you-are-okay.

"My gaze falls to the floor, and I watch blood pool around the poor boy's mouth, desolation in his eyes, and he's coughing and crying and choking and screaming and choking and crying and coughing and begging for this torture to just stop, until he falls silent, beaten unconscious." (107)

I really do not understand what this cop's problem was in this scene because it was completely unnecessary and unprovoked and didn't need to occur. It made me sad to think that this was real and something that occurs in the darkest parts of our world.

"Who do you even call when the cops are the ones being the bad guys? Who do you even beg to protect you?" (112)

Beautifully written and nicely worded, giving everyone a sense of the theme running in this book.

"...whispering things to the drops of rain as they trip on their tiny tails and splatter onto the earth, and I imagine that they know how it is to be black in America, to have a destiny of falling, to have a fate of dying on impact." (226)

I love this sentence so much. It's very beautiful and yet scarring and horrible at the same time.

I would recommend this book to readers looking for a book with strong characters fighting a strong movement and standing up for themselves.

Main Character: Marvin
Sidekick(s): Tyler, Faith, Ivy, G-mo, etc
Villain(s): Cops, misunderstanding, racism, etc

Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was all very real to life.