Book Review: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

 Long Way Down
By Jason Reynolds 

Book Cover: 

 

Category: Novel in Verse

Target Age:12+

Format: Audiobook

Summary: Will’s brother, Shawn, was shot and killed. Now Will is following his rules: no crying, no snitching, revenge. Will takes his brother's gun and heads to the elevator intent on following through with rule 3. During the 60 second elevator ride on his way to get revenge, someone gets on at every floor connected to Shawn and reveals a part of the story that led to Shawn's death that may just change Will's mind on how he plans to retaliate. 

Justification:This novel is the winner of the National Book Award, Printz Honor, Coretta Scott King Honor, and Newbery Medal Honor awards. 

Review: This review will examine the effect of writing in verse, the plot, the overall message and how listening to the audiobook impacted my experience of this book.

The entire novel is written in verse. The staccato poetry adds a sense of tension that writing in prose may not have pulled off. The book takes place over the course of a 60 second elevator ride and the poetry flows at such a quick pace that the short time frame of these interactions are believable.

The main character, Will, is a young black teen. He lives by a set of rules that furthers the cycle of gun violence. 1. No crying, 2. No snitching and 3. Revenge. Rule three propels him into wanting to find the person who shot his brother and kill him. On his elevator ride, he encounters a new supporting character on each floor. Each of them shares part of their story with him, how they are connected to Shawn and their own experience with gun violence. Each character pushes the plot forward and engages the reader to race forward to find out how these new encounters are going to impact our main character. 

The overall message shows the downfall  of revenge and how following these street rules just perpetuates violence and death. The reader goes on this journey with our main character and invokes the reader to think about what they would do in Will's situation. Spoiler Alert- the novel ends on a cliffhanger. I'd love to hear how you think Will moves forward... what would you do?

I am not a huge fan of reading poetry. The way authors put the words on the page is frustrating and can make it difficult to read. Therefore, I opted to listen to this book in audiobook format. This book is narrated by the author. So going into it, I knew that the breaths and the beats would come across as intended and not as someone's interpretation. Listening to the poetry flow like a song from the author's own voice was breathtaking. It felt more impactful to hear the words rather than to try and decipher how the author wanted us to read them.

Overall I give this book at 4.5 out of 5 stars. I am stingy with my 5 stars but this book was very impactful and beautifully written.

Resources 

Reynolds, J. ( 2017). Long way down (J. Reynolds, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Simon & Schuster Audio.