Long Way Down
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“This novel[‘s] potency is increased by the narration of author Jason Reynolds…Reynolds excels at delivering dramatic pauses in the short poems, which are packed with sensory details and emotions that anchor listeners even as they stun with painful beauty…As if the raw poignancy isn’t enough, Reynolds’s rich voice transports listeners…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
AudioFile
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
A YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults selection
Winner of the Parents' Choice Gold Award
An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of 2017 for Young Adults
A 2017 Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year Pick for Young Adults
A Vulture.com Pick for Best YA Books of 2017
A 2018 Newbery Honor Book
A 2017 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature
A Coretta Scott King Award Honor Book
Winner of the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel
A BookRiot Pick of Best Audiobooks under Two Hours
A Printz Awards Honor Book
Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literature
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
A Printz Honor Book
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)
New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s “tour de force” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) novel in verse takes place in sixty potent seconds: the time it takes a kid to go down an elevator—and decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
Will’s older brother, Shawn, has been shot.
Dead.
Will feels a sadness so great, he can’t explain it. But in his neighborhood there are THE RULES:
No. 1: Crying.
Don’t.
No matter what.
No. 2: Snitching
Don’t.
No matter what.
No. 3: Revenge
Do.
No matter what.
So fifteen-year-old Will puts a gun in the waistband of his jeans and sets out to do just that. Avenge his brother. But when he gets on the elevator, it inexplicably stops on every floor, and each time, a different person—each connected to his brother—steps on. And each person gives Will a bigger piece of the story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator.
Not to mention that each person who gets on that elevator is…dead.
Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
Praise