
Long Way Down
by Jason Reynolds
His brother was shot. He has a gun. The elevator goes down.
For you if
you want to understand how cycles of violence actually work — the logic inside them that makes them feel like the only option
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
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Will is fifteen. His brother Shawn was shot last night. The Rules say: no crying, no snitching, get revenge. Will gets in the elevator with Shawn's gun. In sixty seconds — the elevator ride — the novel takes place. Each floor, a ghost boards: people killed by the same gun, the same Rules, the same cycle. Reynolds tells this entirely in verse, which gives each word the weight of a heartbeat. The most formally perfect YA novel about gun violence ever written — not a lecture, not a lesson, a sixty-second descent that asks one question: what happens when you reach the bottom?
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- North America
- Voice
- Written by a North America author
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