Long Way Down cover

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

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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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