Long Way Down is a novel in verse written by Jason Reynolds. The audiobook is also narrated by the author. It is about a boy named Will whose brother has been shot and killed in his neighborhood. In his world, there are three rules and one of them is revenge. Most of the story happens while he takes the elevator down from his apartment to seek revenge and has an unexpected ending.
This novel uses repetition, sound, figurative language, and emotional impact to draw the reader in and to keep reading. The words bring the reader into the feelings of Will to help the reader understand the world that he lives in. As a white woman who has only lived in suburbs, I would never fully understand the life that Will lives in a city. This gives others that are in his situation a window into his world and those that are a mirror to show they are not alone. Windows show another world that is different from the reader and mirrors show a world that the reader has experienced.
There are no illustrations in the book, however, the pages have markings on them as a background. It seems to match the same markings on the elevator, which is an image of the buttons in the elevator and the shiny metal of the elevator. As Will goes down and another level opens there are pages that mark the floors that are darker with the floor number and the background is the elevator buttons. The pages keep the theme that Will is slowly going down the elevator and how he describes it as a “vertical coffin” (Reynolds 2017). The words on the page are not in the typical placement of a novel. They show up in different placements on the page such as the middle or in the bottom corner of the page. The words are also used to create shapes such as “why” in a question mark and “down” in a downward arrow.
I WANT OUT (excerpt)
The door opened slowly,
the cloud of smoke
rushing out of the elevator,
rushing out of me
like an angry wave.
I caught my breath as
Buck,
Dani,
Uncle Mark,
Pop,
Frick,
and
Shawn
chased behind it.
The L button
no longer lit.
(Reynolds 2017)
The ending was unexpected and ended with the question “you coming?” (Reynolds 2017). This story is filled with tough themes but would create some great discussion with teen readers. I would use this choice of verse novel in a book club for teens. It would also be great as a discussion in an English class about different types of poetry. If used in a book club, I would ask them to read the story prior to the meeting and then create the activity around the discussion. I would ask questions such as “what would you choose in the end” and “what do you think Will did in the end”. I would also ask questions about the “rules” such as “what do you think of the rules” and “would you follow the rules”. The narrative is cyclical in nature and is very thought-provoking. It would be good to discuss how history can repeat itself and what their thoughts were not only for the story but do they see it in their worlds as well.
References:
Reynolds, Jason. 2017. Long Way Down. New York: Atheneum.
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