Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds’s electrifying Newbery, CSK, Printz honored novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes to go down an elevator; the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to kill 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.