Long Way Down

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

This is going to be an odd blog post. I recently saw Jason Reynolds speak, and I'm going to talk about that as well as this book.

First, I'll talk about the book. I read the book before I saw Jason Reynolds speak, so it kind of makes sense I talk about the book first. The book is also written in poems.

A kind of long amazon summary (but it's worth it, just stick with it; the inside cover of the book is much more succinct), "An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

A cannon. A strap.A piece. A biscuit.A burner. A heater.A chopper. A gat.A hammerA toolfor RULE
Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.
And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.
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." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

So, the book is written in poems, which I kind of loved. Normally, I don't leap towards books in that format, but this book came highly recommended. I think the poems really helped emphasize the story. It's a very tense situation, and I think the poems kind of drove the reader through it at an unrelenting pace, which matches the context of the story.

Before I get ahead of myself, the story is about Will. Will knows the 3 rules; no crying, no snitching, and revenge. Will's brother, Shawn, is shot when he was bringing skin ointment home to his mother. Shawn's girlfriend immediately tries to protect Shawn, but Will knows he's dead. He mourns, his mother mourns, his family and friends mourn, but Will is hell bent on revenge; the third rule.

He knows Shawn kept a gun in the middle drawer that didn't quite fit in the dresser right, he knows who killed Shawn, and he's going to follow the third rule, to get revenge. He enters the elevator, and as he starts descending from the 7th floor to the lobby, another ghost steps onto the elevator at each floor. 

That's enough summary. 

Something that stuck out to me a lot about this book, is the powerful imagery woven throughout the story. Even the middle drawer in the dresser that didn't quite fit, is kind of symbolic how violence shouldn't ever fit into a child's life. I also think the second ghost, Dani, is also symbolic of the moment Will lost his childhood innocence.

It's a powerful book because it establishes normals about Will's life that shouldn't be normal. He shouldn't know so many people lost to shoot outs in the street. He shouldn't have these three rules to operate by. He shouldn't have to live a life that is outfitted to survive, not to live.

NOW WE'RE GOING TO CHARGE FULL INTO SPOILER LAND. I'll make another big caps thing for when I talk about listening to Jason Reynolds speak, so you can skip ahead to that if you're curious.

At the end of the book, the last ghost Will sees is his brother Shawn.The last poem of the book is two words, "YOU COMING?" The pivotal moment of the book is asking if Will is going to follow through with rule 3 and actually seek revenge for his brother's death. Throughout the story we see how terrified Will is to shoot someone, he doesn't even really know how to use the gun. The ghosts kind of point out that if he kills the killer, he's only continuing the cycle of violence. Based on all of Will's other vivid emotions and kind of abject terror at killing someone, I'm going to argue that he chooses not to continue the cycle of violence, but it is choice that will haunt him for the rest of his life. I will say this book is definitely what I call a 'haunting' book. The story resonates on a deeper level, and I've been thinking about it even though I finished reading it three books or so ago. I suspect I'll think about it on and off for a while.

PEOPLE WHO WANTED NO SPOILERS BUT WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT JASON REYNOLDS TALK, NOW IS THE TIME TO COME BACK.

First, Jason Reynolds is a fantastic speaker. He had the audience actively engaged the entire time, and his speech was filled with passion. I kind of wish it was on Netflix. Anyways, he talked about his life and particular events that happened, but something really stuck out to me. Jason didn't read when he was going through school; it wasn't until college that he started reading. Then he went back and read everything. The biggest reason he chose not to read when he was younger, because none of those books were about him so to speak. He couldn't find a representation of himself within a story, so he didn't read the stories. It just really stuck with me. If you want to read more about Jason Reynolds, here's a link to the bio on his website: http://www.jasonwritesbooks.com/bio/

Happy reading!