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Jason Reynolds
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Long Way Down Paperback – April 2, 2019

by Jason Reynolds (Author)
#1 Best Seller in Teen & Young Adult Ghost Stories
See all formats and editions
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  1. Los Angeles Times Book PrizeWinner, 2017
  2. Edgar AwardWinner, 2018
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“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A Newbery Honor Book
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
A Printz Honor Book
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award
An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction
Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner
An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017
A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017
A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017

An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying 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 hammer
A tool
for 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.
Previous page
  1. Reading age
    12 years and up
  2. Print length
    336 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Grade level
    7 - 9
  5. Lexile measure
    HL720L
  6. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  7. Publication date
    April 2, 2019
  8. ISBN-10
    1481438263
  9. ISBN-13
    978-1481438261
  10. See all details
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Popular Highlights in this book
What are popular highlights?
Previous page
  1. ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES They weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.
    Highlighted by 1,032 Kindle readers
  2. AND YOU KNOW it’s weird to know a person you don’t know and at the same time not know a person you know, you know?
    Highlighted by 487 Kindle readers
  3. IN CASE YOU AIN’T KNOW, gunshots make everybody deaf and blind especially when they make somebody dead.
    Highlighted by 459 Kindle readers
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From the Publisher

Jason Reynolds Teen

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Long Way Down DON’T NOBODY
believe nothing

these days

which is why I haven’t

told nobody the story

I’m about to tell you.

And truth is,

you probably ain’t

gon’ believe it either

gon’ think I’m lying

or I’m losing it,

but I’m telling you,

this story is true.

It happened to me.

Really.

It did.

It so did.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books; Reprint edition (April 2, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1481438263
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1481438261
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 years and up
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ HL720L
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

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Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

The first name bits:

What Jason knows is that there are a lot — A LOT — of people, young, old, and in-between, who hate reading. He knows that many of these book haters are boys. He knows that many of these book-hating boys, don't actually hate books, they hate boredom. If you are reading this, and you happen to be one of these boys, first of all, you're reading this Jason's master plan is already working (muahahahahahaha) and second of all, know that Jason totally feels you. He REALLY does. Because even though he's a writer, he hates reading boring books too.

So here's what he plans to do: NOT WRITE BORING BOOKS.

That's it, and that's all.

Now, for the last name bits:

Jason Reynolds is an award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. Jason’s many books include Miles Morales: Spider Man, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Correta Scott King Honor, and Look Both Ways, which was a National Book Award Finalist. His latest book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, is a collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Recently named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and CBS This Morning. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
7,513 global ratings
The cover was poorly attached to spine
3 Stars
The cover was poorly attached to spine
The book was not in good condition when delivered. Opened the cover and as you can see, the cover is barely hanging on. This book was supposed to be from my brother as a gift now I have to purchase super glue because the publisher don’t know how to properly put a book together
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Top reviews from the United States

AKCunningham
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2024
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I read this in school with my students. They love the story, and it's great for teaching poetry. They can understand the poetic devices better since they can understand the poems.
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Jacob Hasson
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2024
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This book is a must read, a beautifully told story. I finished it so quickly, and want to reread it already. Wonderful!
One person found this helpful
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NK
5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING BOOK
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2024
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I read this for school, and it is by far one of the greatest books I've ever read. Totally not boring and there's so many words and details on each page. I loved the unique formatting of this book! #blacklivesmatter
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Destiny B.
4.0 out of 5 stars ” I’ve always loved stories written in verse
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2018
Verified Purchase
“ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES:
They weren't meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken to follow.”

I’ve always loved stories written in verse, so when I heard about this own-voice tale of the struggles that toxic masculinity and systemic racism place upon young black men, I was immediately interested. I wanted to focus on supporting as many new-to-me black authors as possible in February, and Jason Reynolds was at the very top of my list. This man has a writing voice that absolutely needs to be heard.

“But if the blood inside you is on the inside of someone else,
you never want to see it on the outside of them.”

Will’s words are so haunting and broken; he’s lost his big brother, his hero, and now all he wants is to follow the rules – the rules that he’s been taught his whole life. The rules that say the only fair response to the wrongful death of a loved one… is revenge. Will knows his mission is probably going to leave him in the same state as his brother, but it’s all he’s equipped to do. It’s such a powerful metaphor for toxic masculinity and the ways in which it prevents boys and men from knowing how to cope with trauma in meaningful, productive ways – not through their own faults, but because they’re never been shown a better way.

“Just remember, when
you're walking in the nighttime,
make sure the nighttime
ain't walking into you.”

My only complaint about this incredible little book, and the reason that I only gave it 4 stars, is that it was so short that it was incredibly difficult to connect to the story or characters. While the events were hard to stomach, things moved so quickly and with so little development or preamble that, by the time I felt attached to Will or his pain, I was turning the last few pages. I would’ve loved to have seen this story fleshed out a bit more; most of the pages have only 10-20 words printed on them, and I just think that, had this been written like most verse novels, where there was a solid paragraph or two per page, it would’ve carried the impact across so much better and would have meant that much more. That said, I still absolutely loved this book and cannot wait to see what Jason Reynolds releases next.
One person found this helpful
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Good is good
5.0 out of 5 stars This is genius
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2024
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I would have treasured this book when I was young. It would be incredibly powerful and meaningful to any struggling teen.
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Suad
5.0 out of 5 stars Must. Read.
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2017
Verified Purchase
There is no fitting way that I can think of to describe a book of this caliber. I cannot even admit that I have completely understood the full magnitude that this story carries.

Long Way Down takes place in a span of one minute.

Sixty seconds.

It is set in an elevator, in which a young, angry boy gets on and begins his long journey down.

7
6
5
4
3
2
1

A moment.
An instant. That is all it takes. An elevator ride down, seven floors.

In one minute, Jason Reynolds changes your perception of everything.
In that one minute, you are blindsided.
In that one minute, he leaves you reeling.

In a single minute, the book outlines the life of this young man, Will, the day after his brother, Shawn, was found shot dead. Will knows the rules. He lives by the rules.

1. You don’t cry
2. You don’t snitch
3. You seek revenge

Will is absolutely certain he knows the man behind the murder, and he is out for vengeance. After a long sleepless night, he wakes up knowing exactly how his day is going to go. He finds his brother’s gun and leaves the house with the intention of going after the person responsible for his brother’s death. He steps onto the elevator, but it keeps stopping at every floor, forcing Will to confront his fears, his doubts and most importantly, his beliefs.

Long Way Down is written in verse-form, and although this style is usually not my preferred style, Jason Reynolds set a completely new standard with his writing, eloquence and articulation. He manages to deliver clear, distinct and important messages with just a few words. In fact, the book will not take you more than 30 minutes to read, but the impact left afterwards is powerful and long lasting. In an interview I read, Jason Reynolds says:

“I need my young brothers who are living in these environments, and the kids who are not living in these environments to have no excuses not to read the book. The truth of the matter is that I recognize that I write prose, and I love prose, and I want everybody to read prose, but I would never, sort of, deny the fact that like, literacy in America is not the highest, especially amongst young men, and especially amongst young men of color. It's something that we've all been working very hard on, and my job is not to critique or judge that. My job is to do something to help that, and to know you can finish this in 45 minutes means the world to me, so that we can get more young people reading it and thinking and then having discussions on what this book is actually about.”

He also explains that he set the story in an elevator, because he wanted to mimic the feelings of anger, pain and helplessness. To him, these feel claustrophobic, like you are wound up tight.

“It feels like tightness and coldness, steel, jagged movements and vertigo. All the things that an elevator brings, is what it feels like to be that angry.”

One of the reasons Reynolds was able to convey these feelings so accurately was because of his own past experiences struggling with those same feelings of anger and pain when his best friend was killed, and his first impulse was to end the life of the person responsible. He also wanted to change the perception that people who commit these crimes are fearless or without emotion.

“The truth is that everyone who has ever been around anyone who has been in these environments knows that the people who pull the triggers are terrified.”

Long Way Down really pushes boundaries, questions your thoughts and beliefs and does not shy away from treading on important topics, such as race and gun violence. Getting a glimpse, albeit a very brief one, of Reynolds’ way of thinking makes you look at things differently and go, “Ahh, yes. I see now.”
146 people found this helpful
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Nicki Six
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
We homeschool and I ordered this for our 9th grader’s reading assignments. Although it’s untraditional and unorthodox to assign this type of book, the content kept him engaged. I also read the book to generate quizzes and tests and I would recommend it to anyone homeschooling a high schooler. The content does have violence and foul language, just a side note.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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jm1632
5.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in Canada on April 24, 2023
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Good
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Best poetry book I've ever read
Reviewed in Brazil on March 8, 2022
Verified Purchase
This is perfection, everything is extremely well done from the narrative to the page design, after reading this you will definitely see some changes in your point of view when it comes to the discussions brought up by the author.
As expected 10/10 would recommend
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DG
5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimo
Reviewed in Italy on April 6, 2024
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Ottimo
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Customer X
5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading experience
Reviewed in Germany on November 13, 2021
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Loved the language and the story, the author found a fresh and appealing way of dealing with the topic of youth violence
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Cheerioh
4.0 out of 5 stars l'histoire est forte, la poésie la porte parfois mais elle manque de rythme
Reviewed in France on August 3, 2021
Verified Purchase
J'ai du mal avec la poésie sans rythme. Ici la forme soutient parfois la pensée mais c'est très artificiel. Par exemple si je prenais mon commentaire et que je le détachais en vers, ça donnerait pareil et ça n'a pas toujours grand intérêt.

L'histoire par contre est plus intéressante. On suit notre protagoniste, dans sa tête, qui souhaite venger la mort de son frère, tué par balle dans contexte de règlement de compte entre gangs de rue. Il suit les Règles comme son frère, comme son père. Il prend l'ascenseur et à chaque étage, quelqu'un rentre.

L'occasion est ici donnée d'explorer ces règles de la rue, la transmission, la vengeance...

Apparemment l'histoire n'avait pas été conçue sous forme poétique. Pourquoi pas. En tout cas on le sent bien. Parfois ça fonctionne et d'autres fois pas. Pas à voix haute en tout cas. C'est un peu le défaut du récit.

J'ai quand même bien aimé globalement, le personnage est sympathique et on espère qu'il fera le bon choix.
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