Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 5, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):
"You coming?"
"Is it possible for a hug to peel back skin of time, the toughened and raw bits, the irritated and irritating dry spots, the parts that bleed?'

Review:
I'm sitting here with that uncomfortable feeling that you get when you want to cry, but you don't or maybe can't? Like something is sitting on your chest that you are not sure how to get rid of without a good ugly cry to relieve the tension but it won't come. I think I need more time with this book. I think I need to sit with it for a moment and try to process. What I really need is someone to talk to about it, but I'm going to attempt a review anyway. The book is about the cycle of gun violence in the narrator's life. The story unfolds as an elevator sinks down to each floor. The vast majority of the book, about 250 of the 306 pages, takes place over 1 minute 7 seconds.

The cover of my copy is riddled with medals: Newbury Honor, Coretta Scott King, Michael Printz, and the Walter Dean Myers Awards... all incredibly well-deserved. It's a novel-in-verse and can be read in one sitting, though it took me three. This is the first of Jason Reynolds' books that I've read and I knew very little about it when I picked it up. After I finished I read an interview with Reynolds who was asked why he chose to write in verse and he responded, "I need my young brothers who are living in these environments, I need the kids who are not living in these environments to have no excuses not to read the book... 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 having discussion about what this book is actually about."

I don't want to give you any more information than that. Just read it.