A Thousand Lives Lived: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds // An Important Read For All of Society

Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds
Publication: October 24, 2017, by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Poetry
Pages: 320
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Rating:

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.

My Thoughts:

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds was an exhilarating, emotional read that really left a mark on me. It left a huge mark on me; it triggered sadness and emotions that I never knew existed. What must be also kept in mind is that it's written in verse, with miniature poems used as the form of writing and presenting the story of Shawn's. What I loved best about this story is its pacing, and the fact that I was able to finish reading it in about an hour and twenty minutes or so. Don't believe me? Go pick it up for yourself; it's unbelievable how quick its pacing is and how fast the entire story comes and ends.

The book focuses on a fifteen-year-old named Shawn and the aftermath of the shooting where his brother was killed. His character then spends the rest of the novel in an elevator, slowly making it towards the lobby/bottom floor as he meets people from his past, who have also died due to gun violence. It's really moving and touching, and a kind of story I will never forget. Especially in this time and age when these topics are popping up more and more in the media, it is important to read this kind of book. Even more importantly, it is necessary for teenagers to read these kinds of books.