Will, 15 years old, lives with his mom and older brother Shawn in a neighborhood that most would consider violent. Will and Shawn's dad was lost to gun violence. Their uncle was lost to gun violence. Shawn's "big brother," mentor, and role model was lost to gun violence. Will's friend in elementary school was lost to gun violence. It's a never-ending spiral of people lost to gun violence in this book.
Right from the start, Will witnesses another murder - his brother Shawn. There are three rules that have been passed down to men in the family from generation to generation.
- Don't cry.
- Don't snitch.
- Get revenge.
Will doesn't cry. He doesn't snitch. He decides to get revenge and so hops on the elevator from his apartment down to the lobby level, and it's a "long way down." In this short elevator ride, Will meets the people from his past who were gunned down. Each murder victim has his own story to tell, and it's up to Will to decide what he's going to do with his brother Shawn's killer.
Jason Reynolds does not preach to the reader that "killing is wrong." Instead, he takes a more subtle approach to get the reader thinking about guns, life, and revenge. The people from Will's past are honest and real and purposeful in what they share with Will - as long as Will ends up understanding their message.
Being a white female, I have heard many times from my white "friends" about how black men are killing black men and "it's their own fault," "good riddance," and "another bad black guy gone." The problem with that thinking is that there is so much more to those situations, and it's never a clear-cut issue. Yes, guns and murder are insanely wrong, but how do we as a society stop this senseless violence? It's up to all of us, and one way to do this is to share this book, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
Trust me. You will think about this book for days and weeks and maybe even months to come. You will want to share this book. You will want to talk about this book. Maybe it will even get you or someone you know to be a catalyst for changing this daily American tragedy . . .
Amazon blurb:
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.
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