Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

7th - 12th grade selection - Printz Honor Book category - Young Adult

Genre

Young Adult Fiction

Novel in Verse

Target Age Group

Ages 14+

7th - 12th grade

Lexile Level: 720 according to Novel List (EBSCO, 2017)

Summary

Grief isn’t an easy time to walk through. After the loss of his brother, Will encounters lost loved ones in the elevator down, as he makes his way to exact revenge on the one who took his brother.

Justification

My local public library has this novel cataloged and shelved as Young Adult Fiction and will appear when searching “novel in verse”. Long Way Down was recommended to me by our Youth Librarian who works regularly with our local children and is adamant about young people reading (Tulsa City-County Library, n.d). Long Way Down has also received several honors including a Printz Award nomination making this a Printz Honor Book, a Newbery Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book, American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, is a Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Best Fiction for Young Adults and the YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. (EBSCOhost, 2017)

Evaluation

For this review, I will be evaluating pacing, design and layout, and style and language.

Jason Reynolds tells the bulk of Long Way Down in the span of a minute. Will gets on to the elevator around 9:08 am (p. 74), and the elevator stops at the bottom floor at 9:09 am (p. 304). What happened in those 240 pages in between? The author sets the pace of this story relying heavily on Will’s anxiety, the sense of “everything around me is moving super slow so why am I careening towards falling apart”, in other words - the fight or flight response. Will has until the opening of the elevator doors on the main floor to come to a conclusion. The reader gets a sense of mounting tension at the turn of every page, and it drives them forward. The pace set is one of rapid unease, you need to keep reading to quell the anxiety. This narrative is meant to be fast-paced, to feel the true sense of Will’s inner turmoil at the sudden and violent loss of his brother, and the compulsion to honor the rules of the neighborhood.

If I am being honest, if I had picked this book from the shelf based on the title alone, flipped to the middle of the book, and looked at how the words were printed on the page, I probably would not have checked it out. Most pages are formatted as traditional lines of poetry, but there are several instances where the lines of poetry are scattered across the page and I found it distracting. The pages themselves are printed with pencil-like markings which do occasionally get in the way of the text. There is no color to this book, the cover, the pages, and even the author's photo at the end of the book are all in black and white. This a very dark book in appearance, but this creative design choice speaks to the dark and heavy subject matter of the narrative.

Jason Reynolds writes narratives for his target audience. He writes for young people who come from marginalized areas, and whose voices aren’t heard, whose experiences aren’t commonplace to the rest of us. His language used in Long Way Down is regional, peppered with dialectal differences and vernacular, but it speaks volumes to the readers who come from rougher areas. Will’s story and actions are propelled by the “rules” of the neighborhood, it’s why the people from his past are visiting. I do not connect to these rules, but that doesn’t mean that the rules aren’t important, or that another reader won’t connect to them. Jason Reynolds’ goal is to make people feel seen and understood. His choice to use language and style that is familiar to his target audience makes his words more meaningful to all readers despite which neighborhood they come from. While he may not be writing for me, his words let me into a world I do not know and allowed me to see through someone else’s eyes.

I had a hard time seeing past the formatting of this book at first. I found it difficult to follow and frustrating to keep track of. Once I was able to see through the design and layout, I enjoyed the narrative. I did give Long Way Down 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, the narrative felt incomplete without a conclusive ending, but I believe that the incomplete ending gives readers the chance to create their own interpretations. From an analytical standpoint, this novel is a great read and I believe that many young readers will enjoy it, especially in today’s society.

 

References and other Helpful Resources

EBSCOhost. (2017). Long Way Down. NoveList Plus. https://search-ebscohost-com.db.tulsalibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=neh&tg=UI&an=10576236&site=novp-live

Goodreads. (n.d.) Long Way Down. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22552026-long-way-down?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12

Reynolds, J. (2017). Long Way Down. Atheneum.

Tulsa City-County Library. (n.d.) Long way down. Catalog. https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S63C3776929