They weren’t meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken

to follow.”

When Books on Tap met to discuss the novel in verse, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, one word came up again and again to describe the book – powerful!

Reynolds was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Oxen Hill, MD. Inspired by rap and hip hop, he began writing poetry at age 9, but didn’t read a novel cover-to-cover until he was 17. The book was inspired by an incident in his own life. When he was 19, a friend of his was murdered. He and his other friends gathered, planning to find out who had done it and take revenge. He wrote it for incarcerated teens, aware that he could easily have been in their position. Reynolds has stated that while he’s won lots of awards, they don’t mean as much to him as hearing a kid say they feel seen.

The entire story takes place in an elevator in the space of 67 seconds. Timestamps combined with a countdown of the floors frame the narrative as new characters enter the elevator on each floor. Each has a connection to Will’s past, all victims of gun violence. For some readers, it took a while to realize that these new characters are all dead. 

Most read the standard verse version of the book, though a couple listened to the audio and some read the graphic novel. There were different reactions to the audio book, which was narrated by Jason Reynholds. One found it very powerful. Another found the story didn’t work for them in that format, but when shown the text version, she was immediately drawn to it. Others who did not listen to the audio were curious how the time stamps and anagrams were handled in the audio version. 

Those who read the graphic novel version were impressed with the illustrations. But some felt that it lost the emotional impact of how Reynolds placed the words on the page. In the original version, at stressful moments, Reynolds spread the words out across the page, sometimes even onto the next page, forcing the reader to slow down and feel the tension. 

Readers noted that Will was a kid who wasn’t given to that kind of violence. But he felt he had to follow the rules of his community, a community where our rules don’t work for their lives. One person pointed out that something similar has been happening with shootings in Charlottesville.

One reader pointed out that the 67 seconds was a slice of life where he had to decide whether to join the others, ultimately in death, or to reconsider and live. Participants discussed the reasons for, and impact of, his father holding a gun to his head. Suggestions included generational trauma and to give him a more immediate sense of what it all really meant. Different characters highlighted different sides of the argument. Buck, his brother’s friend, challenges him by accusing Will of not having the guts to follow the rules. But then Dani, Will’s childhood friend enters. As one person noted, Dani represented the collateral damage of the shootings, having been killed by a stray bullet while the two were playing together. Will’s father also challenges his certainty of who killed his brother by admitting that he had actually killed the wrong person. 

Once the elevator reaches the bottom, the book ends with the question, “You coming?” leaving the reader to decide what they think Will chooses to do. Did he join the cycle or break it? Most of the group chose to believe that because he was around to tell the story, he must not have gone through with his plan for revenge, he must have lived. 

In the end, the group as a whole felt that the book sent a strong message and gave a glimpse of a world we wouldn’t normally see or know. Some commented that it was clear that Reynolds took his young readers seriously and they could understand why this story would resonate with them. This novel in verse was that rare book that almost everyone in the group liked.

Long Way Down has been banned due to its language and depictions of gun violence
‘I’ve been banned since the beginning’: Jason Reynolds talks to Joseph Coelho

Interesting interviews:

Radiotopia Presents the podcast: My Mother Made Me – a four-episode series where writer Jason Reynolds and his mother, Isabell, explore their shared history, how she raised him, and what they’re teaching each other.

Here’s the Jason Reynolds interview Lisa  listened to: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuXNsJvNaFs – he explains his reasons for writing the book the way he did.