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Long Way Down

I received a galley of this book from NetGalley. The hardcover edition is to be released on October 24, 2017.

From Amazon:

An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

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.


What did I love about this book?

•  Jason Reynolds's prose. Who can deliver free verse with such meaning?
•  I love the cover of this book. Although I read it as an ebook from NetGalley I love the look of the black and white cover displaying old-style round elevator buttons against a scratched and soiled wall.
•  I love the pages that appear to be the scuffed paint of the elevator walls.
•  I love the sparsity of words on the page.
•  I love the chapters told as a trip in the elevator.
•  I love the ending!

Who can turn your thinking around in 200 pages the way Jason Reynolds can?
Will's brother Shawn was murdered and Will believes he must avenge the death. Like all of Jason Reynolds' novels, the characters are wonderful and the story is never simple.

The novel is longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

I will buy this book so I can read it again in hard copy.