Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds

• Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781481438278

"An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger." — Booklist (starred review)
"Astonishing." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A tour de force." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
A Printz Honor Book
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award
An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction
Parents' Choice Gold Award Winner
An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017
A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017
A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds's electrifying 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 RULEOr, 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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• 1. Don’t Nobody
• 2. My Name Is
• 3. I’m Only William
• 4. I Don’t Know You
• 5. The Sadness
• 6. It’s so Hard to Say
• 7. The Day before Yesterday
• 8. And Then There Were Shots
• 9. After the Shots
• 10. I’ve Never Been
• 11. No. 1: Screaming
• 12. And My Mom
• 13. No. 2: Sirens
• 14. No. 3: Questions
• 15. In Case You Ain’t Know
• 16. I’m Not Sure
• 17. When Bad things Happen
• 18. I Stood There
• 19. Random Thought
• 20. In His Hand
• 21. In That Bag
• 22. Maybe There’s Something Invisible
• 23. Beef
• 24. Then the Yellow Tape
• 25. Back on the Eighth Floor
• 26. I Felt Like Crying
• 27. No. 1: Crying
• 28. No. 2: Snitching
• 29. No. 3: Revenge
• 30. The Invention of the Rules
• 31. Another Thing About the Rules
• 32. Our Bedroom: A Square, Yellowy Paint
• 33. Anagram
• 34. The Middle Drawer
• 35. I Won’t Pretend that Shawn
• 36. My Mother Used to Say
• 37. So Usually
• 38. But I Never Touched Nothing
• 39. It Used to be Different
• 40. And When I Was Thirteen
• 41. Shawn Thought That
• 42. Now the Cologne
• 43. Suddenly
• 44. The Middle Drawer Called to me
• 45. Nickname
• 46. Which Brings Me to Carlson Riggs
• 47. People Said Riggs
• 48. Riggs and Shawn Were So-Called Friends, But
• 49. A Penny Drop
• 50. No. 1: Turf
• 51. No. 1.1: Survival Tactics (made plain)
• 52. No. 2: Crime Shows
• 53. No. 3: . .
• 54. I Had Never Held a Gun
• 55. A Noise from the Hallway
• 56. Sleep
• 57. I Woke Up
• 58. But I also Felt Guilty
• 59. I Wrapped My Fingers
• 60. In the Bathroom
• 61. I Stuck the Cannon
• 62. The Plan
• 63. In the Kitchen
• 64. The Yellow Light
• 65. At the Elevator
• 66. There’s a Strange Thing
• 67. A Guy Got On
• 68. L Stood for “Loser”
• 69. It’s Uncomfortable
• 70. I’ve Seen Girls
• 71. Do I Know You?
• 72. My Stomach Jumped
• 73. I Rubbed my Eyes
• 74. Yeah
• 75. I Did All the Wake-Up Tricks
• 76. I Know What You Thinkin’
• 77. But No Need to Be Afraid
• 78. I Take it Back
• 79. Anagram No. 1
• 80. Catching My Breath, I Asked
• 81. My Response
• 82. I Put My Hand Behind My Back
• 83. Thought About Moving It
• 84. I Remember
• 85. And I’m Glad I Found It
• 86. The Elevator Rumbled
• 87. Maybe He Didn’t Hear Me
• 88. Relax?!
• 89. Buck Laughed, And
• 90. You Got Work to Do?
• 91. He Asked Me
• 92. Give It to Me
• 93. He Held the Gun Out
• 94. Buck Finally Let Go
• 95. I Had Half a Second
• 96. A Girl Stepped In
• 97. She Checked to Make Sure
• 98. I Didn’t Know
• 99. She Could See
• 100. At This Point
• 101. I Joined In
• 102. She Brushed Her Hand Against Mine
• 103. But There Was a Ghost in the Elevator
• 104. Plus
• 105. She Asked
• 106. The Next Exchange was a Simple One
• 107. But Then
• 108. I Won’t Front
• 109. From Where?
• 110. Very Funny
• 111. She Opened Her Purse
• 112. Me and My Friend Dani
• 113. You Remember This?
• 114. My Eyes Got Big
• 115. Yeah, I Remember
• 116. Gunshots
• 117. And Now I Wanna Throw Up
• 118. I Told Dani
• 119. I Swear Sometimes
• 120. When They Said
• 121. The Way I Felt
• 122. Anagram No. 2
• 123. It’s Cool
• 124. What You Need
• 125. My Face
• 126. Dani Was Killed
• 127. Then Dani Asked
• 128. But
• 129. Dani Was Disappointed
• 130. I Looked Back at Buck
• 131. Buck Offered
• 132. The Elevator
• 133. Cigarette Smoke
• 134. I Fanned and Coughed
• 135. I Took a Step Back
• 136. Two Large Hands
• 137. Then in One Swift Motion
• 138. I Could Hear Laughing
• 139. When I Was Finally Let Up
• 140. What the Hell?
• 141. What You Reachin’ For
• 142. There Are
• 143. Uncle Mark?
• 144. No. 1
• 145. Casting of the Worst, Stupidest Movie Ever
• 146. Uncle Mark Pulled Me In
• 147. And You Know
• 148. Why You Here?
• 149. With His Hand
• 150. A Better Question
• 151. Random Thought No. 2
• 152. Anagram No. 3
• 153. What You Mean?
• 154. What Do I Mean?
• 155. Okay, Okay
• 156. But to Explain Myself
• 157. Uncle Mark Huffed
• 158. Uncle Mark Squeezed His Lips
• 159. The Scene
• 160. I Got Stuck
• 161. But He Didn’t (the scene, continued)
• 162. My Mouth
• 163. The Scene (completed)
• 164. For the Record
• 165. Story No. 2 About Uncle Mark
• 166. His Plan
• 167. I’m Sure
• 168. He Held That Corner
• 169. That Guy Took the Corner
• 170. Uncle Mark Should’ve
• 171. Anagram No. 4
• 172. Random Thought No. 3
• 173. So Anyway, After I Said It
• 174. Meanwhile
• 175. And What Happens Next in This Movie?
• 176. This Time
• 177. And There He Was
• 178. My Pop
• 179. Is it Possible
• 180. Pop Pulled Away
• 181. I Have No Memories
• 182. A Broken Heart
• 183. But That’s Not What Shawn Said
• 184. I Always Used to Ask
• 185. Hi, Will
• 186. How You Been?
• 187. I Wanted to Unload
• 188. I Already Know
• 189. I Wiped My Face
• 190. What You Think You Should Do?
• 191. Pop Gave Uncle Mark
• 192. When Mark Was Shot
• 193. That Something
• 194. Pop Said
• 195. When I Got Home
• 196. But You Did What You Had to Do
• 197. Uncle Mark and My Father
• 198. You Ain’t Kill Gee?
• 199. I Leaned
• 200. Random Thought No. 4
• 201. Then Pop Made the First Move
• 202. And That’s When It Happened
• 203. I Freaked Out
• 204. I Called Out
• 205. Pop Stood Over Me
• 206. You Would Think
• 207. My Stomach
• 208. A Warm Sensation
• 209. Then Pop Uncocked the Gun
• 210. I Screamed
• 211. And Like Old Times
• 212. A Stranger
• 213. So I Figured
• 214. The Thick Pale Dude
• 215. The Man Turned Around
• 216. This Is
• 217. Before Frick Could Answer
• 218. How Do I Know Him?
• 219. Wait
• 220. You Heard Me Right
• 221. Buck’s Real Name
• 222. Buck Was Two-Sided
• 223. People Always Said
• 224. But He Didn’t Start That Way
• 225. Back to Frick
• 226. He Never Really Talked About It
• 227. Shawn Ain’t Say Nothing
• 228. Well, Let Me Tell You
• 229. A Dumb Thing to Say
• 230. I’m Not Sure What His Name Is
• 231. While He’s Going on About this Dude
• 232. So Because Shawn Was
• 233. How to Become a Dark Sun
• 234. I Was Assigned
• 235. Gangstas
• 236. Frick Said
• 237. Buck Said
• 238. Whatever, Man
• 239. Buck Bent
• 240. Again
• 241. Actually
• 242. Took Me Out
• 243. Frick Yanked His Collar Down
• 244. When the Joke Was Over
• 245. Tony Talking
• 246. Now Let Me Ask You
• 247. Anagram No. 5
• 248. Frick Looked
• 249. Frick Had
• 250. When the Elevator Door Opened
• 251. Come On
• 252. Uncle Mark Chuckled
• 253. Finally
• 254. Him
• 255. Everybody
• 256. All
• 257. When We Were Kids
• 258. I Looked at Shawn
• 259. I Stepped Toward Him
• 260. I Asked Him
• 261. I Told Him
• 262. Explained
• 263. Confessed
• 264. The Rules Are the Rules
• 265. I Was Breaking Down
• 266. I Looked Back at Shawn
• 267. And Even Though
• 268. And There Was a Sound
• 269. Random Thought No. 5
• 270. There Was a Moment
• 271. I Looked Around
• 272. I Want Out
• You Coming?
• Acknowledgments
• Reading Group Guide
• ‘All American Boys’ Teaser
• About the Author
• Copyright