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Long Way Down

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Long Way Down

By: Jason Reynolds
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2019

And then there were shots....

Everybody ran, ducked, hid, tucked themselves tight. Pressed our lips to the pavement and prayed the boom, followed by the buzz of a bullet, didn't meet us.

After Will's brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don't cry. Don't snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn's gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will's friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that.

As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he's doing. This haunting, lyrical, powerful verse novel will blow you away.

©2019 Jason Reynolds (P)2017 Audible, Ltd Difficult Situations Literature & Fiction Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Thrillers & Suspense
All stars
Most relevant
Just a brilliant brilliant short novel in verse. It’s full of such pain and sorrow, but also so much love and beauty. Narration perfect. I couldn’t stop listening. Such urgency, such claustrophobic clarity of it, and the shattered fragments of narration. Wow, what a discovery.

Explosive and poetic

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A beautifully written and performed piece, which is intense and claustrophobic. Something for everyone that has experienced a traumatic loss.

A moment in time

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Jason Reynold's words hit like bullets. For a novel in verse, I prefer to hear rather than read, especially if it's the author doing the narration. In a quick hour-and-half, Reynolds has managed to tell the story of a family eaten by violence, believing at each step, that the answer was more violence. I have laughed and cried in the same line. Everyone needs to hear this. Truly, truly great.

Art.

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This is such a powerful and important story told in an accessible poem performed brilliantly by the author. He freezes a point in time to explore the monumental decision faced by a grieving young boy and does so with humour, pace and lack of judgement. The result is both entertaining and hard-hitting…… as Jason himself describes it, it’s Boyz in the Hood meets A Christmas Carol.

Do listen to the end to hear the short interview with Jason Reynolds

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