Fall 2021: Wild Readers Group 5 discussion

“The Long Way Down” by Jason Reynolds was a very interesting book. I have never read a book that was a series of poems before. I have so many mixed thoughts on weather I actually enjoyed it though. I feel as though I enjoyed it because I actually listened to the audio version read by Jason himself. This allowed for all of the poems to be read how the author intended. I tie reading poetry yourself can be difficult and you my read in wrong sometimes. But I also feel like since this book was written in a series of poems that it also makes it little difficult to understand at times. Over all I thought I was so unique and creative though. The story was about a young boy who’s brother is killed. In order to follow the “rules” he feels as though he has to go do something he never thought he would. The whole story is told about just one minute of this boys life when he enters an elevator. It goes through what he is thinking and everything that happens to him in that one minute in that elevator. Since this is written as poems thats a lot more emotion that comes from the words that makes it even more intriguing.In this one minute people who he has lost to the streets visit him and they all talk to him about how they died and why. At the end of the audio book I also really enjoyed that the author talked about his inspiration for the book and why he wrote it. He also explained why he wrote it as a series of poems and why it was only one minute of this boys life. I would definitely recommend this book to friends and family. But I would also recommend the audio version more than the book because I feel like it being so much more emotion to the table.