Mentor Text: Long Way Down

No, this isn’t a review.

Often “reviews” are really critiques. I don’t want to critique Jason Reynolds’ work. I’m not qualified to offer advice (he’s a way better poet than me) and the book’s content is delicious. My review is going to be a review of what I learned from the book so I hope you enjoy!

Long Way Down

by Jason Reynolds

More than words

To start with, the book is a novel in verse. As a struggling reader I really enjoyed how quickly I could read this book. Reading is tough for me. Getting through a book is a struggle at times because it takes me so long to read, understand and connect with the content.

The novel in verse format is a great way to engage a reader like me. Jason cuts the scene down to the bone giving you only what you need to know to build the story in your mind. His words, structure and flow are an excellent example of Stephen King’s telepathy concept. I can picture the story. Scene by scene, character by character and build images of these places that are mine.

After reading Long Way Down, I went back to my WIP and examined where I could cut and how to use structure of the verses to further tell the story.

Structure

Let’s dig into this a bit more. I enjoyed how Jason used the shape, spacing, alignment, font, etc… to help tell the story. One of the things I’m learning about poetry, one of the things that I’m unlearning as well, is that poetry can be any form, flow, pattern, shape, size, etc. I grew up thinking poetry was one thing. Books like Long Way Down, Shark Girl and Mary’s Monster are showing (and other readers) there is more to poetry than what I thought.

Near the end of the book, there is a poem that illustrates the main character (Will)’s question. The question, is structured as a question mark which I really enjoyed. This approach REALLY highlighted how important this question was to Will and to me the reader.

Beyond using shape, Jason uses alignment to keep your eye bouncing around the page in a very engaging way. I felt like reading this story was faster because I kept moving through the page as well as across pages. The visual movement of the story helped me feel like I was progressing faster and faster. The short pages of text helped me feel like I was working through the book quickly as well.

Layout

The words were great and so was the page layout. I enjoyed how each page was more than text. Whether the page was elevator buttons, scratches or gate bars, I found the page layout engaging. This was again, more than the story. More than reading. It was a break for my mind to absorb the interesting page design from visuals to layout.

Share-ability

In the age of social media I found the book’s content to be extremely share-able. Being fairly anti-social media, I did most of my sharing in person but found something in the book for a bunch of people I knew. People who were dealing with regret found something here. People dealing with consequences found something here. People who felt trapped by places or choices found something here.

Beyond the content speaking to a wide variety of people’s life situations, I also found the book a good conversation around “and then”. Throughout the story there are numerous characters you meet who have interesting seeds of backstories. You, as a reader, have tons of opportunities to flesh out these characters. I could see a school writing assignment being to build “and then” scenarios for the characters in the book. (Side note: there is a "how to use in the classroom” section of the book that is pretty good)

Overall

I enjoyed Long Way Down as a story and as a piece of art. I’d encourage writers to take a peek into the book beyond the words and see how this text builds resonance that isn’t just in the story.

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

Learn more about Jason Reynolds from his website or his twitter feed.

If you have other books I should review please let me know in the comments. My reviews are only going to be about lessons I learned from the book. I’m not here to hatchet job anyone. As a growing writer, I look forward to learning something from everything I read and encourage you to do the same.