An elevator ride becomes a reckoning as a young man weighs grief, loyalty, and the rules he’s been taught to live by. Urgent and haunting, Long Way Down unfolds in spare, propulsive verse that lingers long after the doors open.
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Start or resume Shelf TalkThese picks are popular with readers who enjoyed this book. Possible spoilers below.
In Long Way Down, did you enjoy an unconventional, mixed-media trial narrative that probes a teen’s complicity in violence?
If it was the elevator’s ghostly stops, Will clutching Shawn’s gun, and the way “The Rules” are interrogated through verse that hooked you, you’ll be pulled into Monster. Steve Harmon tells his story as a screenplay intercut with journal entries while he’s on trial for a robbery-murder—an inventive format that, like Will’s one-minute descent with Buck, Dani, and Shawn, forces you to question guilt, labels, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
In Long Way Down, did you enjoy a raw, intimate first-person reckoning with gun violence and its ripple effects on family?
You watched Will weigh whether to avenge Shawn as each floor haunted him with consequences. In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter narrates after witnessing Khalil’s shooting, and every choice she makes—speaking out, staying silent, protecting family—carries that same psychological weight. If Will’s voice and inner conflict gripped you, Starr’s candid, heart-in-throat narration will, too.
In Long Way Down, did you enjoy a compressed, one-day, ticking-clock journey that forces life-or-death choices?
If the single elevator ride—sixty seconds, seven stops, and a decision—thrilled you, They Both Die at the End delivers that same breathless compression. Mateo and Rufus meet after a Death-Cast call and spend one day deciding what to do with the time they have, mirroring Will’s urgent descent toward a choice that could end or continue a cycle.
In Long Way Down, did you enjoy surreal visitations that blur grief, guilt, and the supernatural?
If the elevator’s ghosts—Buck checking the bullets, Dani in her flower dress, Uncle Mark with his camera—spoke to you, A Monster Calls will resonate. Conor is visited by a yew-tree monster that tells unsettling stories until Conor faces the truth about his mother’s illness and his own fury. Like Will’s encounters with Shawn and the others, the visitations are uncanny, real-or-not moments that force a reckoning with grief.
In Long Way Down, did you enjoy a stark look at street codes, brotherhood, and cycles of retaliation?
If Will’s mantra—no crying, no snitching, get revenge—and the bleak logic of the street drew you in, The Outsiders hits the same nerve. Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally navigate gang lines and brotherhood after a killing upends their world, echoing Will and Shawn’s bond and the pressure to answer violence with violence.
