YOUNG ADULT book of the week

LONG WAY DOWN Jason Reynolds, Faber & Faber, £11.99 (ebook £5.03) THIS is stunning, absolutely stunning. Written in free verse, the text stutters and splutters rhythmically across the pages, punchy and brutal, but Young Adult fiction writer Jason Reynolds’ language and ideas unfurl with slick, spare precision.

Will is 15 and shares – shared – a bedroom with his brother Shawn, until Shawn was shot and killed for slipping, aka crossing the invisible line between one gang territory and another.

Will knows the rules: no crying, no snitching, find the person who killed his brother, and kill them right back. So he gets in the lift in his building and sets off, but on every floor someone familiar gets in, squeezing into the metal box, adding to the cigarette smoke fog clouding it up.

These people share stories, opinions, back slaps and tears with Will as their own collisions with firearms unspool from their mouths, wrapping the 15-year-old up in grief, but also a slow, dawning clarity.

Raw, haunting and shocking, with each new companion joins the lift, you feel as buffeted and emotionally pummelled by their talk of Will.

As gun violence in America shows no sign of stalling, Long Way Down is painfully timely.

It asks powerful questions, with openness, total understanding and no judgment. It’s magnificent, but also heartbreaking.