A Long Way Down

by Nick Hornby

I ought to have read something more than a brief summary before getting this book from the library. If I had known it was a thoroughly contemporary British novel, I probably wouldn't have read it...too much editing was required. Dirty mouths!

But, aside from the language, it was a rather interesting story. A Long Way Down has four narrators - Martin, Maureen, Jess, and JJ - who, by coincidence, each go to the roof of a very tall building at midnight on New Year's Eve with the intention of committing suicide by jumping off. The strange circumstances lead them to go back downstairs, and over the next three months they (somewhat unwillingly) help (and sometimes destroy) each other's lives.

Rating: Unless this plot sounds desperately thrilling, like a book you couldn't live without reading, skip it.