A Newbery Honor Book
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
A Printz Honor Book
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young Peoplea�TMs Literature
Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award
An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction
Parentsa�TM Choice Gold Award Winner
An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book
A Vulture Best YA Book
A Buzzfeed Best YA Book
A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE
Or, you can call it a gun. Thata�TMs what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. Thata�TMs where Willa�TMs now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brothera�TMs gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who hea�TMs after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And thata�TMs when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawna�TMs gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didna�TMt know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Bucka�TMs in the elevator? Just as Willa�TMs trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Bucka�TMs cigarette. Will doesna�TMt know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.
And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END . . . if WILL gets off that elevator.
Age Range: 12 and up | Grade Level: 7-9 | Lexile Measure: HL720L