A Long Way Down is told from the points of view of four very different people who meet on the roof of a London building each planning to commit suicide. From this dubious beginning they form a most unlikely friendship which we see develop from their alternating points of view over 3 months.
This is one of those books that you're either going to love or hate. Take for example, the 4 big pre-publication reviewers: Publishers Weekly and Booklist give starred reviews and Kirkus Reviews describes it as "well-executed and thoughtful", but Library Journal slams it as "surprisingly tedious" and a "slip-up". Read the excerpt at BookBrowse to decide if this is likely to be a good choice for you. (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
A good novel struggling to find a way out of the limitations of its own gimmick, but ultimately the conceit is so off-beam that one can almost ignore it and flow with the farce. This is an enjoyably readable, bumpy ride of a book, paradoxically both dangerously contrived and genuinely moving.
Hornby's droll, dry, elegantly timed riffs on such things as the function of soullessness in chain cafes are a pleasure. So, too, is the fact that he is extending his fictional range. Although A Long Way Down is not an evenly successful novel, it justifies Hornby's decision to write about that misery which we have no need to beg or borrow, and which makes such strong, strange connections between one desperate soul and the next.
...a surprisingly tedious read...Each character takes turns narrating, a device that only exacerbates the group's sour chemistry....there are flashes of Hornby's talent for the tragicomic in Martin (an aging male in a youth-obsessed world), but overall, this is a slip-up.
With the exception of a perfunctory subplot about the pact's brief time in the media spotlight, this is a well-executed and thoughtful tale that never digs too deep and simultaneously doesn't denigrate the seriousness of its characters' dilemmas. Highly moving and lively storytelling: Hornby's gifts become more apparent with each outing.
Starred Review. If Camus had written a grown-up version of The Breakfast Club, the result might have had more than a little in common with Hornby's grimly comic, oddly moving fourth novel....It's a thrill to watch a writer as talented as Hornby take on the grimmest of subjects without flinching, and somehow make it funny and surprising at the same time.
Starred Review. The true revelation of this funny and moving novel is its realistic, all-too-human characters, who stumble frequently, moving along their redemptive path only by increments.