Most of the time they don't hit the same way these emotional, personal stories do. This isn't to say that books with heavy moral themes and implications are bad, I just personally think that they are very hard to come across and write. Reynolds doesn't do that, instead, he focuses on the emotional impact behind a single character's story and that manages to impact the reader tremendously. When an author tries to make a message about the world or whatever most of the time it comes off as bloated and superficial. Of course, you could say that there's some degree of a statement about society, or whatever, but I think it's important to take note of the fact that Reynolds specifically never mentions Will's last name or the color of his skin ever once. The entire novel itself is essentially a monologue, and what this does is that it manages to develop Will's character to a depth that is unachievable otherwise. He doesn't try to put some huge message or theme or political idea in his story, instead, he only focuses on one character alone. I think that, beyond the raw skill of his writing, his ideas behind the book are also really profound. Jason Reynolds really manages to make the verse work-nothing comes off as overly dramatic nor repetitive. I cannot even list the ones I think are bad, because to be honest, I've forgotten them all(the only good one I ever read was Crank). Most books written poetically or in verse just don't work-they come off as fake and trying really really hard to appeal to aesthetics.
When I first started reading it, I thought "oh yay another book written in verse".
(10s are even harder to find, as no book is truly a 10/10 so they're just subjective opinions). I haven't read any 9/10s in a very long time, partly because my reading pace went down a bit after quarantine but also because it's just very hard to find 9s. Can defintely say it was a very solid 9/10.
I just finished a long way down by Jason reynolds.
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