Name: Long Division
ISBN: 9781932841725

Kiese Laymon

A teenager in post-Katrina Mississippi discovers the whereabouts of a missing young girl after finding a strange, authorless book that describes how a young couple time travel from 1964 to 1985 to help a friend. 15,000 first printing.

A Novel

Long Division

Alisha 

I really wanted to love this book and I tried, but most of the time I was confused. The time travel was hard to follow and interrupted the flow of the story. I was pretty intrigued by City as a character, and it dawned on me how few books I've read with young black male characters. And for that reason, I decided not to abandon this book. I loved how Laymon captured the rhythm of young black men; it reminded me of my brother and his friends. I want more of that. I waited patiently for Laymon to explore the relationship between City and LaVander and it never really happened. There's something to be said about how young black men relate to each other, how their friendships develop, and how they deal with being marginalized. When City remarked that he loved LaVander, but couldn't really explain why, I was hoping for more discussion around that topic. It was an ambitious attempt, but too many themes and not enough character development left me disappointed. But I'm looking forward to more from Laymon. I see where he's going and I can't wait for him to hit that sweet spot.

Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book's main characters is also named City Coldson--but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan.

jillian tenner

Definitely need to reread as I read the fist 80%, took a 70 day long break then finished it. I know it’s good and weird and insightful but at the end I didn’t know who any of the characters were so that kinda sucked. I will be rereading at some point !

Long Division A Novel

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