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“STARTLING…WILDLY ENJOYABLE…A Long Way Down is a daring high-wire act, and Hornby pulls it off perfectly.”
—The Seattle Times

“At its heart, A Long Way Down isn’t really about suicide itself anyway. It’s more about what happens when you don’t kill yourself, and the tale Hornby subsequently tells is an unusual and unpredictable one.”
—The New York Times

“It’s like The Breakfast Club rewritten by Beckett…What makes the book work is Hornby’s refusal to give an inch to sentimentality or cheap inspirational guff.”
—Time

“Hornby is a writer of great feeling and warmth…A Long Way Down is high on charm and frequently hilarious.”
—Washington Post

“A mordant, brilliant novel… A Long Way Down ought to be required reading for writing students who want to know how to evoke one set of circumstances with its opposite, how to capture unspeakable pain with humor, how to suggest camaraderie with trenchant, piss-all irony, how to turn a novel based on suicide into a cello suite about how to go on living.”
—The Boston Globe

“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 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. This is a brave and absorbing book.”
—Tom Perrotta, Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The verdict: Hornby’s still the only writer doing what he does…while unapologetically embracing the language and ethos of pop culture, he boldly endeavors to make meaning of life’s most existential questions.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“In typical Hornby fashion, the book mixes endearing but flawed characters with hilarious yet heartfelt dilemmas…Hornby’s unique voice consistently echoes to universal acclaim, generating a fandom that rivals that of another London great, Charles Dickens.”
—GQ