A Long Way Down 1

I thought the beginning of the book was very interesting. What most stuck out to me was that each of the older characters, (JJ, Martin, and Maureen) decided that they all had "good" reasons to jump, and wouldn't allow Jess to take her life. Who are they to judge who should live and who should die? Perhaps, had they not heard Maureen's entire story, they wouldn't have allowed her to jump; she was a single mother who was caring for her son, and her death would leave him all alone. However, they somehow justified that she could die, while Jess could not. Furthermore, the 4 character's personalities clash constantly. Maureen, a quiet, aging,  churchgoing single mother, gets stuck with a foul mouthed drugged up teenager, a middle aged American ex-rocker, and a morning TV show host that everybody in England seems to hate. I think it will be very interesting how the characters either learn to cope with each others' differences, or how they react to their polar opposites.