Saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks: ON THE COME UP.

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

My rating: 4+ of 5 stars


Sixteen-year-old Bri's greatest dream is to become a rapper. She wants to be a star, sure, but mostly she wants to get out of her neighborhood. Help her struggling mom, who is just trying to keep the lights on and food on the table for Bri and her older brother. Bri's father was a rapper, too, but he died when she was four. Bri's mom turned to drugs for a while, and even though things are good now, Bri always feels like everything could slip away at any moment. When her Aunt "Pooh" gets her a chance to rap in the Garden--where her Daddy rapped before her--this could be Bri's big break. The chance to get out, to take the worries away from her mom. But suddenly it seems like Bri's becoming the role she's rapping about--turning into what everyone thinks she is. That aggressive street kid. The kid who gets thrown to the ground at school. And now, Bri isn't sure if the songs are just for show anymore.

This was an excellent follow-up to THE HATE YOU GIVE. Man, Angie Thomas can just flat out write, and the characters and worlds she creates are second to none. This book occurs in the same neighborhood as THUG, picking up a year after the riots. The neighborhood is still reeling, and nothing is quite the same.


"I'm a hoodlum from a bunch of nothing."


Bri is a wonderful character--a realistic teenager struggling with her love life and school, as well as the systematic issues of poverty, racism, drug dealing, and more facing her neighborhood, peers, and family. She's severely affected by what happened to her parents: the death of her father, who is famous in the Garden, and her mom's past drug use. The book does a great job of showing the pressures on everyone in Bri's family--her older brother went to college, but is back, living at home and working in a pizza shop, trying to help his mom out. Her mom is still paying for her past sins: trying to get a job isn't easy, nor is it easy to keep the faith of your teenage daughter, who calls her mom by her first name. And Bri--well she wants to become a rapper and earn money to get her family out of poverty. As such, she doesn't always make the best choices. And, to her, it almost seems like rapper is the only choice for freedom.


"That's how it goes though. The drug dealers in my neighborhood aren't struggling. Everybody else is."


Don't get me wrong, though. While this book is beautiful and does such a great job at showing so many of the challenges facing Bri and the Garden's community, it's also an engaging and funny read. As I said, Thomas is such an amazing writer. The church scenes in this novel are priceless: I was laughing at loud at some points. And Bri is just so vivid in her characteristics. She's a self-proclaimed "nerd" who loves things like Star Wars and some of her references and jokes in the books are just hilarious.

The supporting cast in this one is great--Bri's brother, her friends (including a gay BFF!), Aunt Pooh, the church biddies, and more. They all jump off the pages just like Bri. Much like THUG, this is a story of family at its core and even if you'll want to shake Bri for some of her bad decisions, it's pretty much impossible not to love her, her family, and her friends.

Overall, I really liked this book. It's well-written, tackles some serious topics in a great way, and yet is funny and poignant as well. I highly recommend it. 4+ stars.

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