On The Come Up by Angie Thomas
On The Come Up by
Angie Thomas
When
Bri walked into the Ring that night, she knew she had to deliver. She couldn’t
walk through those doors, Law’s daughter and not deliver in this rap battle.
Deliver she did and while she get some traction on YouTube, it’s nothing
compared to the love she gets after she releases her first recording, “On The
Come Up.” But people are taking her words and twisting them. She’s not
advocating violence against the police. She’s not the girl with clips on her
waist. She is the girl labeled aggressive for doing the simplest things like
rolling her eyes. She is the girl with a father who was gunned down and a
mother who years ago had to battle a drug addiction. She is Bri and the world
is finding out who she is at the same time Bri is.
I just
finished this book, blazed through over 400 pages like it was nothing. I
couldn’t put this down. Thomas brought Bri and the people in Garden Heights to
life in such a stunning way that I couldn’t stop reading. Bri’s voice
throughout is so well defined and so incredibly believable. She feels like a
teenager in the most self-centered, unaware, insecure, longing and nuanced way.
She is a young woman coming into her own and Thomas made her a character that
is instantly relatable and yet undefinable. The characters around Bri, are just
as well sculpted even if they aren’t the main focus of the story. You can feel
how each person’s presence affects and molds Bri, influencing decisions and
changing her world.
On The Come Up though is also a stunning
look at our culture right now. With references littered throughout the book that
had me laughing out loud, to moments that made me cringe and made my heart hurt
because of the situations at hand. That’s an area where this novel really
shines. I loved this book. I’m highly recommending it. I’m surprised I was even
able to get my thoughts on the page because I’m still shook. If this is what we
can expect from Angie Thomas after the success of The Hate U Give then I need her to simply keep writing. I give this
5 out of 5 stars.
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