On the Come Up by Angie ThomasMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
When an author's first novel is as good as The Hate U Give , it begs the question: was that success just a flash in the pan, a case of catching lightning in a bottle? For Angie Thomas, the answer is an emphatic No. On The Come Up is every bit as good as its predecessor.
On The Come Up follows Bri, a teenage girl in the poor and largely black Garden Heights neighborhood of Baltimore, as she tries to start off a rap career. She's got a whole lot of obstacles in her way, from her family's dire financial straits to racial tensions to breaking into a male-dominated rap culture. And she doesn't help her own case when she plays right into many of the stereotypes, both in her lyrics and her actions, while trying to point out the inherent biases.
If that sounds awfully familiar to The Hate U Give, that's because at the level of themes and social commentary, it is. The two books are set in the same world, share much of the same Garden Heights territory, and On The Come Up even references a few of the events in the first book. But the characters are very different, with their own problems, strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. The setting and themes may be similar, but this book tells its own story.
I hope Angie Thomas is planning to write a whole lot more. That's a bit selfish, of course, because I've enjoyed her first two books so much. But more importantly, I think her writing is providing a perspective that isn't shared nearly enough in popular writing. The wider she can share that perspective, the better.
