Bri is one of the few black students at an arts magnet school, and there, she is seen as a threat.Īfter she’s violently targeted by a school security guard, Bri turns the incident into a song that sets her on the path to stardom. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-markīut the people around Bri don’t see her that way. Here, it’s both endearing and a reminder of Bri’s bona fides as someone willing to put in the work for her craft. I can compare him to them.”Įven when Bri isn’t battling, she rhymes constantly inside her head, in a character tic that could feel grating in less assured hands. Hip-hop heads consider them pop stars, not real rappers. A lot of words rhyme with that if I deliver them right,” Bri muses mid-battle as she tries to come up with the best way to take down her opponent.

Thomas shows off Bri’s freestyling skills convincingly, staying tight in her head as she improvises, so that we can see her cast around for the perfect rhyme. (Trey, the family golden boy, is college-educated, and his inability to find good work despite his degree forms one of On the Come Up’s most affecting subplots.) The best way for her to do both, Bri figures, is to become a rapper herself.

She also dreams of providing for her family, who are only just barely able to get by on her mother’s church secretary salary and the wages her older brother Trey is able to scrape together at the local pizza place. Bri dreams of living up to the example of her dead father, an acclaimed underground rapper who was on the cusp of mainstream fame when he was killed by a gang. On the Come Up’s main character is 16-year-old Brianna, or Bri, a committed hip-hop head and aspiring rapper. It’s wise and witty, and it boasts Thomas’s characteristic ability to handle serious questions of systemic racism with a light and even joyous touch. Thomas’s second book - On the Come Up, out this week - is well on its way to becoming just such a runaway success. It was a runaway and well-deserved success, a YA novel that handled the police shooting of an unarmed black teen with equal parts sincerity and warmth. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Angie Thomas’s first book, The Hate U Give, recently celebrated its 100th consecutive week at No.

The book on the come up