Other references to Mississippi are more sobering, reflecting some of the time’s most heated debates. The novel also pays homage to Thomas’ hometown of Jackson - from the scenes take place at Midtown Arts High School and Sal’s pizza spot, which could refer to a neighborhood and popular eatery in the capital city, to the protagonist’s surname. Like grief itself, her prose offers the reader ebbs and flows, pervading the gray space between sorrow and growth, hitting you like an unexpected wave and knocking you off your path.įor Bri, the harder she fights for the freedom to express herself, the further she falls into the “angry black girl” stereotype, as society decided that free expression is not a right afforded to poor girls from the hood, Thomas told the New York Times. When it comes to grief and its dimensions, Thomas gets it. Thomas writes about the lived experience of grief in a way only someone who intimately knows loss can. Thomas too rapped for a time before she switched gears to writing novels, but has said it was writing and spitting rhymes that helped her realize, to borrow a line from Outkast, that she had something to say. introduced us to Thomas, “On the Come Up” is where we really get to know her.
But as her rap career soars, she realizes success comes with strings attached. For Bri, rapping is both a mental escape from grief and a way out of a neighborhood filled with painful memories. She’s also a 16-year-old who’s worried about boys, friends and showing off her knowledge of the Black Panther Marvel comic and Star Wars (look for mounds of other pop culture references that make parts of the book feel like its own gold-paved stroll down a hip-hop Hollywood Walk of Fame).īri knows she’s got the heart and skill to make it, but she also lives in the shadow of her local legend father who was murdered when she was a toddler and deals with the near-constant anxiety of her mom’s tenuous addiction recovery. Bri is a rapper who sees her dream of hip-hop greatness - her “come up”- as a chance to feed and protect her family. Where T.H.U.G.’s Starr taught young people they have a voice, Bri Jackson, our “Come up” protagonist, will help them amplify it - literally. She took a different and, arguably, more personal path for her second novel, “On the Come Up.”
How do you replicate the powerhouse debut novel, “The Hate U Give?” You don’t. 10, 2018 photograph, Angie Thomas, a Jackson, Miss., resident whose book, “The Hate U Give,” had been on a national young adult best-seller list for over 80 weeks, speaks to reporters after signing copies of her book prior to a reception in Jackson, Miss.
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