✨ jami ✨'s Reviews > On The Come Up

“You’ll never silence me and you’ll never kill my dream. Just recognize when you say brilliant that you’re also saying Bri.”

OH, this was absolutely 100% amazing and Angie Talent is WAY too talented for me to handle. Obviously, I literally adored

“There's only so much you can take being described as somebody you're not.”

Easily my favourite part of this book was Bri's character. Bri is the kind of character I've been wanting and needing in YA for so long. She feels so genuinely teen and she makes a lot of mistakes that stem from inexperience and her young age but that is what I loved about it. Bri can be brash, harsh, rude, and act without thinking (so many times) but I felt a bit of myself in her recklessness and identified with her teenage angst. I really love that Angie Thomas decided to write a character that really fucks up, and that is really outspoken, it's refreshing. But it's not just her flaws that made me love her - Bri has so many strengths too! she has a heart of gold, is trying to do her best, and loves her friends and family with so much of her heart. She's ambitious and cool, and funny - and damn, I loved the hell outta that girl!

Plot wise, this was a lot more fun than The Hate U Give. It still has a lot of the hallmarks of that book though. It deals with racism and growing up as a black teenager in America. It has strong family dynamics, and friendship focus. The focus on family, especially, was a highlight. Angie Thomas knows how to drill down into the core of a family and examine what makes each one tick, and I love the portrayal of the family in this book.

This book also just had so much love and heart in it - you could tell. You could tell Thomas loves rap music and hip-hop, she loved her main character, and she loved writing this book. I think that passion and care really leaked onto the pages and it made me care. This book is about music and family but you don't need to care about music to be invested - it just seems to grab you and in a minute you realise you're a hundred pages deep and so invested in the story and the characters. I love that in books.

“All these folks I've never met became gods over my life. Now I gotta take the power back.”

Overall, I think this was just as good as THUG - just in a different way. It's kind of sad to me people seem to have slept on this book a bit because it's great and has so many themes people can connect with. It's a YA book that isn't afraid to shove a loud and bossy main character into the forefront - and to celebrate them for those traits. It's a book that blends rap and friends and family, that has the hallmark YA tropes like first love and family issues, while also exploring race issues in America in a genuine way that only an #ownvoices author can.

I also loved the audiobook for this a lot - the narrator sings the raps and its PERFECT.