Gift. One word, two syllable. I don't know if it rhymes with anything because it's a word I never thought could be used when it comes to me.
On The Come Up
by Angie Thomas
Genre: YA Contemporary
About: Bri has ninety-nine problems: shoes falling apart, check, boys being dumb, check, report card not worth a damn, check. But all her problems can be solved - her family's too - if she gets her come up. Her dad was a rap legend and that makes her royalty in The Garden. She isn't about following his footsteps though: she's there to kick down her own path and she's got just the song to do it.
The Good
Angie Thomas is very skilful at making you care about her characters. You are right there in Bri's head; willing her, praying for her to succeed. Her first freestyle rap in the ring is TENSE and an instant hook into the story. I loved every rap - I wish there was a whole soundtrack to go back over and read. Thomas even raps one of them on YouTube - because yes, I did google for Bri's song hoping a fan would have uploaded a version by now. The story from start to finish is an emotional one, the writing is so engaging and the message is an absolute must for young adult readers, or anyone really.
The Bad
I did find a few things to be too similar to THUG and Concrete Rose. This is a standalone novel, though the setting is the same and events from THUG are brought into it. However, those similarities where ones I loved. The ones I didn't were that Bri reminded me too much of Starr. In THUG, Starr has The Hood Trio where the three best friends geek about Harry Potter, Rap music is part of her DNA and she's known as royalty in The Garden because of her dad's ex-status. In this one, Bri is part of The Unholy Trinity, geeks about Star Wars, Rap music is part of her DNA and she's known as royalty in The Garden because of her dad's ex-status. Obviously there are differences between the characters but if enough years past between me reading these books, I can see Starr and Bri blurring into the same character and because both of their stories are important that shouldn't be the case.
The Somewhat Iffy
There was a paragraph that was literally repeated on the same page, a copy and paste error that makes total sense in the draft stage but given how big an author Angie Thomas is, I'm surprised her agent/editors/publishers didn't spot it because an entire paragraph is not just a little typo.
And this is just me, but I didn't like Bri's hint at the end of 'who knows in the future' with Malik. Felt like the author giving us an epilogue of what will happen further down the road as it was way too reflective for a sixteen year old.
Overall
A great book with a main character who's so easy to root for and side characters that actually matter. I especially loved the raps - a rare instance where the song in the story is the bit I re-read the most as some of those lines were FIRE.
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