USA TODAY International Edition
‘Come Up’ flows with rhyme, realism
The thousands of readers who adored Angie Thomas’s first novel, “The Hate U Give” — a blockbuster youngadult phenomenon that also happened to be riveting, timely and beautifully written — have been impatient for her follow-up. They are in luck, as is any reader who opens “On the Come Up” (★★★g, 464 pp., Balzer + Bray), a gripping story about 16-year-old Brianna, who fights for her artistic dreams while struggling to survive poverty and violence.
Bri was born to be a rapper, and not only because her father was Lawless, legendary underground star from the fictional Garden projects, cut down by gun violence when Bri was a child. Bearer of his legacy, Bri carries the weight of his influence with uncertainty — can she live up to high expectations while carving out space for herself?
Flow, rhyme and word play constantly course through Bri’s mind, whether she’s on the school bus or stepping into the spotlight at the Ring, a local freestyle battle where she first makes her name. Some of the most vibrant pages in the novel allow Thomas – once a teen rapper herself – to show Bri’s artistic process in its thrilling inventiveness: “Perfection. I can use that. Perfection, protection, election. Election – presidents. Presidents are leaders. Leader. Either. Ether, like that song where Nas went in on Jay-Z.”
But Bri doesn’t just want the dream of stardom for herself. She feels she needs it for her family – especially for her mother, Jayda.
Two other fraught influences on Bri are her Aunt Pooh, an unapologetic gang member who protects Bri as a mentor, and Supreme, a local producer who wants to help Bri achieve rap greatness through less-than-upfront means.
The central conflict arises when two racist security guards at Bri’s school throw her to the ground, assuming she’s a drug dealer. The incident is filmed, goes viral and ignites a social-justice movement with Bri as the uneasy center. When she unleashes a brilliant cry of rage after the fact, different groups try to claim her song for their own purposes: White parents point to it as a sign of dangerous rebellion and gang members use it as a call to arms. How can Bri speak her truth and make her art in a world where a young black person’s speech is policed and suppressed at every turn?
One way is through camaraderie and community. Raucous and funny scenes with friends and family depict Bri as witty, combative and caring. One of “On the Come Up”’s greatest pleasures is Thomas’ portrait of the artist as a young woman, a fully-rounded teenage character with crushes and romantic disappointments, who suffers from a friend fallout and finds comfort in TV and junk food with her brother.
At times the pace of the novel is uneven, veering from crisis to crisis without time for readers to reflect and absorb. But Bri’s story is utterly compelling from first to last, and will more than satisfy ardent fans of “The Hate U Give.”