On the Come Up, Angie Thomas

[cyphomandra]

I read (but haven't yet blogged) her The Hate U Give last December and thought it was great - solid story, thoroughly developed characters & community, fabulous control of tension as events proceed through the book. This is set in the same community with a different lead - Bri, a young rapper out to make a name for herself, in trouble at school for selling candy - and it's also excellent. Bri's father was an underground rapper killed by a gang; Bri's mother got hooked on drugs and abandoned her kids for years before getting clean, and that hangs over all of Bri's relationships, whether with her older brother who is working in a pizza parlour and struggling, unable to get a decent job despite his degree, her aunt Pooh, a drug dealer with connections, or her friends. Bri works at her music, too; constantly thinking about rhymes, rhythm and flow, and the music pieces - her freestyle raps and her singles - reminded me of reading Roddie Doyle's The Commitments, and actually hearing the music. Some of the plot developments are obvious (the identity of Rapid) but still satisfying. Again, the sense of a community, with intersecting circles of people and identities, is particularly well done, and Bri's attempts to grapple with her own identity - who people believe she is, and what happens when she takes on those expectations - play out compellingly against that.