On The Come Up By Angie Thomas

As a follow up to her best-selling book The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas released her second book On the Come Up earlier this year. The Hate U Give is one of my favorite books. On the Come Up is a follow up to what happens to the neighborhood of Garden Heights one year after The Hate U Give, but is not a sequel. It’s a story of hope and dreams. The book follows 16-year-old Brianna, a high school student, and aspiring rapper. Brianna pursues rap as a means to help her and her family out of their current financial troubles. I found the book to be multidimensional. It also touches on racial profiling and how it effects Black and Latino community. This book dives into the socioeconomic dynamics of living in a project.  It dives into how many people want to get out of their financial situations and how capitalism and systemic racism is against them. I find Angie Thomas’ books to contain a lot of grit and does not sugarcoat this version of being black in America. I have to give a special shout out to the narrator of the audiobook Bahni Turpin. She brings a special light to every character. She also narrated The Hate U Give.