Angie Thomas’s follow-up to The Hate U Give had the unenviable task of following one of the most important YA debuts in years. On the Come Up is a different kind of book — smaller in scale, more focused on a single interior, less politically urgent in its premise — and it is very good. The comparison to The Hate U Give is inevitable and mostly irrelevant. This is its own story.

Bri Jackson is sixteen, Black, and wants to be a rapper. Her father was a rapper who was killed before he could make it. Her mother is recovering from addiction. They are behind on rent. Bri has real talent and a deep need to prove something, and when a freestyle she performs in a rap battle goes viral for reasons she didn’t intend, she has to navigate the gap between being famous and being understood.

Bri

Thomas writes Bri with the same specificity she brought to Starr Carter — a teenager who is funny and stubborn and sometimes her own worst enemy, whose desire to be seen and heard is entirely legitimate and entirely comprehensible. Her relationship to her father’s legacy, and what she owes him versus what she owes herself, is the book’s most quietly moving element.

The Viral Song

The song Bri releases is heard as political in ways she half-intended and half-stumbled into, and the book is very good on the question of what happens when a Black teenager’s art becomes a lens through which other people work out their own feelings. The media cycle, the school’s response, the corporate interest — each is rendered with specificity.

The Family

The Jackson family — Bri’s mother, her aunt, her brother — is warm and complicated and fully realised. Thomas writes Black family life with love and accuracy, and the scenes of ordinary life within it are some of the book’s best.

Why YA Readers Will Love This

For readers who love music-centred YA — who want a book where the protagonist’s art is rendered with enough specificity that you can feel what it means to her — Bri’s rap is taken seriously as craft, not just as a character trait.

For readers who loved The Hate U Give and want to return to Angie Thomas’s voice and concerns in a new story: the touch is different here but the care is the same.

For readers who are interested in questions of authorship and control — who owns an artist’s work once it’s public, who gets to interpret it, what happens when your story becomes bigger than you — On the Come Up explores those questions through the specific lens of a Black teenage girl navigating an industry that was not built for her.

Published: February 2019 · Genre: YA contemporary · Standalone

Frequently Asked Questions

What is On the Come Up about? Bri Jackson is sixteen, Black, and wants to be a rapper — her father was a rapper killed before he could make it, her mother is recovering from addiction, and they are behind on rent. When a freestyle she performs in a rap battle goes viral for reasons she didn’t intend, she must navigate ’the gap between being famous and being understood.’ The review describes the novel as ‘smaller in scale, more focused on a single interior’ than The Hate U Give, but ‘very good — this is its own story.’

What makes Bri Jackson a compelling protagonist? The review credits Thomas with writing Bri ‘with the same specificity she brought to Starr Carter — a teenager who is funny and stubborn and sometimes her own worst enemy, whose desire to be seen and heard is entirely legitimate and entirely comprehensible.’ Bri’s relationship to her father’s legacy — ‘what she owes him versus what she owes herself — is the book’s most quietly moving element.’ Her art is taken seriously as craft rather than mere character trait.

How does On the Come Up explore questions of artistic ownership and interpretation? The viral song Bri releases ‘is heard as political in ways she half-intended and half-stumbled into.’ The review notes Thomas is ‘very good on the question of what happens when a Black teenager’s art becomes a lens through which other people work out their own feelings — the media cycle, the school’s response, the corporate interest are each rendered with specificity.’ The book explores ‘who owns an artist’s work once it’s public, who gets to interpret it, what happens when your story becomes bigger than you.’

How is the Jackson family portrayed and what role do they play? Bri’s mother, aunt, and brother constitute ‘a warm and complicated, fully realised’ family. The review credits Thomas with writing ‘Black family life with love and accuracy — the scenes of ordinary life within it are some of the book’s best.’ The family’s specific pressures — financial precarity, addiction recovery, the weight of a dead father’s legacy — are rendered with the same specificity Thomas brings to the thriller elements of The Hate U Give.

Further Reading from Authoritative Sources

  • On the Come Up — Wikipedia’s On the Come Up article provides publication details and context, helping readers understand the novel’s place within Thomas’s career and its relationship to The Hate U Give.
  • Angie Thomas — Wikipedia’s Angie Thomas article provides biographical and bibliographical context for the author, helping readers understand On the Come Up within her broader writing career and her approach to contemporary YA.