Book Review of On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, review by Varshiini Ramesh

 Book Review of On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

I would recommend this book because of how it talks about who you want to be for yourself, not for the world, and whether your dreams are worth chasing. This story is about a sixteen-year old girl, Bri, who dreams of becoming one of the greatest rappers of all times. Her father was a rapper, but he died before he could get famous, so Bri’s ambition is to become a famous rapper. At school, all the teachers have Bri as a “hoodlum” in their minds, so it’s hard for Bri to have a normal school life. After an incident that occurred in her school and with her current problems at home, Bri writes a song with powering all her anger and frustration into it. The song becomes viral instantly, but for the wrong reasons as the song portrays Bri as someone she isn’t. Through this, some of her family and friends don’t support her, and Bri has a hard time speaking about how the song is displaying her to her community. It’s up to Bri at the end to determine who she is to herself and not for the world, and whether she wants people to know the “fake Bri” or the “real Bri.” I personally enjoyed this book because I love how the author uses a protagonist who portrays their struggles through music instead of through other ways like violence, etc. After this song became viral, Bri became the center of all social media platforms, and I feel like her problem is something that common citizens can’t relate to. For some of us, we don’t know what it is like to be the center of attention of the media, and I think this book has done a good job showcasing the shoes of someone else to us. The plot has twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and you can be relatable towards most of her problems such as controversy between friends and family, etc. Finding out who you want to be for yourself is still an ongoing issue for people, especially adolescents, since it’s hard for them to see how people want to think of them and how they want to think of themselves.  I’ve become a fan of Angie Thomas’ books, especially after reading On the Come Up, since she displays the story of the characters so vividly with messages about family. I would rate this book an 8/10.