While On the Come Up is far from a Sophomore slump it never reaches the heights Thomas’ breathtakingly haunted debut novel The Hate U Give achieved.
We can’t have any power, either. I mean, think about it. All these people I’ve never met have way more control over my life than I’ve ever had. If some Crown hadn’t killed my dad, he’d be a big rap star and money wouldn’t be an issue. If some drug dealer hadn’t sold my mom her first hit, she could’ve gotten her degree already and would have a good job. If that cop hadn’t murdered that boy, people wouldn’t have rioted, the daycare wouldn’t have burned down, and the church wouldn’t have let Jay go.
Bri Jackson is an aspiring rapper from gang ridden, poverty stricken Garden Heights. She lives in the same universe as Starr from The Hate U Give, they reference “the boy” who got shot several times, although Starr does not appear. Bri’s father, an up and coming rapper in his own right, was shot by a rival gang member when Bri was a toddler and her mother, Jay, is a recovering drug addict who has only recently regained custody of her daughter. Bri’s older brother, Trey, did everything right in school and managed to get a college degree but it doesn’t give him the leg up he was hoping for so he works at a pizza shop while trying to decide if grad school is worth the extra debt he will incur.
Bri, who is far from the student her brother was, is focused solely on launching a rap career of her own and she gets some minor fame when she wins a rap battle at a local club. Bri struggles with authority figures and is constantly targeted by the school’s security guards who use excessive force when suspecting her of selling drugs at school (she isn’t, she is selling candy). When a song she records to help process her feelings about the incident, one that embellishes her own street cred, goes viral it sparks outrage in the predominately white parents of her classmates. While all of this is going on Bri also has to contend with her mother losing her job which plummets their already struggling family below the poverty line.
I really wanted to smack Bri upside the head half a dozen times and found her completely unrelatable as a 31 year old middle class white woman but I can respect that I am not Thomas’ target audience. I do think it is commendable that Thomas is lending her increasingly powerful voice to the dangers of being young and black in America.