Recommendations for students: On the Come Up

I recently finished reading On the Come Up by Angie Thomas. Her story about Bri, a 16 year old who is on the cusp of breaking into the rapping world was quite something. This story wasn’t only about rapping though, and that is the beauty of it. The story is multi-layered with commentary about racism, drug addiction, gang affiliation and family dynamics that delivers on all fronts. It may seem like a lot for the writer to take on, but she does it with a deft and witty hand.

I can also see some of my students in Bri. The ambition yet feeling like the world has already failed them. The creativity that has no outlet. The feeling that maybe they deserve any difficult circumstances they are experiencing. The world seeing them one way, when they know it’s not true. Playing into stereotypes to get attention. I have seen all of these situations as a teacher many times yet this was a rare book that managed to encompass all of these things and do it in a way that didn’t make the reader feel like they were being preached at.

As an adult who reads YA, I also pay more attention to how the adults are portrayed in YA books than maybe teens do but I am impressed with Thomas’s ability to make the parents and relatives in her stories feel like fully realized characters. They’re not just cheerleaders or road blocks to what the teen main character wants to do. Bri’s mom, Jayda, had a history and personality and that made her struggles with unemployment and taking care of her kids while remaining clean a struggle I could feel inside of me even if I couldn’t directly relate to her issues.

I would most definitely recommend this book to my students and to other adults who work with teens. I don’t think I’d read this as a class novel, though. I think I would have students read it in literature circles (more on those later) or on their own and then discuss it with them or have them respond in writing.