On the Come Up - Angie Thomas

Wow! I really liked this book. Here's the thing. A lot of adults try to write a YA novel and end up sounding patronizing or hysterical when they write teenagers. Angie Thomas somehow manages to capture the angst of being a teenager in a realistic, sympathetic, and authentic way.

Reading as Bri struggles with fairness and family obligation actually made me FEEL the way I did when I was a teenager - when I could not conceive of a world that didn't see right and wrong the way I did - when I was so SURE I knew what I was doing and admitting that I had no idea was not an option.

In On the Come Up, Bri struggles to find her own voice as she is under increasing pressure from her family circumstances and societal expectations. See, she has a gift. She's a poet who works with words the way painters work with acrylics. That her father was an up and coming rap artist prior to being shot and killed hangs over her attempts to make her own name in the business.

Her mother J, and her brother Tre are her solid support system. Thomas artfully shows how teens sometimes grow up before their family is ready. And Bri is attempting to shoulder a burden her mother and brother are sure she's not even aware of. As they recognize her personhood - she blossoms and is fully ready to take on the challenges she's facing. And her challenges are many. Her mother is laid off and out of work. Her family is struggling to pay its bills. Bri and her neighbors are bused to a less diverse school but are targeted by security personnel there. A local talent promoter is trying to exploit her and present an image of her she's not comfortable with.

It's a wonderful story of finding yourself, forming bonds, the unsure footing of maturing, and romantic exploration. Thomas has crafted a story with so many people to root for, it was a pleasure to read. 

4/5 Stars. 

The Nix - Nathan Hill

I've been sitting on this review for a couple of days. I know. I know. I usually am able to review something quickly, but for some reason, I don't know where to begin. I thought I'd give it a few days to percolate out but alas, lacking in divine inspiration I'm going to move forward and hope it makes sense.

The Nix is one of the most highly rated books of 2016. It has a lot going for it. It's funny, hilarious even at points, a total satire on our current culture, but also somehow extremely truthful, it covers a wide range of issues, but somehow feels intimate and personal at points. 

I'm not sure how Nathan Hill does this, although having 600+ pages to work with certainly helps. And at times this book did feel long. I listened to the audio version and have to say the narrator was GREAT! 

Is the story about Samuel Andreson-Anderson, a has-been english professor whose life is in shambles? Or his mother, Faye Andreson, who abandons Samuel in his pre-teen years and vanishes without a trace. Until, that is, she appears on cell phone video throwing rocks at Senator Packer, a staunchly conservative candidate for president. Samuel's publisher, to whom Samuel has owed a manuscript for years, threatens to sue Samuel for all the advance money he was paid, unless Samuel pens a scathing tell-all about the mother who abandoned him at age 11. 

Samuel agrees and then attempts to figure out what exactly his mother was doing all those years before she became his mother, and then after she left him and his father. The story then takes us back and forth between Samuel's life and troubles (he's being taken down by a vengeful co-ed whom Samuel fails in the first couple chapters), and Faye's history. 

Samuel, despite himself, begins to understand Faye. She once told him, "The things you love the most will one day hurt you the worst." And it's true, of Faye, whom Samuel desperately loved as a child. And it's true for Faye, who desperately loved and wanted to please her own father who in turn had issues of his own. Faye too, must take the time to understand her own father and in turn, forgive him. 

There's a wonderful and heartbreaking cycle of love and disappointment in the story that Samuel first starts to unravel when he begins to forgive his mother. And yet, in all the descriptions above, I feel like I've made the book seem weightier than it really is. Because in the midst of all this, you have Samuel's friend Pwnage, an avatar Samuel meets in the computer game Elfscape, a clever twist on the word "escape," where Samuel spends hours everyday avoiding the empty shell his life has become. 

What Faye tells us is that "if a new beginning is really new, it will feel like a crisis. Any real change should make you feel, at first, afraid. If you’re not afraid of it, then it’s not real change." And I think this is really felt throughout the book. While it seems like a description of the ultimate crisis in both Faye and Samuel's lives, the book ends up being a new beginning for them both. And it's hopeful which seems entirely impossible given how dire everything seems through the rest of the story. 

This is a thinking book and a feeling book. But it's also a long book, so if you aren't willing to invest in the payoff, beware. 

That Nathan Hill manages to loop in 1940s Norway, 1960s Chicago and 2011 New York and make it all seem completely obvious these things would have something to do with each other is a testament to his skill as a writer. Since this novel took him ten years to write (he writes long hand - CRAZY), I don't expect anything new soon and I hope he doesn't feel pressured to crank out something too fast. But when his next book does come out, count me in.

5/5 Stars