I finally finished reading On the Come Up, and guys, I highly recommend this book. I just couldn’t stop reading it! The only bad part was when I had to put it down. I usually don’t read the epilogue in books, but the cliffhanger at the end of the book was so big I had to read more. In my last post I mentioned that Bri had to address her father’s death and face her grief. This journey is a difficult one and Thomas captures Bri’s conflicting and sharp emotions about the topic beautifully. Bri’s angry at her Dad for making choices that put him in danger and ultimately led to his death. However, she respects his rapping career, using his art to get to know him. Bri uses anger to hide a lot of her pain. She’s angry that her mom did drugs, that her dad died, that things went wrong, and she gets upset over things she can’t control. Her anger, it’s collateral damage and fall-out, are just a cover for her sadness. Bri’s sadness is deep grief for her father’s death that she never got to process. By finally learning to shed her anger and accept her sadness, Bri gets closure. Not only does she learn to accept her father’s death, she also learns to accept life. “We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond to things we can’t control.” – Avis J. Williams. This lesson is a hard one for Bri to learn, but by the end of the book she finds some peace. Bri ends a chapter in her life, she still has more to live, and the book leaves you wanting more.