Obstacles: On The Come Up By Angie Thomas

Although all dreams come with obstacles it doesn't mean you should give up on them, this is the theme I decided to focus my creative piece on.
Angie Thomas' book On the Come Up follows a young girl named Bri who pursues her dream of becoming a rapper but faces many challenges along the way. Bri doesn't want to go to college as she told her mother before. Even though she grew up in poverty, Bri still has hopes that she can follow in the footsteps of her father and pursue rapping. Achieving her dreams requires perseverance every step of the way which the author portrayed greatly. Angie Thomas shows how obstacles are always present in achieving your dreams, however, if you have a strong mindset and great motivation then you will achieve your

Moreover, most of Bri’s motivation comes from her father. Although he is not with her physically, she always thinks about him and pursued rapping because she wanted to follow in his footsteps. I showed this by adding Bri’s dad on the cover of her page since all of Bri’s steps in life were pushed by the inspiration from her father. I also added flying papers to resemble Bri’s thought process, and the lyrics in her song.

However, although many obstacles follow along with your dream, it's best to face them than to leave them. There's no point in following your dreams if theres no motivation, thankfully Bri had a strong mindset and her greatest inspiration was her father. This is why I added Bri’s father rapping in front of the page since it was his methods of inspiration from before that led Bri into rapping. I also portrayed how Bri was following her dreams by adding the lyrics to her song. One of the lyrics is “you can't stop me on the come up”. This means that no one can hold her down when she's getting up, which indicates how Bri is pursuing her dreams instead of listening to others which will bring her down. “Damn. I’ve dreamed of going into a studio since I was like ten. I would stand in

I wanted to show one of the greatest pieces in the book which was Bri’s father's gold chain. This means a lot because it was the first thing he bought when he got paid for this song. So it meant a lot to Bri as well. If Bri didn’t continue believing in herself and following in the footsteps of her father she would've never come this far. So, I put gold chains in the spine of the book to replicate the gold chain of Bri’s father. I decided to place the chains in the spine because the spine is what holds the book jacket together, that's similar to Bri’s motivation from her father which was what kept her going. The spine portrays how although Bri’s father was not physically with her he still motivated and inspired her and kept her together to achieve her dream. If she had no inspiration from her father to pursue her dream then it would all fall apart, just like a book with no spine. Since a book with no spine is like a dream with no motivation to hold it