I Wish I Read This In High School
Summary
As Bri's family faces rougher times than usual she enters a rap battle and wins. Then, she is attacked at school where the security guards are known to target POC. Brianna fights back with her music, making a song that addresses the issues in her neighborhood and school. When people misinterpret the song she has to deal with the consequences of her words, even if she didn't mean them.
Bri's Home Life
Bri's mother, Jay, is a recovered addict, which causes a couple issues. It makes it harder for her to find a job to support herself, Bri and her older brother Trey. It's also the cause of many church-auntie rumors even though she's BEEN clean and STAYED clean for like eight years.
Her brother Trey is a recent college graduate, who came back to help his mother and sister even though he wants to pursue a doctorate in psychology.
Her mother's sister is a drug dealer who works for a gang, but she does her best to be there for Bri and support her rap dreams.
Her dad was the target of a drive-by when Bri was four years old.
Bri's grandparents are kinda typical. Her grandmother has unreasonable beef with her mother (addicts don't choose addiction, but they do choose recovery and jay def made her choice, tf). Her grandpa is typical, giving out all his money all the time against his wife's wishes.
Her best friends are her mom's best friends kids (living the dream, fr)
Bri's Career
So her gangster aunt takes her to a rap battle where she absolutely murders this lame-ass kid. The crowd goes wild and now everybody expects her to be like her dad, who was a famous underground rapper. She wants to resist this and make her own name, but it might be easier to be what everyone already expects her to. Especially since her family is on the brink of homelessness and this is the only way she can think of to make money for her family.
When Bri releases her song it catches like fire. The whole neighborhood knows it and it makes her feel like a star. What she doesn't know is that not everyone knows where she was coming from with the song and it sounds a lot like gangster rap. This causes a lot of misunderstandings and even almost starts a gang-war.
It seems like everyone is determined to make her seem like all the things she doesn't want to be, a ghetto, ratchet hood-rat and she even begins to believe that because she gets angry at those people they're right about her. But yelling sometimes doesn't make you a hood-rat and getting mad at people who disrespect you doesn't make you ratchet and being a teenager who can't control your feelings/reactions doesn't make you ghetto. It was so frustrating to read that because huh?!?!
Anyway, Bri hires a popular manager who gets someone to write a song for her. This is the part where she refuses to record it because A.) Its not her vibe (its a mindless song about guns and stuff) and B) She doesn't want to rap stuff she didn't write. In the end when she debuts she rejects the song publicly and loses her manager and record deal.
Time To Make This About Me
Listen, I've read stories about black people before. Dozens! But none of them hit like this one. It felt like I was reading about my family. Like I sent my little cousin a "how are you" text and they just wrote me back this book. (which would be crazy cause none of them can rap) The way she describes the neighborhoods and schools are exactly like the ones I grew up in. Not to mention the way they talk. Literally just like me and my siblings/cousins. It seems weird to comment on it but I'm pretty sure this is the first book I've read that had even close to proper use of AAVE. Besides those ones about the girls who fall in love with drug dealers and gang bangers, those were not my style.
So, yeah. I love this book. Not just for the awesome representation but also the extremely hopeful vibe. Even though she's going through a lot, Bri always believes in herself. I think that's a theme a lot of us need to read more often.
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