Few first novelists have the kind of success Angie Thomas saw with "The Hate U Give," which has spent 100 weeks on the Times Best-Seller list and been made into an equally acclaimed movie. Perhaps even fewer write a second novel that gets as many advance raves as Thomas' "On the Come Up," which will be published this month. It's set in the same fictional community, Garden Heights, as "The Hate U Give," but Thomas turns her attention away from Starr (the protagonist in her first novel) to the world of hip-hop, and Brianna, a talented teenager who lives and breathes it. These are excerpts from our conversation.
