Monday's Not Coming

by Tiffany D. Jackson

"Jackson’s characters and their heart-wrenching story linger long after the final page, urging readers to advocate for those who are disenfranchised and forgotten by society and the system." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List")

From the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly, Tiffany D. Jackson, comes a gripping novel about the mystery of one teenage girl’s disappearance and the traumatic effects of the truth.

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.

When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

• ISBN13: 9780062422675
• Publish Date: 28 June 2018 (first published 22 May 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 22 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Katherine Tegen Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[writehollydavis]

4.5/5. Strong writing from this queen!! I always have no idea whats going to happen so it keeps me reading and flying through these books. Tiffany writes such flawed characters yet we are attached to them and empathetic.

[Angie]

That was insane.

[Laurie]

A suspense novel about a missing best friend that kept me wanting to continue reading. However, I'm glad I listened to the audiobook as the author used some "slang" which I would have found harder to grasp when reading an ebook. For me, as a white reader, it sounds like slang, but I suppose it's not and it's part of the cultural differences between black and white people. The author is black herself and therefore she knows how to write it. And maybe I'm not familiar with the Gen Z language of these days, could also be the case. I'm not an #ownvoices reader, but despite that, this novel kept me invested the whole time. Where was Monday? What happened to her? A disadvantage of the audiobook is that the author's note is missing and other reviewers state that it's an important one.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Child abuse, neglect, death of a loved one, murder, grief, death of a child, bullying, PTSD.

[lauriesbookshelf]

A suspense novel about a missing best friend that kept me wanting to continue reading. However, I'm glad I listened to the audiobook as the author used some "slang" which I would have found harder to grasp when reading an ebook. For me, as a white reader, it sounds like slang, but I suppose it's not and it's part of the cultural differences between black and white people. The author is black herself and therefore she knows how to write it. And maybe I'm not familiar with the Gen Z language of these days, could also be the case. I'm not an #ownvoices reader, but despite that, this novel kept me invested the whole time. Where was Monday? What happened to her? A disadvantage of the audiobook is that the author's note is missing and other reviewers state that it's an important one.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Child abuse, neglect, death of a loved one, murder, grief, death of a child, bullying, PTSD.

[Jane]

Review soon!

[lisbethwhite]

Damn. That was hard. That was so good. That hurt.

[empressbrooke]

This was a really gripping book that had me okay with a couple nights of difficulty falling asleep (instead of feeling frustrated, I was glad that it gave me some extra time to read). My library has it tagged as a "suspense" and "thriller" but those words don't really have the right connotation for what the story is actually about.

Some of the other reviews complain about the confusing timelines. Usually I'm not bothered by non-linear storytelling, but there was an added wrinkle in this book where the main character is an unreliable narrator, and she doesn't even know it, and the reader doesn't know it, until near the end of the book. So while the chapters are labeled "before" and "after" and "before the before" as a guide, since it isn't clear what the anchoring event is until near the end of the book (I originally thought it meant "before" and "after" Monday disappeared, but Claudia is looking for her missing friend in both the "before" and the "after" so I quickly discarded that theory and had nothing to replace it with), they don't hold a lot of meaning for most of the story. I don't think the plot needed to be told in a linear manner, but it would have been a lot more clear what story was being told if the author hadn't tried to throw in the unreliable narrator on top of the non-linear timeline. Or maybe if she revealed that the narrator was unreliable much earlier on, rather than springing it as a twist near the end.

But despite that complaint, I really liked the main character and the amount of time and care the author took in developing her. I was really invested in finding out what happened to her best friend even though I knew it couldn't be anything good. I also really liked the supports in the main character's life, her family and friends and teachers. I wish that the plot structure had been different, but it wasn't enough of a negative to knock this from a 4-star review down to a 3.

[layawaydragon]

Immediately engrossing and engaging with Jackson's signature twist. I did guess Monday's ending, but I'm a true crime fan and it didn't ruin the book/affect my reading experience at all.

[ccbookwitch]

I read Tiffany D. Jackson's first book, ALLEGEDLY, last year when it came out and had high hopes for her further releases. Let me tell you, MONDAY'S NOT COMING did not disappoint. It was equally harrowing, disturbing, twisty and turny, important, and amazingly written as ALLEGEDLY and now I'm convinced I'll be reading all of her books. Here are some of my thoughts about the story:

- The setting was really vivid. Usually, I find that contemporary novel's settings are unimportant and interchangeable and that the story could happen anywhere and be the same. With MONDAY, the author's depiction of the Washington, DC setting really added to the book and the suspense. Her descriptions covered not only what each part of DC that is in the book looked like, but also the politics behind DC including especially gentrification, mixed in with bits about DC history, most prominently the parts about go-go music.

- Claudia was a fully developed character. Obviously you'd hope that the protagonist of a novel is well-developed, but in most stories I've read that focus on a best friend or another character, the person narrating the story can often get left behind in terms of characterization. I liked that even though Monday was super important to the story, we still knew more about Claudia from just her personality to her nail painting talent to the unique way she saw things and people as colors. Claudia's character was complex and nuanced in ways that made the story all the more rich and interesting to read.

- The relationships were all unique and complex. Something else that made the story great was that even though it is focused on Claudia's friendship with Monday, other relationships in her life were still deeply explored. My favorite was her relationship with her and Monday's teacher, Ms. Valente. It was also great to see a positive, supportive family in a YA book, since YA can get a little absentee-parent-y at times.

- I didn't like one of the twists. I really dislike it when a character's mental health becomes a plot twist in a book. I feel like it's a really cheap storytelling device that's also pretty problematic and insensitive to people with mental illness. This particular plot twist also didn't feel needed because there were so many other twists and honestly it was suspenseful and shocking enough without anything added.

- I wished Claudia and Monday's relationship had been portrayed as more complex. Before Monday disappears, there is an incident that does complicate her relationship with Claudia, but it is not extensively explored. I think Jackson was trying to show readers that Claudia might not have known Monday as well as she thought, but I wish that was more fully explored throughout the entire story so we got hints of it all along and not just through other characters in the book.

- The final reveal is shocking. The whole story is obviously building up to Claudia finding out what really happened to Monday, and to avoid spoilers, all I will say is that the ending is disturbing and shocking and is the exact opposite of anticlimactic.

All in all this was a very impressive sophomore novel from a very impressive author who I will for sure be reading more of. Tiffany D. Jackson's books deserve SO MUCH HYPE and I will recommend them forever to anyone looking for thrillers with a little something different.

[katie]

I finished this book almost a month ago and I'm still thinking about it.

Claudia's story is haunting, and beautiful, and heartbreaking. I cried when I figured out what happened, and once the answers were revealed I cried some more. EVERYONE needs to read this book.

Full review to come at http://kaitgoodwin.com/books