Monday's Not Coming - Tiffany D. Jackson

Hello, there! If you're looking for a (mostly) spoiler-free review for "Monday's Not Coming", I think this might be the right place.

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Micro Plotline:

We follow along with our main female protagonist (the main character), Claudia, as one day her one true best friend (Monday Charles) in the world suddenly disappears. She searches far and wide for answers, for Monday, and along the way discovers many things. She might not have known Monday at all. And Monday might just be in real danger.

(P.S. This is one of those books where the less you know, the better your experience will be.)

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Review:

Okay, I'll start by saying that I saw the end coming from miles, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. Written in alternating timelines, it might seem chaotic to some users who prefer chronologically arranged plotline, but I quite enjoyed it.

It showcased the raw bias against underprivileged people, how police, media, even their own people ignore Monday's disappearances as if nothing happened, as if she never existed. It really broke my heart to see Claudia struggle so hard just for people to acknowledge that Monday was a real person.

The majority of the book dealt with mental health surrounding loss and trauma, the pain of losing someone who you were around most of your life, someone whose presence was like second nature to you, and the pain of seeking answers that you thought you knew but now it all feels like a lie. It was really well done, although I might not be the correct person to be commenting accurately on it.

One of the major positives for me was the naive, unreliable narrator paired with alternating timelines. It really kept me intrigued and on my toes wanting to know what becomes of our girls, will they find a way back to each other, what happened in their pasts. The character development was done really well, I could see Claudia growing through different phases of her life and that made my heartbreak and warm-up at the same time.

The tones of gentrification underlying in the book were done really well as well. Again, I might not be the most accurate person to comment on it.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book, but the ending and some of the plot twists were really predictable and cliche. This really does highlight the fact that millions of underprivileged kids go missing in very suspicious circumstances but no one seems to care till it blows up all over the place.

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Rating:

4 / 5

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Recommendation Level:

Waning Gibbous