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How could a 13-year-old girl be missing for over a year and no one seems to notice or even really care? This is the question Monday Charles’ best friend Claudia asks over and over again in the young adult novel “Monday’s Not Coming” by Tiffany Jackson.
Claudia comes home to her neighborhood in Washington, D.C., after visiting her grandmother in Georgia for the summer. It is the day before eighth grade is supposed to start. The year that is supposed to change everything. The year is supposed to be the best one yet for Claudia, especially because she will have her best friend … her only friend, Monday, by her side.
Only the phone at Monday’s house is disconnected, and Monday never shows up for the first day of school, or the second, or the third, or the fourth or the fifth. Claudia is frantic with worry. She knows Monday loves her like a sister. The two of them were inseparable. She would never leave Claudia on her own to face eighth grade, the schoolwork, the bullies, the boys and all the other endless problems that come with it. Something was definitely wrong.
But the adults Claudia looks to for help seem unphased. Monday’s mother greets Claudia with hostility and leaves her with more questions than answers. Claudia’s parents think it is a sign that Claudia needs to find new friends and gain some sort of independence. The school administration thinks it’s just another student who has transferred elsewhere, one less student they have to be concerned about. So Claudia does the only thing she can. She sets out on her own to find out what happened to her best friend.
“Monday’s Not Coming” is truly a thriller that takes readers on an adventure full of danger and intrigue. It can get a little confusing because the narrator tells the story from different points in time. But if readers sticks with it, they will come to understand that it had to be written that way to allow the story to unfold. The novel is full of twists and turns that grab readers from the first page and hold onto them until the very end. It is a great mystery that keeps readers guessing, with an unexpected ending readers will never see coming.
This review does not reflect the views and/or opinions of the city of Chesapeake.
Recent library additions
Adult: “Scarlet Fever” by Rita Mae Brown,“The Princess Plan” by Julia London, “A Minute to Midnight” by David Baldacci, “How Happiness Happens” by Max Lucado, “You Suck at Cooking: The Absurdly Practical Guide to Sucking Slightly Less at Making Food” by Clarkson Potter, “Becoming a U.S. Citizen: A Guide to the Law, Exam & Interview” by Ilona M. Bray, “The Beautiful Ones” by Prince, “Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life” by Ali Wong, “The Chocolate Shark Shenanigans: A Chocoholic Mystery” by Joanna Carl, “Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking” by Toni Tipton-Martin, “The Starless Sea” by Erin Morgenstern, “The Importance of being Ernie (and Bert): A Best Friends’ Guide to Life” by Sesame Workshop
Weekend Scoop
Teen: “Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights” by Mikki Kendall, “Sisters of Shadow and Light” by Sara B. Larson, “Gravity” by Sarah Deming, “The Toll” by Neal Shusterman, “Supernova” by Marissa Meyer
Juvenile: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball” by Jeff Kinney, “Fearless Felines: 30 True Tales of Courageous Cats” by Kimberlie Hamilton, “Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Best Friend Forever” by Rachel Renee Russell, “Descendants: Twisted Field Trip” by Jen Vaughn, Delilah S. Dawson, Carin Davis (graphic novel)
Picture books: “The Crayons’ Christmas” by Drew Daywalt, “Rock-a-Bye Tree Sloth” by Aly Fronis, “Dinosaur Yoga” by Mariam Gates
Downloadable: OverDrive: “Get A Life, Chloe Brown” by Talia Hibbert (e-book & e-audio), “Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers” by Joyce Carol Oates (e-book & e-audio), “Full Dark, No Stars” by Stephen King (e-book & e-audio), “The Queen of Nothing” by Holly Black (e-books & e-audio), “Evermore” by Sara Holland (e-books & e-audio)
DVDs: “Good Omens,” “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” “A Very Corgi Christmas,” “Good Boys,” “The Angry Birds Movie 2,” “The Wedding Guest”
Music CDs: “Christmas in the City” by Lea Michele, “Sincerely, Detroit” by Apollo Brown, “Wildcard” by Miranda Lambert, “1977: The Year Punk Broke” by various artists, “Courage” by Celine Dion
Johanna James grew up in Greenburgh, New York, but currently resides in Chesapeake. She has worked for the Chesapeake Public Library for almost three years. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and hopes one day someone will be writing a review of one of her books.
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