soooo….. initially this was building up to be a great depiction of abuse and crime in communities the public doesn’t care about. so simple but so realistic and effective, the way one had seen in crime documentaries time and time again. buttttt then the ending came around? a) i don’t get the timeline AT ALL i’m wondering if anyone does on initial read. also i’m not sure if it would make more sense the second time around? b) the twist was nonsensical, so unnecessary and really dragged the story down. you don’t need a big twist shoehorned into a story especially like this to make sense. also why would everybody play along that’s just stupid. the twist is the same level of bad as we were liars where you have all that build up and in the end it’s just a huge wtf was that. the story was gruesome and real as it was and this just really made it ridiculous. also the ending ending was a little to happy go lucky also this is not really a mystery or thriller, which isn’t bad at all i just think it’s not being marketed right. in a way it’s a horrifying book.

I applaud Jackson for writing about missing black girls. There’s little to no coverage, and the only people looking for them are their family, friends, and community. I hope the hype of this book encouraged some to do more, but I know it probably didn’t since black girls are still going missing right now with little to no coverage. I don’t understand how anybody can be okay with just playing along with Claudia’s sleuthing. Why wasn’t she given help? She should’ve been gone to a therapist. I really don’t get how anybody would possibly think like that. It doesn’t seem like a reality to me, so I give it 2 stars.

Oh my GOD. This was the hardest book I’ve ever read and I don’t think I’m going to bring myself to read this book again. However this book was also such an important read. Missing children, especially children of color, is no joke. I remember back then in 2020 when a lot of, especially young black woman went missing and the media never payed that much attention to them and only did when people on social media kept talking about these cases. So back to the book. I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book because the things the book talked are still crawling on my skin and I’m still thinking about them. I’m someone that never really understood how you could get scared by a book but this one really showed me that. Maybe I’m sensitive I don’t know but this book really slapped me in my face with what it was talking about. I loved how the book had four (in the end five) different chapters with different contents but all still concerning Monday and Claudia. Though at first I got really confused but towards the end it was clear what the different chapters were talking about and what time the chapters covered. The ending of this book was just crazy and honestly I think I cried through at least four chapters. All in all I didn’t want to give this book a rating since for me it’s just a very important book to read no matter the ratings but because I have to give it a rating I’m giving it 5/5 stars. Also: PLEASE CHECK THE TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!!!!! I’m someone that never checks Trigger Warnings and now I wish I did.

A 3.5 rounded up, because I think this is an important story for young people. I only picked it up as a reading prompt (for banned books, as this one’s apparently banned in a lot of schools in the US). I had a hard time relating to the girls in the beginning, their thoughts feeling younger than they were in age. The „before“ and the „before the before“ were also confusing at times though in the end I get why the author chose this way of telling the story. It all comes full circle and picks up the tempo after the first half, so I really started enjoying the book more and more and even got hit with something I didn‘t expect.

Die Idee und das Thema von <Monday‘s Not Coming von Tiffany D. Jackson waren wichtig und interessant, doch ich hätte es wohl besser gelesen als gehört. Ich war zwischendurch sehr verwirrt aufgrund der Timeline und musste immer wieder nachschauen wo ich gerade war. Die Auflösung am Ende macht zwar Sinn, ich bin mir aber dennoch nicht sicher ob ich die Erzählweise wirklich nötig finde, ich glaube ohne hätte es mir besser gefallen. Ich fand schön das das Thema Freundschaft im Zentrum stand und fand es hat wichtige Themen wie Vernachlässigung und Kindesmisshandlung gut aufgezeigt. Teilweise passierte jedoch für meinen Geschmack etwas zu viel darum herum.