“This is the story of how my best friend disappeared. How nobody noticed she was gone except me. And how nobody cared until they found her … one year later.”
Thus opens this riveting YA novel which deals with the topic of missing girls of color and our criminal indifference to them. Winner of the 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Award/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, Monday’s Not Coming is the story of the disappearance of Monday Charles, an 8th grader from a tough Washington, DC, public housing project. Our narrator is her best friend Claudia, who discovers Monday’s disappearance at the end of summer break when she has returned from a trip. What has happened to her best friend and why doesn’t anyone seem to care that she is gone? Writer Tiffany D. Jackson spins out a mystery that will appeal to Gillian Flynn fans and will make your heart ache.
Claudia and Monday have been best friends, soul sisters, thick as thieves for most of their lives. They love to dance, do each other’s hair and nails, and hang out together. They also have each other’s backs, and this is especially important at school. The two girls get bullied a lot, but they’ve managed to get through tough times because of their friendship. When Claudia returns from summer at her grandmother’s house, she can only bear the thought of starting 8th grade because she knows Monday will be there. But when Claudia calls, the line is disconnected, and when school starts, Monday is missing. Claudia’s parents seem unconcerned and believe Monday will eventually show up. But as the days and weeks go by and Monday remains absent, Claudia begins to investigate matters herself. The administrators at school claim they have sent out letters and that a social worker assures them all is fine at Monday’s house, but when Claudia goes there (defying her parents’ orders), Monday’s mother seems angry and secretive. Monday’s older sister is also nervous and vague about Monday’s whereabouts. Whenever Claudia turns to adults for help, her concerns seem to fall on deaf ears.
Meanwhile, Claudia’s situation at school begins to deteriorate. She is still bullied and taunted by classmates, and we learn that over the years, a number of serious incidents have occurred that made life difficult for both girls. Claudia worries that Monday had a life full of secrets that she, Claudia, never knew. On top of that, Claudia’s grades begin to fall, and we learn that Claudia has some secrets of her own, secrets that Monday knew and helped her to keep.
As Claudia continues her dogged pursuit of the truth about Monday, she has to learn to deal with her loneliness, her grades, high school applications and her feelings about a boy from church named Michael. Tiffany D. Jackson’s narration keeps the reader on edge as she jumps back and forth from things that happened in the past to Claudia’s present. Chapters go month by month for about a year, and within each month, she divides action into “before” and “after” and sometimes “before the before.” All the while, we the reader are trying to figure out what “it” is that separates the befores and after.
The final revelations about Monday and Claudia are heartbreaking and traumatic.This is a bold novel that dares to take on a very difficult and tragic topic. It reveals the ripple effect that events within a community can have on individuals, and the effect that the fate of an individual can have on the community. I would love to say more about this novel but I don’t want to spoil the plot. This novel would make a great choice for a book group and I think it would be an eye-opener for high school students who might live in a comfortable bubble out in the ‘burbs. I read about Monday’s Not Coming on Panama Jackson’s 28 Days of Literary Blackness blog. Check it out along with VerySmartBrothas.com.