In recent years, young adult
fiction has shifted. Gone are the days of Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. What
has surfaced are books that are pushing the boundaries between what many adults
think teens want to read and what they are actually yearning to read. There has
been a major influx in novels that portray flesh and blood characters who live
in a world where they have to deal with situations beyond their years. Mental
health, sexuality, drugs, abuse, and all manner of unseemly material have
become more prevalent because unfortunately more and more teenagers are having
to cope in a world that even my generation couldn’t fathom. Sometimes, when
trying to cope, you just need to know that you’re not alone in your struggles,
and some authors are answering the call for more authentic teen fiction.
Authors like
Tiffany D. Jackson seems to be making it her mission to write books that are
real and tackle hard topics mostly relegated to adult fiction. Like Jackson’s
debut novel Allegedly, which follows
a girl, convicted of murder, seeking the truth while in a group home, her
second novel, Monday’s Not Coming,
deals adult themes in a way that is relatable to a younger audience without
pandering to them. The story follows Claudia Coleman. After coming home from
visiting her grandmama in Georgia for the summer, she immediately questions
where her best friend, Monday, is, having not heard from her the entire time
she was away. Her parents along with everyone else continue to assure Claudia
that Monday is just busy and that she’ll be at school on the first day of their
8th grade year...but she doesn’t show. The reader follows along Claudia’s
desperate attempts to find Monday while coping with her absence. On the
surface, this is simply a mystery of a missing girl, but at the heart of this
novel, readers can begin to see Jackson weave in themes of friendship,
gentrification, mental illness, and injustice into a complex narrative that
left me saddened and disturbed. The thought that this was inspired by real events
made the ending even more gruesome and heartbreaking. As always, I will being
doing a spoiler free review that goes over some hits as well as some misses and
my personal rating.
To start with, the friendship
between Claudia and Monday was extremely relatable. I as well as many others
have had friendships growing up that we will never forget. There is a special
bond among friends when you are a kid and the quote from the movie Stand By Me comes to mind, “I never had
any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.” Claudia and Monday
are inseparable and often mistaken for twins. Sleep overs, a secret language,
coordinating outfits are all hallmarks of young female friendships. Anyone that
has or ever had a friend like this can immediately relate to Claudia’s distress
when this other part of her goes missing. She sadly realizes just how alone she
is without Monday and struggles to cope with her loneliness. Ultimately Claudia
begins to feel betrayed and even questions whether Monday actually felt the
same way about their friendship as she did. I enjoyed this aspect of the
character’s struggle. That feeling of being left out or forgotten, especially
when you are an insecure 14 year old can be devastating. Jackson revealed in an
interview that this friendship mirrored her own and I felt like that shined
through.
The other aspect I enjoyed was that
the characters felt real. I’ve read some YA books where the author clearly
doesn’t know how young adults talk and it ends up sounding like a 30-40 year
old trying to talk like a teenager. It doesn’t work and just sounds desperate.
I honestly didn’t feel like that happened here. Jackson does a good job of
creating a young voice and although Claudia does sound a little more childish
at times, I feel like in this case it made sense in the story. I don’t want to
give too much away, but let’s just say there is a point.
Along with the characters, Jackson
has so far been able to discuss difficult topics concerning racial bias, social
injustices, and the like without being too heavy handed. Again, what I’ve found
in a lot of YA is authors not giving their readers enough credit to understand
their themes. They’re teenagers...not idiots! And frankly, you don’t have to
put every single social issue plaguing the world in your book. At some point it
becomes more about checking boxes than telling a really good story.
Now on to some misses. However,
most of the misses are not really misses because after finishing it, I can
totally see the “why” behind these decisions. The book is told in a non-linear
plot, jumping from before and after Monday was found (I’m not spoiling anything
for you...it literally says it within the first few sentences). This device is
often jarring and can be difficult to follow because you have to pay attention
to what is going on and what has been revealed already. But again, once you get
to the reveal, you understand why Jackson built it this way and it makes you
want to flip back to the first page and read it again to see if you can catch
some of the clues.
My other miss was more out of
personal preference and my own ideas of how the books should have ended.
Because I had read Allegedly, I was
expecting this “holy crap” kind of reveal that would leave me with an icky
feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know I’m that weird, morbid person who
wants the Lifetime thriller moment where the girl’s been living with her
stalker the whole time and she’s scarred for life. So when the mystery behind
Monday’s disappearance was exposed, I felt like there should have been more. I
kept thinking that there was going to be another detail just as twisted as
there was in Allegedly. But
again...I’m morbid and apparently this ending wasn’t gruesome enough for me.
It’s definitely a “holy crap” moment that will leave you heartbroken and
feeling so pissed at the world that you won’t necessarily sit the book in the
corner like a child in time out, but you will feel angry at a world where
something like this could and does happen.
I give this book 4 out of 5 stars
and recommend this book to both YA readers and adults alike. Although I would
add that because of some language, this may not be something parents of younger
teens (like 13, 14 or even some 15 year old) will feel comfortable with their
child reading. But besides that small detail, the story is captivating and had
me finishing the book in about two days. Definitely worth a read if you enjoy
mysteries.
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