Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Monday is missing and the only person who seems to notice is her best friend Claudia. As the days turn into months and Claudia doesn’t see or hear from Monday she is worried something bad has happened but none of the adults seem to be listening so Claudia sets out to find her best friend.

When I say this book is amazing y’all I mean it. I have no idea why it took me this long to read this book shame on me.

So in the beginning we learn pretty quickly that there is something suspicious going on with Monday. Claudia hasn’t heard from her all summer long which is unusual, Monday doesn’t show up for the first day or school which is again is uncharacteristic. So Claudia decides to go pull up on Monday at home and Monday mother is mean as hell which confuses Claudia even more. Claudia is telling whoever will listen that something is wrong and no one will listen, except for their 7th grade teacher who tries to help by getting CFPS involved but gets no resolution. Claudia is getting conflicting stories from Monday’s family members and she is just at a loss but won’t give up on her best friend.

In the beginning I felt like Claudia was way to codependent on Monday but as I kept reading I understood why and how Monday was truly there for her and her secret keeper. Claudia was super smart but very insecure with herself due to issues out of her control and Monday was the one to help her with these issues. Claudia was also an introvert and bullied so it was hard for her to make new friends as she always stayed in her bubble with Monday. I felt so bad for Claudia as I learned more about her. Claudia was also very naive, there were a lot of signs that something was going on with Monday and Claudia just blindly believed all of her excuses when she questioned Monday. I found myself being so irritated with Claudia because of this.

There was a small love interest between Claudia and a boy she went to church with that was cute and helped her get out of her shell a little. Tiffany D. Jackson does a great job on dropping little hints on what could possibly be going on with Monday but just when you think you know there is a plot twist. I tried the entire time I was reading this book to figure out what the chapters meant and it finally clicked after the plot twist was revealed. I had to go back and listen to this on audible and it made so much sense after reading it and knowing exactly what the chapters meant.

I liked how there was a healthy representation of black love and parenting with Claudia’s parents. We got the toxic abusive story line so it was good to get the healthy parenting storyline as well. The book also illustrated how the system fails abused children. I loved reading the book from the best friends perspective on a missing person and I couldn’t image how I would have felt if my best friend would have went missing in the 8th great.

This was an amazing read but also very sad. I cried for Monday and the life she had to live. I am definitely a fan of Tiffany D. Jackson now, sis is talented. Her storytelling was so unique I can see why she is a best selling author. This book had my fill attention from page 1, I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it, it took me less than 10 hours to finish this book.

CW: Child abuse, murder, mental health, and miscarriage