4/5 Stars: ‘Monday’s Not Coming’ is a Young Adult, Contemporary Mystery by Tiffany D. Jackson; ‘Monday’s Not Coming’ is a gripping page-turner about an eighth grader who's gone missing. It's also the heart-breaking story of friendship. ‘Monday's Not Coming’ illustrates with incredible depth how child protective services fails, how alcohol and drugs cause family dysfunction, and how poverty devastates a community. Readers will love the girls in this story who are so real and fully developed. In addition to a gripping plot line, underlying social issues bubble beneath the surface, such as neighbourhood gentrification (the story is set in, and around the predominantly African American Southeast quadrant of Washington, DC), race, poverty, community, the healing of connection, and the destruction in disconnection. Ultimately, the very real question of how a young girl can go missing for so long without alarm will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. Trigger warnings for conversations about abuse, bullying, homophobia, poverty, and addiction. The non-linear narrative can be challenging to follow at times, but it holds readers’ attention as we, too, become invested in learning what happened to Monday — and subsequently what happens to Claudia.