“I know what you’re thinking. How can a whole person, a kid, disappear and no one say a word? Like if the sun just up and left one day, you’d think someone would sound an alarm, right? But Ma used to say, not everyone circles the same sun. I never knew what she meant by that until Monday went missing.” – 4.75/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: go-go music, dyslexia, nail polish, braids, friends from church, and good, caring teachers.

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

This was tough to read at times… but it’s an unbelievable book.
In this book, we follow Claudia, our main character, who is trying to find her best friend, Monday, who vanished from the face of the Earth… and no one else seems to have noticed. They have a very strong bond, and they are very close, so Claudia feels lost without her and confused about where her friend is and why she didn’t tell her anything.
As far as characters go, the author did an amazing job developing every character with complexity and depth. They had very solid backstories, and they seemed… real. Which is very impressive!
The writing was very good! The only thing that threw me off a little was the “Before” and “After” chapter titles, because I assumed it was related to the time when Monday was found, but it turns out it was not related to that. I believe the author made that creative choice on purpose, but I personally think that didn’t work very well for this book. I found that very confusing and a weird addition.
Another thing I found interesting about this book is how it’s both a mystery/thriller story but also a coming-of-age story for our main character, Claudia. She was very dependent on her best friend, but she had to learn her way of navigating through school and growing up without her.
To conclude my thoughts on this book, I have one last thing I want to mention: I found out that this is a banned book in some schools in the USA. This is just my opinion, but I found this very odd. I understand this is a difficult book to read, but this would be a great opportunity to educate younger readers to be alerted about these very real situations. I did some research on this book, and I found out that this story was based on two popular murder cases: the Banita Jacks case and the Mitchelle Blair case. Both of these women murdered their own kids, and after learning more about them made me sick. If you are interested, check out the cases and see what was the inspiration behind them for the author. I’m glad the author used this book as a way of shedding some light on what happens to so many children every day. But I was a little disappointed to know that a lot of people are trying to ban this book in schools.
This was a very touching book that perfectly balanced the heartbreak of a loss, the search for the truth, and also the beauty of true friendship. It is a very impactful book, but not for the faint of heart! Highly recommend it.