A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Published by Macmillan on August 2nd 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Social Themes, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 464
Format: ARC
When I made the wish, I just wanted a do-over. Another chance to make things right. I never, in a million years, thought it might actually come true...
Sixteen-year-old Ellison Sparks is having a serious case of the Mondays. She gets a ticket for running a red light, she manages to take the world’s worst school picture, she bombs softball try-outs and her class election speech (note to self: never trust a cheerleader when she swears there are no nuts in her bake-sale banana bread), and to top it all off, Tristan, her gorgeous rocker boyfriend suddenly dumps her. For no good reason!
As far as Mondays go, it doesn’t get much worse than this. And Ellie is positive that if she could just do it all over again, she would get it right. So when she wakes up the next morning to find she’s reliving the exact same day, she knows what she has to do: stop her boyfriend from breaking up with her. But it seems no matter how many do-overs she gets or how hard Ellie tries to repair her relationship, Tristan always seems bent set on ending it. Will Ellie ever figure out how to fix this broken day? Or will she be stuck in this nightmare of a Monday forever?
From the author 52 Reasons to Hate My Father and The Unremembered trilogy comes a hilarious and heartwarming story about second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Because sometimes it takes a whole week of Mondays to figure out what you really want.
If you think your Monday’s are bad, you’ve got nothing on Ellison Sparks and her day from hell. A ticket for running a red light, a horrible school picture, messing up softball tryouts, a bombed election speech and then the cherry on top… her boyfriend suddenly dumping her all have her wishing she could just do the day all over again and get everything right… and keep Tristan from breaking her heart. So when she wakes up on what she thinks is Tuesday, it’s like déjà vu… until she realizes that it really is Monday again, and this is the chance she needs to fix everything.
I’m going to be honest you guys… I saw the size of this book and I cringed. I immediately wondered if reliving the same day, 7 times was necessary… was this going to bore me after day three? The answer is an emphatic NO and yes all 7 days are necessary! For a contemporary it’s got a lot of pages, but please don’t let that dissuade you from picking it up. It truly doesn’t read like a 400 plus page book. In fact, I think I read this in less than 24 hours, mostly because I couldn’t put it down.
Ellie is such an interesting character. She’s one of those people who are constantly giving and worried more about the people around her and making sure they are happy, than doing the things that make her happy and doing things for herself. It was so fun to go on this journey with her and see her come to some pretty big realizations about herself.
As a fan of Groundhog Day (the movie), I knew I was going to enjoy this book, and Brody didn’t disappoint. I love that while each day brings her closer to figuring out the things she needs to adjust and change, she tries out different versions of herself as well. I mean, I would love to be able to do some of the things she tries and know that there will be no consequences to it when I wake up the next morning, but I was also nervous on some of those days because ‘what if’ she didn’t have unlimited chances to do it.
Of course there are boys… yes that was plural. There’s the boyfriend Tristan who Ellie is convinced she is supposed to figure out how to keep from breaking up with her. He’s a bit of a cliché and while I tried to like him, he just didn’t compare. Compare to whom you ask? The answer to that is Owen… sweet, kind, wonderful Owen. Owen is Ellie’s best friend and I couldn’t help but start swooning over him from the moment he gets into her car on the very first Monday. Their relationship is so fun and sweet and he’s just the best and I dare you not to fall for him. While his feelings are somewhat apparent to us readers, Ellie is a little blind in that department, but through the evolution of Monday’s we get to see their friendship grow and develop further and I just loved it.
Overall a fun and entertaining read that I just couldn’t put down. If you’re a fan of stories of growth and self-realization… if you’re a fan of getting the chance to do things over and you loved the movie Groundhog Day, then you’re going to want to pick this one up as soon as possible. I think you’ll love it just as much as I did.
Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
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