August 1, 2016

Review: A Week of Mondays

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A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody
Grade: B
Release date: August 2, 2016
An ARC was provided by Fierce Reads via a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for review consideration.
Summary: 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?

The, Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I loved the concept of a YA Groundhog Day (although Ellie's Monday doesn't repeat as many times as Bill Murray's Groundhog Day); that's why I chose it as one of my first Sixteen 2016 Reads. I guessed by about the third Monday that the plot wasn't really about Ellie stopping Tristan from breaking up with her, and I figured it would focus on her relationships with her family and her best friend, Owen. I neglected to think about Ellie herself. The seventh Monday was definitely my favorite for that reason. A Week of Mondays is a book about being true to yourself and making sure you aren't compromising yourself for someone else while also being considerate of others. Ellie learns to not be so absorbed in her relationship with Tristan, and she helps out her little sister and her parents. It's clear to readers from the beginning that her relationship with Tristan is far from perfect.
I loved seeing how Ellie tried to change things each day, and I felt her despair when she felt like the cycle would never end. I really didn't like the fifth Monday though, and I felt so much secondhand embarrassment during that section. (The first two Mondays were embarrassing for Ellie, too, but it's not like she was making all those crappy decisions on purpose to make things worse.) Also, as much as I liked Owen, I realized when the book was over that Ellie didn't have a single female friend. Yeah, her relationship with her little sister is pretty solid, but that's not enough. I really would've liked to see a more solid friend group for Ellie, girls who were excited for her relationship with Tristan but started getting more concerned as she got wrapped up in him (because trust me, that is realistic).
There's a few unbelievable moments, but A Week of Mondays is definitely like a cute teen movie. (Plus, there's a reference to one of Jessica's other books, 52 Reasons to Hate My Father, which was super fun to notice.)
There was some language and a few makeout scenes.

The Verdict: Cute and fun with a few flaws.


Will I be adding this book to my library?: Possibly!

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