Thank God It’s Monday! Blog Tour: My Best and Worst Mondays

Today we’re participating in the Thank God It’s Monday! blog tour to help celebrate the upcoming release of Jessica Brody’s book A WEEK OF MONDAYS. You can read Jessica’s guest post about her book here. My review is coming later this month.

You can check out what other bloggers are saying about their best and worst Mondays by following the hashtags #TGIM and #AWeekofMondays on social media and by following Jessica on Twitter @JessicaBrody. Tell us about your best and worst Mondays, too! They can be real or your made-up dream/nightmare Mondays. Here are mine:

MY WORST MONDAY EVER

My alarm doesn’t go off and I’m late for school. My mom’s a teacher and my dad’s the principal (is this sounding WORST enough yet?) at my school, but apparently they left without me and now I have to walk to school. I get there and try to sign myself in saying I had an appointment, but my dad’s office is right next to the attendance desk and he busts me. The secretary makes a tsk as she marks me absent on my record (a record she, in real life, would go on to make a photocopy of and present to me right before graduation, noting I had the dubious distinction of being in the top ten in my class both academically and for most absences–thanks, two rounds of mono, a deep hatred for high school, and a journalism pass that allowed me to leave for lots of “assignments”). I start to head to my locker but can’t seem to remember where it is. I finally find it because I remember Jenny has plastered the front of our lockers with pictures of Michael Stipe and a countdown for going to see REM. I can’t get in my locker. Of course. I try to sneak into my class unnoticed (like that is even possible) and get called up to the board to solve an algebra problem. I put on antennas and talk about sending a potato through a potato machine, which seems to satisfy my teacher. I’m unprepared for every class and panic because I am NEVER unprepared for class. I can’t find my notes, there are tests in every subject, and I can never get into my blasted locker—sometimes the handle is gone and I can’t find a way to open it, or a new wall has gone up and my locker is now behind it, or I just can’t remember the combination.

The worst part? I know I’m not supposed to be here at all.

I know I graduated a super long looooong time ago. I have a master’s degree! I tell my teachers. They don’t care. Apparently I missed some requirement and have to go back. Just for today? I wonder. No. I have to redo all of high school or my college degrees are revoked and I have to pay back all my student loans all over again (now we’re really talking WORST, right?). I remember how terrible high school was the first time around, but at least then I was surrounded by equally angsty and miserable peers. Now I’m nearly 40 and no one will be friends with me and it’s not just that I’m in high school but that I’m in high school AGAIN. So I continue to take tests that I bomb, and go to class without my textbooks, and wonder what I did to end up back in high school, knowing I apparently have four more years of this nightmare. And the day ends, but I know I’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow. Worst Monday ever.

MY BEST MONDAY EVER

My alarm goes off at 5:45 and I wake up immediately. I nudge my husband awake and say, Good lord, I had that dream again where I’m sent back to high school because I missed some requirement. Then I wonder why I never dream about elementary school or graduate school. Is it because I so desperately hated high school? Because I live in a world of YA books set in high schools? Or because we never stop reliving the trauma of adolescence? Who knows. All I do know is that this Monday doesn’t hold unexpected tests or forgotten locker combinations or anyone grading me. I’ll do some reading and writing, I’ll hang out with my husband, kid, and dachshunds, and I’ll be forever grateful that no one can actually send me back to high school.

Oh yeah–my 20th high school reunion is this weekend. I can’t go because I don’t want to. 20 years is still not far enough removed for me to feel any kind of nostalgia for that time. Maybe once I stop having nightmares about high school, I’ll reassess my feelings. But for now? I’ll leave that time in my life to half-remembered dreams, old journals, zines, mixtapes, and boxes of pictures. Waking up and remembering that I’m 20 years removed from high school? Best Monday ever. 

About A WEEK OF MONDAYS

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.

Jessica Brody is the author of several popular books for teens, including the Unremembered trilogy, 52 Reasons to Hate My Father, and The Karma Club, as well as two adult novels. She splits her time between California and Colorado. Find out more at jessicabrody.com. Jessica is on Twitter @JessicaBrody.

ISBN-13: 9780374382704

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication date: 08/02/2016

Filed under: Blog Tour