A Week of Mondays

Gr 8 Up—In the course of one Monday, Ellie Sparks gets a ticket for running a red light, fails a history quiz, gives a train wreck of a speech in front of the entire school, bombs softball tryouts, and, to top it all off, is dumped by her sexy rock star boyfriend. Just when Ellie thinks that things can't get much worse, she wakes up the next morning and quickly realizes that she is living the worst Monday of her life all over again. After the initial shock, the teen decides that if she is given this second chance to make things right, she has to do her very best to keep her boyfriend from dumping her again. Little does she know that there doesn't seem to be a way to make the cycle stop. Ellie will try everything in her power to make sure everything is set right in her life, even if it means reevaluating what right really is. This work touches upon something that many teenagers (and adults) have always wondered: How would things change if I could do it all over again? While this story is relatively predictable, it makes up for that by being compulsively readable and enjoyable. Ellie is an easily relatable narrator for whom readers will keep rooting.