I’m so excited to be able to help out with this blog tour, and our official stop will be August 12 with a Guest Post from Jessica. Today is the beginning of the awesome THANK GOD IT’S MONDAY  stops for the next 5 Mondays! To find out more of what this entails make sure to read Jessica’s post below, and find out how to follow along! â¥
A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody
Published by Macmillan on August 2nd 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Social Themes, Young Adult Fiction
Buy the Book ⢠Goodreads
Ellie is having the worst Monday of her life. She messes up her school speech for the class vice presidency position, she manages to take the world's worst school picture, she bombs softball tryouts, and the icing on top of this awful cake: her perfect boyfriend who is in a high school rock band dumps her. At the end of the day, Ellie wishes she could redo everything. When she wakes up the next morning, she discovers that it's Monday again! She has six more chances to redo the day in the hopes of having everything go exactly the way she wants. But in the process, she just may find out that what she really wants and what she actually needs are two very different things.
ELLISON âELLIEâ SPARKS: An idealistic, ambitious sixteen-year-old junior with a lot on her plate.
Those were the first words I ever wrote about Ellie Sparks. They were written in a synopsis for my publisher when I was first trying to sell them on the idea for a book called A WEEK OF MONDAYS.
Of course, you canât write an entire book about a one-sentence character. Just like you canât live your entire life as a one-sentence person. But every character has to begin somewhere. And this is where Ellie began for me.
As an idealistic, ambitious sixteen-year-old junior with a lot on her plate.
In my mind, this is who she had to be. I thought, if youâre going to write about a girl who relives the same horrible Monday over and over again, trying to âget it right,â these are the adjectives that must describe her. She has to be idealistic enough to think she can fix everything in her life. Yet, she also has to be ambitious enough to try it. And how else are you going to fill seven Mondays with interesting storylines if the main character doesnât have a lot on her plate.
So there was Ellie. And there was me, ready to write her, thinking I understood her. Thinking I knew everything I needed to know about her.
This is the writing process for me. I start with an idea of who someone is. I draw a box around them, like an identity fence. I stuff them inside and I lock the gate. I tell them, âThis is who you are. Donât try to change that. Donât try to be or do anything else. I donât have time for detours. Iâm on a deadline.â
I never learn.
A WEEK OF MONDAYS is my tenth published novel and Iâm still trying to lock characters inside fences. Eventually, though, they always break free. They always get bigger than their boxes. And even though I try to adjust, I keep drawing bigger and bigger boxes around them, trying to contain them to the world I built, the world I envisioned, they never quite want to stay inside. Just like people. You can try to identify them, label them, build a fence around them that makes you feel safe, and yet theyâll always surprise you. Because no characterâno human beingâfits inside a box.
One of my favorite reviews of A WEEK OF MONDAYS says, âWatching Ellie relive her horrible day is something like peeling an onion. Each Monday, a piece of her people-pleaser facade melts away, revealing more of her real self.â
I smiled when I read that because it wasnât until then that I realized exactly what had happened in the writing of this book. I had done it again. I had tried to put yet another character in a box, and she had slowly, word by word, page by page, Monday by Monday broken free.
This book is ultimately a story of self-discovery.
Seven days. Seven chances to completely reinvent yourself. Wear different clothes, make different choices, explore different paths, say different things, be different people.
Because sometimes it takes a whole week of Mondays to figure out who you really are. And when you finally do, you may find yourself thinking ‘Thank God It’s Monday’ after all.
For the next five Mondays, blogger friends across the internet will be sharing their best and worst Monday. Follow along with us online with #TGIM and #AWeekofMondays, because whether a Monday is memorable for good reasons or memorable for bad reasons, we stand to learn a lot about ourselves.
About Jessica Brody
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.
Lovely blog tour post Crystal ð Pretty curious about this one. I’m unsure, but maybe one day. <3 I do adore this author. She's awesome ð And this book do look so cute. Thank you for sharing about it. <3 Hugs.
I love this post so much! The idea of someone not being quite who we think they are is a running theme in my books, but I never really thought about the fact that my characters never quite turn out to be who *I* think they are. It’s so true! And such an awesome part of writing (and reading!). Will have to check this one out.