Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Monday’s Not Coming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Child Abuse
Family, Community, and Responsibility
Growing Up, Independence, and Friendship
Secrecy and Shame
Poverty, Social Support, and Desperation
Memory, Repression, and Trauma
Summary
Analysis
According to the news, police found a body in Baltimore the morning after the party. As Megan, Claudia, Kit Kat, and Shannon get up, Megan asks Claudia if she’s okay and says the pancakes will help. As Claudia chugs water, Megan tells her mom that they stayed up all night watching Netflix.
Waking up to the news that the police found a body is sinister foreshadowing—it reminds readers that Monday doesn’t make it out of this alive. Even if this particular body isn’t Monday’s, though, this also drives home how prevalent it is for girls to go missing—and be found dead.
Themes
Megan’s cellphone rings. Megan answers, grins, and hands the phone to Claudia—it’s Michael, calling to check on Claudia since she wasn’t at church. He says that Ma invited him for dinner and asks if she wants him to come. Claudia says she does and starts to apologize for last night, but he chuckles and says they’re just friends who got a little drunk. Claudia mumbles a goodbye. She thought Michael wanted to kiss her, but maybe she was going too fast like Monday. She wonders if Jacob told her the truth. Claudia returns to the kitchen and tells her friends that Michael was checking on her. Kit Kat and Megan say Michael likes her. Claudia’s heart flutters.
In contrast to the previous passage, this moment offers hope that things are going to be okay for Claudia. Michael seems interested in friendship, even if he’s not interested in romance—and this means that Claudia will have many people to rely on for support without Monday around. And if Kit Kat and Megan are correct, Claudia is also headed for her first romantic relationship—which again shows how much she’s growing up and developing as the novel unfolds.
Themes
