Book Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: July 5, 2022
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Even though this book is about gamers, you don’t have to be one to appreciate how wonderful it is. I’m definitely not a gamer in any way – Candy Crush and Wordle are the extent of my gaming experience. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is more about the relationship between the two main characters, game designers Sam and Sadie, and their friend Marx and what happens to it when the video game they design becomes a massive success. The characters are well-drawn and complex. It’s character-driven but still has an out of nowhere twist. This is also one of the few books that have made me ugly cry. Luckily, I was in the privacy of my own home! I chose this book because John Green recommended it and he did not steer me wrong. I also highly recommended it.
