Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin was published in 2022 and was such a huge success.
It featured on so many book of the year lists. It was the #1 Amazon Book of the Year, #1 Time magazine Novel of the Year and was a Goodreads Winner for Best Fiction.
I was unfamiliar with the author before I came across Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It was a book I constantly saw being recommended so I knew I had to see what all the hype was about.
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Blurb
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.
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 favours, 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 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.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow Book Review
I really, really wanted to love this book. John Green described it as one of the best books he ever read and I wanted to feel the same. Unfortunately I didn’t and it’s hard to pinpoint why. I didn’t dislike it and there were so many things to enjoy about the book, I just didn’t LOVE it.
I am not a gamer and have zero interest in world of video game design so I did find some of the insights into the gaming industry a bit dull. I was hoping my disinterest in computer games and virtual worlds wouldn’t affect my enjoy of the book. Afterall, I don’t like ice hockey but I adored Beartown by Fredrik Backman. Unfortunately, I just found all the references to the video game industry a bit tedious.
When it comes to the main characters, I did like the character of Sam. I found him relatable and while he definitely had flaws, he was a really sympathetic character. I also adored Marx, Sam’s best friend. I loved his view on life and his positivity. Marx was responsible for this gorgeous quote which obviously inspired the title of the book.
“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
I found Sadie harder to like. I related to her earlier in the book but I did struggle to like her the more I read. She was quite unreasonable at times, even before she experiences a life changing event. The lack of communication between Sam and Sadie, for which Sam can also be blamed, was just so frustrating.
I did like how the story spanned such a large amount of time as we followed Sam and Sadie from childhood to adulthood. I also liked many of the supporting cast of characters, especially Sam’s grandparents.
I also really liked the writing style. It was easy to read and yet still felt poetic in parts. I really enjoyed the Shakespeare references and the link to the book’s title.
Overall I didn’t dislike this book and if I hadn’t read all the hype I probably would have been satisfied with it and would recommend it as a good literary fiction novel. I just wish I loved it as much as everyone else seemed to but it just didn’t capture my heart in the way I hoped.
What to read next
If you enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I would also recommend Normal People by Sally Rooney and Another Life by Jodie Chapman as I personally feel they all had a similar theme.
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