Book Review: "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" by Gabrielle Zevin
4.5/5 stars
*Spoilers warning!*Happy 2023!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards in the fiction category, so I had to see for myself if I enjoyed it. (Spoiler alert: I did!) I'm glad I had this one as my first read for 2023!
This book has the most compelling exploration of love in all forms, whether it is friendship or a romance. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is primarily about three people that came together to start a video game company.
The book tracks the progress of these three friends, who develop deep and meaningful relationships with each other as they design and promote video games over a span of thirty years.
There is something special that comes with a collaborative art project of any kind, whether it is in video games or painting or writing or any kind of art. Zevin does a good job of showing us how bonds can be forged within and outside of the creative process.
Two of the three co-founders met as kids in a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital. Sam was in the hospital because a car accident left him with a crippled foot that needs constant surgery. Sadie encounters Sam in the hospital’s video game room Sadie is there with her family because her sister, Alice, is being treated for cancer and the two become fast friends.
However, just as fast as the two strike up a friendship, things go south, leading to a separation that lasts for years.
Sam and Sadie don’t encounter each other again until they both are in college, at a train station in a very lucky chance meeting. I don’t know about you, but this seemed a bit cliché, like a scene from a rom-com. They rekindle their friendship and embark on a dream project of theirs: to create their own video game.
Sam’s roommate, Marx, becomes their manager, dealing with practical matters, while Sam and Sadie are set free to be game designers. Over a tense summer, requiring personal sacrifices on all fronts, they complete their first video game, Ichigo, and are catapulted into sudden fame.
At 25 years old, Marx, Sam, and Sadie have their own company, Unfair Games, and are rich beyond their wildest dreams, and overjoyed to have more resources at their disposal to create the video games they have always wanted to.
This is where it gets interesting, because just as they are achieving fame and high status, Sam and Sadie start to clash over the creative vision of the company. Both are highly ambitious, Sadie especially, because the video game industry doesn’t have too many women in leadership positions. (This remains the case.)
Things deteriorate between the two, providing the underlying emotional conflict that drives the characters as they are navigating life changes, from fame to romance to moving to start again somewhere new.
California, naturally, is where their game company is headquartered (Silicon Valley, anyone?), and is the location in which most of the emotional and relationship drama takes place. It truly hurt to watch Sam and Sadie have constant miscommunications that drove them apart for significant portions of the book, even though the reader knew how much they continued to care for each other even as they were apart.
Marx, ever the peacemaker, tries to get the two to reconcile, with mixed results. Not only does he care about both Sam and Sadie, but their conflicts are putting Unfair Games in jeopardy.
A compelling story with compelling characters, one does not need to know much about video games to enjoy Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Zevin is mostly exploring here the emotional connections and life journeys of each character, and only cursorily goes over the creative process in video game designing in a way that is not overwhelming.
I won’t reveal anything else to allow others to read the book and come to their own conclusions.
Happy reading!
--BookOwl
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards in the fiction category, so I had to see for myself if I enjoyed it. (Spoiler alert: I did!) I'm glad I had this one as my first read for 2023!
This book has the most compelling exploration of love in all forms, whether it is friendship or a romance. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is primarily about three people that came together to start a video game company.
The book tracks the progress of these three friends, who develop deep and meaningful relationships with each other as they design and promote video games over a span of thirty years.
There is something special that comes with a collaborative art project of any kind, whether it is in video games or painting or writing or any kind of art. Zevin does a good job of showing us how bonds can be forged within and outside of the creative process.
Two of the three co-founders met as kids in a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital. Sam was in the hospital because a car accident left him with a crippled foot that needs constant surgery. Sadie encounters Sam in the hospital’s video game room Sadie is there with her family because her sister, Alice, is being treated for cancer and the two become fast friends.
However, just as fast as the two strike up a friendship, things go south, leading to a separation that lasts for years.
Sam and Sadie don’t encounter each other again until they both are in college, at a train station in a very lucky chance meeting. I don’t know about you, but this seemed a bit cliché, like a scene from a rom-com. They rekindle their friendship and embark on a dream project of theirs: to create their own video game.
Sam’s roommate, Marx, becomes their manager, dealing with practical matters, while Sam and Sadie are set free to be game designers. Over a tense summer, requiring personal sacrifices on all fronts, they complete their first video game, Ichigo, and are catapulted into sudden fame.
At 25 years old, Marx, Sam, and Sadie have their own company, Unfair Games, and are rich beyond their wildest dreams, and overjoyed to have more resources at their disposal to create the video games they have always wanted to.
“‘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.’”
This is where it gets interesting, because just as they are achieving fame and high status, Sam and Sadie start to clash over the creative vision of the company. Both are highly ambitious, Sadie especially, because the video game industry doesn’t have too many women in leadership positions. (This remains the case.)
Things deteriorate between the two, providing the underlying emotional conflict that drives the characters as they are navigating life changes, from fame to romance to moving to start again somewhere new.
California, naturally, is where their game company is headquartered (Silicon Valley, anyone?), and is the location in which most of the emotional and relationship drama takes place. It truly hurt to watch Sam and Sadie have constant miscommunications that drove them apart for significant portions of the book, even though the reader knew how much they continued to care for each other even as they were apart.
Marx, ever the peacemaker, tries to get the two to reconcile, with mixed results. Not only does he care about both Sam and Sadie, but their conflicts are putting Unfair Games in jeopardy.
A compelling story with compelling characters, one does not need to know much about video games to enjoy Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Zevin is mostly exploring here the emotional connections and life journeys of each character, and only cursorily goes over the creative process in video game designing in a way that is not overwhelming.
I won’t reveal anything else to allow others to read the book and come to their own conclusions.
Happy reading!
--BookOwl
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