Zevin's writing sometimes felt simplistic (so many lists!), but I loved the overall tone and especially the ending of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow! The friendship depicted here felt complicated, deep and REAL. I blazed through this in a single day!

At its core, this book is a love story. But it is so much more than that, I can give you the synopsis on the back of the book - that this book follows the lives and loves of Sam and Sadie from childhood into adulthood as they create video games together. That is the basic backdrop for a book filled with rich, amazing characters that will forever be emblazoned into my memory.

Sam and Sadie are so relatable, so unique, so interesting, so lovable, so despisable. But beyond them, there is a cast of characters that are so well thought out, so well written, so well-conceived. It is hard to put into words how fantastic this story is. I am not a gamer by any means, having not played a video game since highschool, playing Mario Bros with my little brother. But the games are just a backdrop for the telling of a story about love, redemption, living, and dying. This is a book I would like to revisit some day. It is deep, it is moving, it is depressing, it is inspiring, It is all of us.

Special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Knopf Publishing Group, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars. I saw mixed reviews and I was hesitant going into this book (there's also a lot of words on a page lol), but I found myself flying through the story. I really enjoyed the structure of the book, and the progression of the lives of the characters kept the pages turning. I was never bored, and I felt a nostalgia for games that I've never even played. But I don't think you need to have played a single game to enjoy this book; it's more about the people that make the games and what of themselves they put into and see in their work. Really enjoyed this read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this arc.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was a lovely book to read.

There were many things that I learned about the inner workings of the video game industry and what types of work goes into making a video game.

Each of the characters in this book felt so well developed and dynamic that you could nearly believe that they were real at times.

Overall, it was a great read that I could recomendable to just about anyone.(Check tw though!)

Very different from my normal selections but I really liked this story. Life-long on again off again friends who start a gaming company together while in different Ivy League schools. Massive success brings penetrating scrutiny and high expectations. Their friendship takes the hit and sometimes bouncy back and sometimes breaks. Great relationship story about personal struggles, struggles of opposite sex friends and those in their orbit. Worthwhile read.

An absolutely masterpiece of pace, plot, and heart. Everything everyone has said about this book is true. just make way for the best book of the year.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has been well received by the general public. My own opinion of the book is multifaceted:

I enjoyed the writing, the setting, the work that must have gone into it, and much more.

I really hated the abusive relationship. It was more than I could handle. That does not mean it should be eschewed my the public, but it does mean it was not for me. I won’t stock the book for my 8th graders for many reasons - high level vocab, content concerns, etc., but I will have good, long conversations about it with adults.

Zevin is an autobuy author for me after this one! She writes characters that are human in worlds that are real but not my own. They are lovely books to visit.

One of my favourite books of the year. Maybe one of my favourite books ever? It’s a big call, I know, but I couldn’t have loved this book any more if I tried. I know nothing about gaming – I’ve probably played maybe one or two computer games in my life, and even after reading this book I have zero interest in becoming a gamer, but I absolutely loved the look at how computer games are created, and how creators come up with the ideas and the storylines and the graphics and the characters. I adored the friendship between Sam and Sadie, and I loved how it felt so real. Friendships are not perfect, they are not smooth sailing, there are times when even the best of friends are not always particularly nice to each other, and I really liked how the author reflected this in Sam and Sadie. Their friendship was multi layered and complex in the way of friendships that begin in childhood and have to grow with you through your life. The writing was my favourite blend of lyrical and whimsical but not overly flowery, with a different styles and perspectives woven in. The pacing did lag a little in the middle for me, but on balance it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story.
This one was unexpectedly heavy – it covers themes like gun violence, abortion, homophobia, grief, illness, sexism and death. I’ve read reviews that said they thought the author tried to take on too much and throw in every social issue she could think of, but it didn’t feel preachy to me, and I thought it reflected real life. To me, these tough topics were handled really beautifully and just added additional layers of emotion to the story.
The hype is real with this one friends. I cannot recommend highly enough. I listened to most of it on audio and I enjoyed the narration (though it wasn’t my favourite). These characters (especially Marx) have a place in my heart

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for an opportunity to review this book!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a story of two childhood friends who lost touch and meet again as college students in a subway station. At that moment they reignite their friendship and creativity to inevitably create a blockbuster hit game Ichigio. The story follows the two individuals over the course of 30 years through love, friendship and betrayal.

I was absolutely drawn to the premise of this story as a casual gamer myself I believed I would be the perfect audience for this type of story. Unfortunately, by the 65% mark I quickly began losing interest in the story line and characters.

Characters:

I enjoyed Sam as a character. I felt that his behavior based on his previous experiences in life made sense. I absolutely despised how toxic his relationship with Sadie was. Sadie’s character grinded my nerves and I think the way the author portrayed her character was well done if that was the intent.. As a reader, it was frustrating to read such a toxic relationship that could have merely been fixed by having a level headed conversation. As both character’s carry their own baggage with them they give themselves excuses to not address these conversations and it just ends up in a disaster of a car crash we are all watching happen in slow motion. Outside of Sam and Sadie I think Marx was extremely refreshing and well developed as a supporting character.

Plot:

The plot itself evolved slowly as this is more of a character based read. The inclusion of flashbacks and forwards helped with maintaining my interest only for the first half of the book but as the story lines became clearer I became less engaged in my desire to know how the story ended. I didn’t feel any particular pull or connection with either main character throughout the entire story and I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t able to sit with a character long enough in the beginning in the book to settle in to who they were and why I should care. By the time that was all revealed it was too late for me as a reader to connect.
The second half of the book completely disconnected me. I could predict that more “events” would take place to spice the narrative up and add more conflict and I did not enjoy that. As I hit the later end of the book I was read for the story to be over. I think it also dragged out for me and could have been 100 pages shorter and had the same effect.

Writing:
It was mentioned that those who aren’t gamers would enjoy this story and I think that is not the case. There is a lot of information in this book in regards to gaming and game development that I believe someone with zero interest will not enjoy outside the themes of discussion. I think the knowledge base is great and refreshing personally to read myself but not all readers are gamers and I think this could narrow the reading audience a bit.

The themes explored within this book friendship, love, disability, toxic relationships, death, trauma, and sexism. I think Sam’s themes were handled well and seem genuinely developed. Sadie’s story line came off to me as unbelievable. I personally just did not get on with her character at all which gave me feelings of frustration and anger when she was on page.

Who would I recommend this book to?

General fiction readers who have an interest in gaming or fiction readers who like explorations of trauma or self would find intrigue in this story. For individuals who hate gamers/gaming, I would caution them with reading as the game development and gaming aspects may disconnect them from the themes discussed.

I loved the characters and the development of their relationships over time, but I had a difficult time getting into the video gaming aspect of the story. This is my reason for the 3 stars instead of 4.

Sam Masir steps out if a subway car and sees a vision from his past. Sadie Green is standing there and he is completely shocked. How is he in Cambridge Ma and she is right there with him? He calls her name and she pretends not to hear.. then he calls her name again and she turns his way. This meeting sets them up for 30 plus years of friendship and partnership.. they both are in school Ma, Harvard and MIT. They are both gamers and this meeting helps them create one of the most popular games of all times. With this success comes many positives and some negatives. I really enjoyed this story. Their honest friendship and relationship was so good. As the years passed the author really captured their individuality and their work life balance, beautifully.. I enjoyed the story and I really liked the characters as well.. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin was a four star read for me. I want to thank Netgalley & the author for my copy, for an honest review.. at first it didn’t seem like my kind of read but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. I hope you enjoy it too!!!

Fantastic! Love a good coming-of-age story, especially from my age range. Made me kind of want to play some of those video games from when I was a kid.

I am completely and utterly wrecked by this book. To try and sum up the story succinctly is impossible. At the barest minimum the story is about Sam and Sadie, two childhood friends who reconnect while they are in college in the 90s to develop a game and their life from that point on. Except that it is so much more than that. This book is a story of love and of loss, betrayal and loyalty, and most importantly of lifelong friendships. As a reader I went from fully loving and then distrusting to loving again almost every character in this book. It resonated with me as a reader because who hasn't had friendships like this, where the relationship ebbs and flows throughout your lifetime. I wish to find my one true love like Sam and Sadie have found in each other, whether they know it or not.

This book made me wish I was more of a gamer than I am. Even though I am not a big gamer, the story still certainly resonated with me. The sense of nostalgia this book brought was impressive while not being too kitschy. Also, personally love the characters of Sam's grandparents Don Hyun and Bong Cha; their appearances throughout the novel came at always the perfect time and they had perfect wisdom like most grandparents do.
It was truly a beautiful story and the characters of Sam and Sadie will stay with me for a long time to come. I cannot wait to read this book again and recommend it to all of my friends. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for provided a copy of this brilliant and beautiful novel. All the opinions in this review are my own.

This was a lovely book. Its beginning and end were great, I def cried at the end. The middle of the book felt like a slog.

“Video games don’t make people violent but maybe they falsely give you the idea that you can be a hero.”

Let me start this by saying that I love love loved The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, so that is quite a book to live up to. Maybe it was that or maybe it is just my moody self, but this one did not wow me the way Fikry did. I very much enjoyed the characters and their trajectory. I loved the gaming aspect which gave me some Ready Player One vibes. But I honestly felt like the last half could have been cut by at least 100 pages as I struggled to stay invested in the story all the way to the end.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Knopf Doubleday Publishing, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve already recommended this book to everyone I know. I love stories that follow relationships for decades. While it’s certainly a long book, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on any of the story.

I really enjoyed this book! The characters came alive for me, as did the settings. You don’t need to be a video game player to enjoy this book, but it may make you want to play Oregon trail, donkey Kong, and the og mario brothers one more time!

Have bought for library collection and already placing on staff picks wall. Good book with great discussion.

I received a copy of this story from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story about games - all kinds of games. It's also a story about life, love, growing up, self-discovery, pain and grief, and what it means to be a partner. It's masterfully written and not to be missed.

I waited a while to read this book because I just knew it was going to break my heart. And it did. There's so much joy and so much pain and it is handled with the utmost respect and care. It stitched my heart back together, too. Every moment, no matter how dark or lonely or painful, is full of hope. It might not be obvious but you can feel it. It's an integral part of the fabric of Sadie and Sam's story.

Their story is told in a weirdly linear and nonlinear fashion. It's not always my favorite narrative because it's hard to do well but Zevin nails it. You immediately fall into the story and the time jumps work. They make sense and they fit and the story couldn't be told any other way.

If you're a gamer, you'll love this. If you're not a gamer, you'll love this. It's beautiful and moving and gut-wrenchingly sad and 1000% worth reading.