This book amazed me. I had received an ARC of it, but when I read the description that it was all about gaming (a subject I know little about), I almost didn’t read it. Then I started to see Instagram posts saying TomorrowX3 is a favorite book of the summer or year and I decided to try it. So happy I did! Even if you don’t care about gaming, you will still love this. The main characters Sam, Sadie and Marx - and so many of the supporting ones - are the kind you will keep thinking about long after you turn the last page. Love the 90s Cambridge/LA setting too. The author did a ton of research and is obviously crazy smart just like the characters. Would highly recommend this to anyone!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC! Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is available now. It will be on my list of favorites this year.

A in-depth depiction and analysis of a platonic friendship throughout a variety of stages of life. This had some odd pacing at times and didn't have much of a plot beyond the natural progression of the characters' intertwined lives and careers, but it is very deeply character-driven and you can't help but fall in love with them. There were moments of beautiful reflection from Zevin that will likely stick with me for a long time and definitely found this worth the hype.

This is not just a book about video games. This is a book about trauma, disability, abusive relationships, falling in love, loss, and ultimately the value of friendship. This is a story about life.

I thought the a lot of the writing choices were interesting and often crafty writing takes me out of a story but this proved the opposite, all of the choices were perfectly executed to make the story more impactful. I was never lost or confused, merely pulled into the creativity of the writing and the narrative.

The characters are where this book truly shines. Sadie and Sam are so utterly human, so full of fault and heart, that you can't help but fall in love with them. Their lives are filled with three decades worth of friendship, creativity, romance, love, jealousy, isolation, tragedy, miscommunication, genius, and more. We learn that love and connection doesn't have to be romantic to be worth a lifetime. That people come and go but true friendship is a worthy endeavor always. We watch these two fight and make up over and over but eventually they mature enough to learn that they are meant to be in each others lives.

Although this is also a love story to video games, you don't have to love video games to love this book. You only have to want to experience the true depth of these characters.

This book is what it means to be human.

Also the title is based off of my favorite solioquy from Macbeth:
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

“And this is the truth of any game—it can only exist at the moment that it is being played. It’s the same thing with being an actor. In the end, all we can ever know is the game that was played, in the only world that we know.”

CW: homophobia, gun violence associated with homophobia, miscarriage, suicide, car accidents, mental health struggles, violence, death of a loved one, disability discrimination, PTSD, night terrors

Sam and Sadie meet as kids in a childrens hospital. Both are gamers are their friendship saves and shapes their lives in different ways but is the foundation of what gets them through their respective traumas. Throughout their years, they torment and build each other up, as gaming, programming remain what keeps their relationship alive. Marx is the balance in their misunderstood relationship and saves both Sam and Sadie while helping them to build a successful business and help them personally manage their lives. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about the different types of relationships one can have. Whether it is romantic, working or just friendship, relationships are what keeps us grounded in life through the hardships, loss and love.

I really didn’t think I was the target for this book- a millennial. I picked it up anyway, and I’m glad I did! This book was about so much more than tech! A must read for everyone!

One of the best books I've read in a long time. This novel is so emotionally rich, exploring the complexities of friendship, love, loss and collabroation

Sam and Sadie meet when they're tweens in California. Both lonely, they connect but unfortunately their friendship ends. When Sam sees Sadie years later in Boston, kismet means they need to reconnect. This book tells their story as they go from friends to coders to business partners.

Trigger warning: loss of parent, suicide, illness, abusive relationship

I’m not even sure how to rate this book. I think I enjoyed it but it took me a whole freaking lot of time to read.

I really enjoyed the gaming aspect. I don’t know much about video games but I appreciated the research of them that probably went into this book. I felt like enough information went into the writing that I felt like I could follow along with the science of it- even if I didn’t really know what the terms meant. I enjoyed how much the gaming world became metaphors for their real life. Almost like little inside jokes you became apart of because you now understood from the gaming descriptions throughout the book.

Unfortunately, as a whole the book felt really slow. The beginning was a great pick up but then it just drug on for me. About 75% through it started getting interesting again. The chapters just felt so long at times- I had to put it down. Mainly why it took me so long to finish. All in all I’m glad I read it- I’m thankful for the free copy for sure and would definitely read another book by this author. It wasn’t terrible- just slow moving.

This is a truly unpopular opinion, but I almost did not finish this book. While there were some sweet parts, I was not really invested in the characters. I pushed through until about 40% and it was a struggle for me. I did enjoy the references to the 90's and early Era of video games, but it wasn't for me.

I don’t usually like coming of age novels, and I have absolutely no interest in gaming (or at least I didn’t, until I started to read…), and yet I thoroughly enjoyed this. The characters were wholly believable, complicated and relatable. (Even the one incredibly unlikable character was fully fleshed out and somewhat understandable.) I felt so fond of Sam and Sadie as I read, and I enjoyed following the ins and outs of their relationship, the love/hate/jealousy/misunderstandings made the relationship between them a character in itself.

I also was so impressed by Zevin’s ability to conceptualize the games they created, ideas emerging based on events in these characters’ lives and ideas they wanted to explore. (I want to play these games!)

I did think some sections were too drawn out, this could have been 100 pages shorter, the misogyny Sadie faced was sometimes too heavy handed for my tastes, there was some cringey writing, and there were a few tropes that annoyed me…I would have given this 3 stars, till I got to a certain scene told in the 2nd person (as if we’re living through and trying to win a video game!) That scene pushed it to 4, and the characters' reactions to the events of that chapter, pushed it up to 4.5, finally rounding up because I got so much satisfaction from the ending, and loved the ingenuity of the title. Zevin’s deep understanding of this world and her characters, her creativity and play with form were so fun to enter, I just enjoyed this read so much. (Now someone needs to create these games as tie-ins...)

Wow, what a fantastic book! The story details decades of friendship between the two protagonists and how their lives are interwoven. I really liked how the narrative is told throughout each character’s life, as it really give the reader insight into their character development.

This is a book that is happy, sad, touching, and beautiful. It’s a story about friendship, love, and how people who are important to us become entwined in our souls.

I’m seeing Tomorrow x 3 EVERYWHERE lately and it seems to be widely beloved. So I’m here to be a party pooper, because I didn’t love it. But you might.

When I started this, I thought it was going to be 5 stars for me, like a more relatable Ready Player One with less misogyny. I think this book has my favorite cover this year (John Gall is a god. Fight me.) Early on, I loved the 90s references, and even though I’ve never been a big gamer, I was into the descriptions of Sadie’s early games. I had hope for Sam and Sadie’s friendship.

And here’s where people are going to be torn,because I think I understand why people love this book. And that might be exactly the reason why I don’t.

I think we’re at an age in literature where readers kind of expect characters' lives to have been informed by their trauma, myself included. But there are two ways to do this. One is to show the trauma on the page, to use it as a plot device, and a way to elicit an emotional reaction from the reader. Zevin does this skillfully. It’s twisty and at times shocking. And maybe I’m desentized from a decade of hearing trauma stories 250 days/year, but it’s not that bad or scary thing that makes me feel. For a story to elicit a big emotional response from me, I need to see how those kinds of events fundamentally change characters. How they hurt, and grow, and heal. And that’s where this book is lacking. There’s plenty of trauma on the page, but the impact that it has on the characters here doesn’t always feel fully fleshed out or consistent with the other things we know about them as characters. It’s the psychology here that doesn’t really work. So while other people were sobbing their way through this one, I left it feeling “meh.”

And it’s about 100 pages too long. I think I get what Zevin was trying to do with the pioneers portion of this book, but my god did that part drag.

If Kristin Hannah gives you big feelings, this book probably will too. Otherwise, maybe just play Oregon Trail for the nostalgia?

Thanks to Knopf via NetGalley for a DRC to review. All opinions are mine.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
4.5/5

I’m going to get right into it with what made this book brilliant for me:
The characters. I loved them all so much for how unique and raw they were, how they embodied the nuances of what it is to be human, the importance of play, of failure.

The acknowledgment that the real world can be a violent dumpster fire, which presents gaming as a means of escape and self-development.
Gaming is layered and filled with possibility, and the perspectives of people of all ages, genders, abilities and socio-economic backgrounds being accepted and given a world to roam freely was a huge takeaway.

The writing I found to be brilliant, if not sometimes dense and clunky (this was a large part of our BR discussion), but overall I didn’t find it impacted my time with it

Suggestion to read this book with your most brutally booksta friends! People who can share differences in opinions and make you laugh all at once.
Was I the only person (out of 5!) who loved this book? Yes.
Was it also one of the most interesting buddy reads I’ve been in? Also yessss

Tomorrow was an interesting glimpse into the game development world. I enjoyed the character depth and development of this story, despite not being a "gamer". At times, I found myself wondering when the book would end, but despite this, it kept me reading and engaged, wanting to know what would happen next.

First off I want to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book for an honest opinion.

Honestly, this book didn’t really do it for me. I appreciated all the back story between Sam and Sadie, even the video game aspect brought me back down memory lane (I grew up on the Atari and the Sega Genesis). But the story was very long winded and it took forever to get to the point.

The first half of the story really drew me in, but in the end I just fell flat.

2.5 stars

Loved this book and will be recommending to my friends. I appreciate the depth of characters and narrative

This was a great exploration of a decades -long friendship. Sadie and Sam definitely had their ups and downs, but that’s what makes this book so relatable. The video game world was such an original concept and Zevin did a great job of making it easy to understand. I also really liked her detailed descriptions of Boston and LA.

I totally picked this book up for the video games, but there is so much more to the story. I really enjoyed this one! It was a very unique read!! I highly recommend this one!⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love love love Gabrielle Zevin so a huge thank you to Netgalley for the arc!

The premise of this book almost reminded me of the love story in "Free Guy". Two friends who come together over their love of video games.
A lot of the reviews for this book have been very long, and they are well deserved reviews because the book is THAT GOOD!
I'm going to try to keep it simple. Even if you do not know anything about video games (I have a teenage boy, so I have the basic knowledge) its not going to stop you from falling in love with this book. In fact, if anything, this book will give you a newfound appreciation of video games.

Such a great book!!

I was so excited to read this title after hearing about it on Goodreads. I read another by this author while looking for a copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. The storied life of AJ Fikrey was the title I read first and quite enjoyed it. Good characters in a touching, enjoyable story.
I was thrilled to find I had been given a copy of Tomorrow,, via Netgalley and couldn't wait to start reding. Unfortunately that excitement soon wore off. I enjoyed the nostalgia of the older games, but not being a big gamer myself, I didn't connect to much of it. I did not like the characters and became frustrated with them and their constant drama- mostly caused by rash judgments and lack of communication. I so wanted to like this, but instead found it tedious to get through. It seemed so long! I hated the Dov character- which I get you are supposed to feel that way at least to some degree. I get that, but I found him offensive and did not like the language used. I would not recommend this to anyone, unfortunately, but after so liking the first title I would try another by this author.