A gorgeously told book about friendship, love, betrayal...and yes, gaming. What Zevin brought to the table for booklovers in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, she brings in spades for gamers in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

Many reviewers of this book are making sure to reassure the reading public that they don't have to love (or even like) video games to adore the friendships and story in this book — and I suppose I have to assume they are correct. I have no idea; I have played video games my entire life. I'm about four years younger than the main trio of characters here, so I missed a bit of the earlier games they mentioned, but I absolutely know of them — and for me, it was so much a part of the core of this book and the characters' stories, that I have no idea how to disentangle myself from that portion because I loved it so much.

That being said, the main theme of this book is love: grandparents to grandchildren, friends, lovers, self, video games, success — almost anything and it's represented here.

Sadie Green and Sam Masur meet by happenstance in a video game room in the children's wing of a California hospital in 1987. Sadie's sister is a patient, and Sam is recovering from a life-altering car accident in which he lost his mother and nearly lost his leg. Sadie and Sam quickly bond over Super Mario Bros., finding solace in each other's company as their separate days at the hospital expand into a much needed friendship for them both.

But, after a misunderstanding, Sadie and Sam remain separated for several years, meeting up accidentally (again) at a train station when they are away on the east coast at college. After a quick catch-up chat, Sadie hands Sam a game she has completed for a class. What stems from this moment is a wonderful continuation of their friendship and launches them into creating what they have always loved doing — video games.

Zevin follows a narrative that is rich with detailed and emotional flashbacks. Her story covers decades of these two and I adored getting to know them and their third pal, Marks — who is a fantastic character on his own and who starts in the story has Sam's college roommate.

Sadie and Sam have a great friendship, but there are levels of communication with which they perpetually struggle — unwittingly. But Zevin makes this constant mental battle between Sadie and Sam feel natural and never overdone — there's so much empathy created in their respective chapters — these are characters to love because of their flaws, not despite them. I may have to revisit them in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Knopf for the ARC! Really appreciated the disability rep and Jewish rep - kind of wish the latter had been explored more within the gamebuilding context.

4.5/5

I haven't read a Gabrielle Zevin book since middle school, her highly acclaimed Elsewhere, and apparently I forgot her ability to make me enter an existential spiral of emotion. I read the last 40% or so of this book on an Amtrak and it was a physical effort to not break down crying.

All I knew about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow going into it was that it involved video games. I didn't even know the title was a Shakespeare reference until I was well into the book. So to say that I was emotionally swept off my feet as if the Great Wave off Kanagawa physically entered my heart is probably a bit on the nose but also entirely accurate.

The character relationships in this story are so complex, frustrating, and REAL, that it was difficult to remember that they were completely fictional at times. I was angered by all of them at one point or another but also completely understood where they were coming from as well. I wanted to shake them by the shoulders but I also wanted to cry with them. I wanted to send them all to therapy but also respect their need for space and privacy. It was a very emotionally draining experience.

I highly recommend this book, not just for people that love video games but also to people that enjoy reading about complicated relationships between friends and how they develop and change over time. I feel like I deeply understand these characters and I know that I'll carry them with me for a long time.

This one took me totally surprised! I did not expect to be pulled into the gaming world so immersively and willingly. I loved the originality of this story and I loved learning about a lifestyle and industry I know absolutely nothing about.

What I also appreciated was the deeply emotive relationships between the characters. The story spans about 30 years and the main characters, Sam and Sophie meet when they are in high school. The forge an unlikely friendship that leads to business partnership. They come from different backgrounds, and have different personalities, but they bond through a love of and passion for gaming. Their relationship is quite close, quite messy, quite contentious as well as quite strong. I'm a sucker for a messy family drama and this one felt like exactly that. They go through several years of anger and frustration with each other multiple times throughout this story. But they always find their way back to each other. The reader can see it is because they bring the best out of each other (along with the worst).

The story is about determination, pain, collaboration, friendship, love, jealousy, escape, grief, vulnerability and perserverance It explores the different types of love found in relationships and also the ways in which we hide parts of ourselves from those we love. I found it to be full of dimension and the characters so well crafted. There is a lot of gaming in this story - but you definitely don't have to be a gamer to understand or appreciate the story. It frames the background of it - but this book is so much more than just that. There were such interesting observations about the release and escape that games can provide. But there was also such depth in all the relationships in the story.

About 3/4 of the way into the story, the author switched the POV to inside one of the games and I found that to be just a tad jarring. The story previously had been told by multiple POVs in different timelines - but this change made the feel of the book totally different just in that one chapter. That is the only reason I rated this as a 4.5. Overall though, this book and these characters will stay with me, so I rounded up to 5 stars and feel it is deserving of them. Definitely recommend this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Pub date: 7.05.22.

Grappling With Video Games and Emotional Issues

Even if you never played a video game, you can understand and enjoy this novel. If you are a gamer, you will love this book because it details the brilliance of designing and plot development. Our two main characters, Sadie Green and Sam Masur have mental issues, but it does not thwart their brilliance. They meet in a hospital where Sadie is visiting her sister, Alice, who has cancer. Sam has yet to recover the use of his foot because of a life-changing car accident. They both are brilliant; Sadie is one of the few women attending MIT and Sam is attending Harvard College. They are certainly more than coders.

Sadie excels at MIT and receives kudos from her professor, Dov, who also lures her into an affair. Sam is overwhelmed with inferiority issues, but he is also a standout in his field. They meet up again, by chance, at a Boston subway station. Sam is enthralled, but shy, even when Sadie gives him a sample of an original game. They forged a very successful company with the help of a third main character, Marx Wantanabe. He handles the business end and is proficient at problem solving and working with clients. He does not have serious emotional issues.

Sadie and Sam are deeply flawed and not reliable in a business which is dependent on deadlines. Their relationships are complicated. In addition to writing a good story, the author used superb nuance when writing of two tragedies.

The first half of the book was fascinating and different. However, the second half had multiple blunders and botched-up scenes that, at times, I struggled to keep reading. However, a reader does not need to be a student of gaming to understand the relationships and work ethic.

My gratitude to Net Galley and Knopf for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

“Start again at the beginning, this time you might win.“

Gen-X video game designers Samson Masur and Sadie Green are—at different points in their lives, and all at once—best friends, frienemies, colleagues, competitors, family, and strangers. “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” has various stories and perspectives and the narrative jumps around in time, but primarily the novel is about their 25+ year friendship that begins when they meet in a hospital as young teenagers. It’s a tale about growing up, living, and not living. It’s also about creative collaboration, professional victories, and career failures. It’s about illness, pain, and recovery, too. And yes, it’s about video games, but it’s mainly about the different kinds of love one can have and the games that people play with each other when they’re in perfect harmony and painfully out of sync.

I loved this book, and I’m not a gamer. Author Gabrielle Zevin weaves a beautiful, multilayered story that comments on art, relationships, racism, sexism, and violence. She creates complex characters that are well-developed and believable in both their lovability and flaws — you root for their success at some points and are exasperated with their insecurities and insensitivity at others. I found it very easy to get lost in Sam and Sadie’s real and imagined worlds. I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in reading about friendship, creativity, and the wonder of perseverance.

Thank you to NetGalley, Borzoi Books, and Alfred A. Knopf for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. My review was posted online on June 25, 2022, on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4781725932.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about Sam and Sadie. It's about children and teens and young adults and adults and growing up and feeling old. It's about video games and games and play and rest and work and obsession and determination. It's about love and friendship and family and heritage and disability and hunger and rage and tragedy.

I love this book -- I feel like I read lots of literary fiction these days that shocks me rather than surprises me. It unsettles me rather than makes me gasp and think, I have to get someone else to read this. Zevin writes a decades-long narrative that retains its passion and its intrigue and made me laugh and cry. I love the voices of Sadie and Sam, I love being in their minds, I love their journey. I was wowed in particular by a few of the narrative sections -- the second person chapters and the game-play chapters in particular -- and wept when I realized where the title was from. This book was like a present that's just a bunch of boxes wrapped up inside each other and I didn't even care about what I would find at the end, I just wanted to keep unwrapping.

5 stars.

This book is so utterly pretentiousness and trying so hard to be woke that I should have given up on it instead of seeing it to the end. I would have if the beginning hadn’t been so beautifully done. There’s a line in the book about a video game sequel being awful because it was farmed out to Indian programmers who had no interest in the game and that’s how this book feels after the incredible start. The beginning was layered, nuanced and artfully done. I hate flashbacks but this book had managed to layer the present, past and future in such an incredible way before it fell off a cliff and suddenly feels like an entirely different writer took over.

The story began with Sadie and Sam central to the story. We found out about them in a narrative that skipped around in time to let us understand them and their relationship. Sam was the obviously the more sympathetic of the two and the one you as a reader care about. Sadie was often annoying and then fell apart in a ridiculous way. I hoped her awful college self with the horrible college boyfriend would evolve and grow up but she never does. Even worse for the story is the tangents that from that point became the story. We suddenly get a new character who is rightly called boring later on. He is a NPC. He’s just too good and uninteresting to take up so much space. We get his backstory we don’t need. In a similar way later on we get two new characters that happen to be gay that bring nothing to the story other than a celebration of their sexuality which apparently is worth their inclusion. Much like tangents about their game that take up unnecessary page time and continue to dilute any attempt at storytelling. There’s plenty of politics, even to a ridiculously degree like actual comical bad guys intent on violence against those in favor of gay relationships and marriage. Ironically for a book full of wokeness with characters never being straight, celebrating gender fluidity, the book managed to ridicule cultural appropriation. The book is very focused on the race of the characters but never explores them in more than a superficial way.

One of the author’s worst faults was her pretentious word choices. Instead of writing in way that flowed she chose to constantly check her thesaurus for jarring words like jejune and verdigris every couple of pages. Ironically much like the criticism of a game her character created this book is pretentious and full of itself. The worst part is that could have been amazing if it had stayed as focused as it was in the beginning. This is not a story worth the journey so do not push play. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

4.5 stars. There were a few short sections which I found a little annoying (conversations that just rang false and seemed like they were just inserted to set up a plot point), but overall very strong, and the core of the book (the relationship between Sam & Sadie) is excellent.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green are childhood best friends who connected over their love of video games. After losing touch for a few years, they run into each other in a train station during college. Sadie gives Sam a copy of a video game she made for class. After Sam plays it, he knows he must make a game with Sadie. The book follows Sam and Sadie over the course of the 16 years after they made the game together.

In high school I read a book by Gabrielle Zevin called Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, which I enjoyed. When I realized this was also written by her, I knew I needed to read it. I loved this book. A lot happens in this story, but the heart of it is the vibrant characters. It’s about love, friendship, trauma, and video games. Even if you don’t play video games, I think this book will be enjoyable for you. There is a lot to gain from reading it and it will make you appreciate so much about life.

There’s been so much attention put on Gabrielle Zevin’s new book that I felt I just had to read it. Unfortunately I’m in my mid-60’s and don’t play video games. I tried to care about the main characters, but somewhere over the 30 year span of their business partnership and sometimes friendship, I got lost. I’m sure this book will find a video game loving audience and it is well written.

Sam and Sadie might one day in a hospital and became fast friends however, that friendship only lasted a short time due to a deception. Several years later they meet by chance in a subway station and it is like that friendship never ended. They began making video games and they were so popular that a company was formed with Sam and Sadie as founders along with Sam's roommate, Marx.

The story spans several years through their Twenties and into their Thirties. Through the ups, downs, despairs, destructions, and repairs. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a beautiful story about friendship and love. It was hard to put the book down.

A fantastic book about friendship, love, life and video games.

The book follows the friendship between Sadie and Sam from their childhood days through to University and beyond.

The book made me laugh and it made me cry. A fantastic read that I highly recommend.

This is very much a book about video games. Playing, planning, making and marketing them. This is also a book about friendship that spans decades and is not always so friendly. The writing style is detailed and the story jumps between past and present always telling what we need to know just now. Sam and Sadie are complex and real characters. My favorite character is Marx. He's kind and gentle and always knows what to say and how to proceed.
This is not the easiest book to read if you are not very familiar with gaming, as I am not. The gaming aspect is very strong and told in intricate detail. It pays off to read something totally out of your comfort zone. You might learn something new. Enjoy the ride.

I absolutely loved the characters in this book! I had a hard time getting into some parts of it, mainly because I don't know anything about video games or coding but the way the characters were written kept my attention. This book was so unlike any other book I've read in the best way possible.

This is a book about love, friendship, coming of age, and video games. I think it will be very well accepted. The story wasn’t really for me, but the writing and plotting was first rate.

"This is a story about Sam and Sadie. This isn't a romance, but it is about love."

Gabrielle Zevin has been an auto-buy author for me since I read her YA debut Elsewhere in 2007. I have loved every single one of her books, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is no exception. I often struggle to describe her books because trying to categorize them feels reductive. This is a book about two gamers and messy, complicated, beautiful relationships. This is a book about success and failure and understanding the gray area between them. This is a book about growing up and navigating a relationship through decades of friendship and love.

It brought me to tears. I loved it. It is insightful and witty and literary, and all the things I've come to expect from Zevin.

I loved everything about it. Even if you're not a gamer, I can't really imagine anyone who enjoys contemporary fiction really disliking this book. Compelling, empathetic characters and fascinating worldbuilding – meta and otherwise.

Do yourself a favor and read this book.

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. Sam and Sadie meet when they are young at a hospital. They become friends. This book is about their journey.

I’m not a gamer, and some things lost me. But I do love a good story.

I loved how this book was split up. The Marx chapters hit me hard, I was crying throughout. The book is a love story, but of friendship.

I loved the characters. They were flawed. They fought. They made up. They figured out how to do life together… mostly. The end was sad but also hopeful.

I truly think this book is magic. I’d fully recommend it!

Thank you to Knopf for providing a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date: 7/5/22
Genre: coming of age, books about friendship
In one sentence: Friends Sam and Sadie were the brains behind video game sensation Ichigo - but what will happen to their friendship after early success?

Friendship is one of my favorite topics to explore in a book, and I loved how Zevin told Sam and Sadie's origin story. Their platonic friendship was more captivating than some romances, especially with the give-and-take that happens with a close working relationship. I'm not a big gamer, but I enjoyed the video game references (especially to Oregon Trail) and seeing how much games meant to both main characters. Sam and Sadie are both good friends and bad friends individually and as a pair at different times in their friendship, and I liked seeing the conflicts they went through.

The book lost me a bit in the last third - the plot didn't live up to the promise of the beginning of the book, and I could guess where things would go long before the book ended. I still enjoyed the book a lot, but I think it would have been a five star read with some editing. 3.5 stars.

Initial reaction: Holy shit. I love this book so much. A formal - and probably long winded- review to come. Going right to the all time favorites list though.

"Formal", long-winded review:
This is a story about friendship and love, but not in a way that you have ever read before. I absolutely loved this book so much, and I am going to do my best to explain why. First, there were many nights where I stayed up entirely too late, hours later than I should have gone to sleep, in order to keep reading. This book made me feel very intense feelings for these incredibly well fleshed out characters.

As for the craft of the storytelling: while the book follows a mostly linear timeline from the 80s through present day, there is some excellent use of non-linear storytelling which I thought was incredibly well done. You would understand something from a particular perspective, and then later Zevin would loop back around to the same incident and reveal something that completely shifted how you perceived an event or character, with new depth or clarity. It was brilliant.

I was so invested that more than once I may have sat up and said out loud "no they f*cking didn't" repeatedly and with new emphases on a different part of the sentence every time.

Warnings: this book gets sad. It's not a sad book, but you will be sad, maybe devastated, at times.
Content warnings: a suicide and an active shooter situation are both described on page (I know that sounds intense, which is why I felt compelled to mention it, although I hope it doesn't deter you from picking up the book)

Lastly - I may have one quibble. Still a favorite book of all time. But I have a quibble. And that is the absolute insane use of vocabulary words which I had never in my life heard before. It got to the point that 20% in, I started writing them down on a note in my phone. I have 34 words written down that I absolutely could not tell you what they mean. I would have been able to use context clues without a dictionary, but I am so happy that I read this on my kindle, because I used the in-device dictionary A LOT. You may be thinking, Lauren, surely it wasn't that bad. Here are a few examples: ligneous, grokking, copacetic, ameliorated, patchouli, hirsute, ouroboros, vertiginously, bloviating (2x), raconteur, habiliments, sepulchral, sinsemilla, puerile, palimpsest, ouroboros AGAIN, susurrus, purloined, jejune, simulacrum, verdigis. It honestly got to the point of laughable. Did I learn anything? Doubtful. But I felt compelled to mention it because it felt notable.

ANYWAY. LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH.
I even DMed the publisher on instagram to find out where I can pre-order a signed copy, even though they gave me a free copy in exchange for a reiew. Which:
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for providing an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.