Two kids meet in a hospital when they are 11 and 12. This one meeting of playing games in a hospital waiting room will forever change their fate. The book spans around twenty-odd years of their lives. They fight they make up they are always challenging each other through the years. The beginning of their start of making video games together is near the beginning of video gaming becoming a big deal in society. So they are on the ground floor of gaming with only a few people coming before them. If you stay with the book you will need to think about it.

I honestly don't know what to say about this book. I'm a little overwhelmed. I get what the author was trying to do and I think they pulled it off, but like many of the games in the book, I have to sit and think about this for a hot minute before I talk about it. <spoiler> I will say that I figured Sadie and Sam would become more then friends in the end, but that is not the case. </spoiler> Overall the book is one that I'm glad I read.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is a book outside of my normal comfort zone but I am definitely glad I gave it a chance. Zevin does an amazing job at bringing readers into the world of video games, both how it feels to be a gamer and the opposite side of things and how it feels to be the creator behind the scenes. In this book we are introduced to the world of Sam and Sadie, and later Marx, as they navigate the world from childhood to adulthood. The story is told from multiple point of views, and at the end of the day you are left feeling like you know everything and nothing at all about our main characters - which at the end of the day is how real life relationships with people work. The characters weren't perfect and as the reader you are center stage to all of their inherent character flaws and the ways that they do, or don't work through them. The book does a great job at describing the different layers to people, and their relationship, and how two people can love each other but never be in love with each other. Several of the chapters were haunting and gave me goosebumps at the way the emotional topics were handled. I strongly recommend reviewing the topic warnings before diving into this book, as there are a few unexpected topics that may be hard or triggering for some people including domestic abuse, death of a parent, gun violence, death of a loved one, car accidents, and medical trauma.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Love it! From beginning to end this book kept me entertained.
I cheered for the characters and wished them all well.
Do not pass on this because it might not be your normal genre. Give it a chance.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Absolutely loved this book and was hooked from the beginning. The characters were charming and I truly cared about them. Beautifully written and accessible to all readers, gamers or not!

They met in a California children's hospital. Sam was there for damage to his leg after the wreck which killed his mother. Sadie was there because her parents needed to be there for her sister who had leukemia. They became best friends in the children's game room as each of them were gamers. But after a misunderstanding, their friendship came to an end.

Years later, they meet again by chance in Boston where both had chosen to attend university. Their past quarrel forgotten, they become friends again and decide to create a game together. Sam's roommate, Marx, supplied the third person who took care of all the business, scheduling and coordination needed to make a project successful. Successful it was with the game, Ichigo, becoming a multimillion dollar best seller. The three of them are young and successful and rich. Their company moves to California and turns out hit after hit.

Over the years, Sam and Sadie's friendship waxes and wanes. Sometimes they are closer than anyone else in their lives and sometimes they are barely speaking. Each of them have lovers but their relationship is always there.

This book has received rave reviews from everyone and I loved it. It feels like a realistic portrayal of a long-term friendship and the gaming world in which it was set was interesting to me. Most people will fall in love with Marx, who is a good guy who holds everything together and who keeps the two friends on an even keel. There is laughter and tears, love and betrayal, closeness and distance in this story of three peoples' lives over the years. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

WONDERFUL, AMAZING, I loved loved loved this book. It rightfully won book of the year for Book of the Month. I can't wait to continue recommending this one to everyone I know!

Gah this is beautiful. Near the ending it was so heart wrenching and I loved it! Read with my hardcover copy while also listening to the audio.

This is the first book where I’ve actually highlighted in my physical book copy (besides my copy of the Illuminae trilogy). Normally I’m not a fan of writing in my book and I’d use my kindle to take notes. There was so many great quotes and things in this that I ended up having my pen right next to me while I read.

And I also had a box of tissues too. Especially for one chapter/ section which is the spoiler. I bawled. A lot. And I loved it. I loved Marx!!!! We all need a Tamer of Horses!


< spoiler > NPC chapter is a tearjerker even more so when the narrator in the book is switched. And then the audiobook had to switch from a female reader to a male reader to narrate this. Gah! I cried. A lot! I suspected what was coming while looking at my physical copy hardback and then the audiobook just destroyed me. I had to stop listening to the audio and just read it myself.
< /spoiler >

I loved this book! I loved all the characters in this! And I loved the writing!

A lovely, melancholy, quiet meditation on games, friendship, creativity, love, loss, and what it means to be human. While this one is very much about video games (if you absolutely detest games you won't like this book) it is much more a slow-moving character study. I did feel like it leaned a little bit too much on ttragedy to engender sympathy for the main characters, it didn't feel so heavy handed that it ruined the reading experience. I'm glad I read this one, and will be thinking about it for some time.

I feel as if there is a lot to say about this book, but it's hard to articulate. Every single review I saw before I read this book praised it as a haunting, beautiful masterpiece. It is partially that, and also just a good old-fashioned story about real people living real lives in a way that's both nostalgic and new.

Sadie and Sam, our main characters, were not perfect. They were irrational, whiny, annoying, and constantly fighting over nothing, but they were so real it was as if I had known these characters forever. That's what made them perfect. Of course, the actual real perfect and flawless person in this book is Marx, because he was the bomb. That being said, I feel like the 'NPC' chapter could have been done differently and more personally to give him the proper send-off.

As many things as I loved about this book, there were some things I didn't like so much. For example, I do think the entire Saide-Sam Pioneer chapter didn't add much and was not necessary. I also didn't like how most of the fights in the book seemed to be only contrived to add friction between characters.

But overall, loved it.

Lastly- I read this book as an ARC on my Kindle, so I don't know if this exact rendition is what you get when you buy the ebook, but there were some typing/spelling errors in a few of the chapters

Thank you to NetGalley for the free E-book ARC of this novel, but I have still given my honest review.

This was the best book I’ve ever read. It was very character driven but I was engulfed in the story immediately. I loved learning more about these characters and the storyline was unique and fascinating

The hype was worth it in this book!!

It was incredible. Beautifully written and fully fleshed out characters!!

Thank you for an advanced copy!!

I do in fact understand the hype! This magical, beautiful, tragic story is exactly what I needed. I typically don’t gravitate toward literary fiction, since I find them boring, but the mystical (almost surreal) writing had me so engaged throughout. I think if you enjoyed Alone With You in the Ether you will enjoy this cerebral, almost pretentious but in a good way, toxic friend/relationship !!

Two big things to note: I actually wasn’t crazy about Sadie and Sam’s friendship. I loved Sam at first, but he says very cruel things to Sadie. Sadie on the other hand, can’t cede ANY success to Sam really. She even mentions how when he gets attention it makes her feel small, which is not a great friendship IMO. HOWEVER the side characters, creative and insanely engaging writing, and video game storyline had me hooked.

Second thing, “you don’t have to like video games to enjoy this” is a comment sentiment I’ve seen. I actually disagree with this. I think you have to at least be interested a bit in learning how video games are developed just because it takes up about 200 pages.

Sadie first meets Sam at the hospital where her sister is being treated for cancer. Sadie and Sam play video games together, and the nurse looking after Sam encourages a friendship between the two. It is suggested to Sadie that she uses the time to gather up community service hours. When Sam finds out that their supposed friendship is a 'charity case', he ends their friendship and doesn't speak to Sadie again. Years later Sadie and Sam bump into each other at the train station, and Sam expresses interests in reconnecting with Sadie. Sadie gives Sam a copy of the video game that she is creating and asks for his feedback. Sam loves the genius behind the game and suggests that during the summer they collaborate on creating a full game together.
The story follows the creation and subsequent success of the video game and tells the story of Sam and Sadie's lives in the years following.

This book was a very compelling read, and I found myself enjoying the aspects of the game creation within the book. It was delightful following the character Arc's from young children to grown adults and made for a very captivating read. At times I could not put this book down. The beginning of the book that shows the relationship between Sadie and her professor Dov, really really made me cringe and felt very much like "god I cant watch this because I know where this is going", and made me feel highly uncomfortable.

I am very conflicted about my view on the characters. Sam and Sadie are both equally flawed and whilst we get POV's from both of them at times I feel that they are both in the wrong. Marx's character was delightful and I highly enjoyed his comic relief aspects. The fact that Marx was just there along for the ride, made a nice buffer between the Characters of Sam and Sadie. I enjoyed the heaviness of chapter vii:The NCP, whilst heartbreaking was nicely done and I have never come across something like that before in a book. It added something unique to the story. On the flip side however, I absolutely hated ix:Pioneers Chapter! I found it incredibly boring and I didn't like how the chapter took you away from the flow/story line. In the beginning of the chapter I found it difficult to decipher what was happening. This whole chapter seemed Highly unnecessary and could have been executed in a different way and as a result this book lost a few stars.

I would highly recommend this book, because even though the characters could have been written better/likable, the story line was good.

there were two things that drew me to this book:
1. that gorgeous cover
2. a tag line i read somewhere: "two friends often in love but never lovers"

i must admit, i was very intimidated by this book. i had always wanted to get into video games growing up but i always felt they were too expensive and, since i was an only child, i never really had anyone to play with me or share in the fun and so i defaulted to reading more. i had an n64 that i loved but i never wanted to ask for games because i knew they were expensive. but i always felt like all my cool friends had the cool games. so going into a book heavy on game culture, i was worried i'd feel isolated by the references. this book was so beautifully written and so thorough that i often forgot that i had barely any experience playing games to the extent the characters did.

i think what really engulfed me was the love in this book. i had been talking to a friend a couple months ago about the different types of love and how i believe that there are so many layers to loving people and there is no better way to explain that than reading this book.
warning: spoilers ahead!
ultimately, this book had the best written death of a character i have read in a long time. quite possibly ever. the set up for building marx up throughout the book as a central but secondary figure who carries the weight of the company that sam and sadie create and the entire section where he dies...

i always pride myself in trying to guess what happens next in books and i did not see this coming and certainly not in the way it happened. and it made so much sense for his character to die the way he did. it also made so much sense for the plot to turn how it did.

that part of the book destroyed me and i have half a mind to stop typing and reread it right now. (but if i do i'll never finish writing this post so i wont lol)

overall, this book really hit one of my top three favorite books of the year and definitely an all time favorite. a certified champ for sure.

My review is late, but, like the rest of the world, I love love loved this book. Do I want to go play video games now??

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book I could rave about for days and days and days!!! The night I started this I read for literally five hours straight… I just couldn’t put it down.

This novel revolves around two friends, Sadie and Sam, who meet when they’re kids in the 80s. This isn’t the type of friendship where they meet and find themselves inseparable ever since; it’s a rocky relationship, and though they get along well through a shared love and appreciation for video games, they spend long stretches of their life out of contact. When they reconnect as university students, they decide to start creating a video game together with the support of Sam’s college roommate and friend, Marx.

Watching Sam, Sadie, and Marx grow up together was truly special. I totally understand the comparisons to A Little Life in the way that this book follows a group of friends as they age, while simultaneously unfolding more and more details from their past. The result are characters who are fully realized -- whose lives stretch backwards and forwards in a way that make them feel like true people, and whose sorrows and joys and accomplishments and failures you feel so deeply because you can understand these events not in isolation but in the context of an entire life.

What really surprised me about this book was how well it articulated the creative process. Zevin treats video games as a mode of storytelling, as an artform in its own right, and hearing the way these games are conceptualized and then tweaked and edited and disputed over then eventually created was really, really interesting. My video game expertise is very limited, so believe me when I say I really didn’t go into this novel excited to read about video games, but wow -- it ended up being one of my favourite things about the book!!

I will say, the dialogue felt kind of stilted at times, and the characters all had quite a similar voice. I also do think that this book tapered a bit towards the end… not to say the ending was bad, but the beginning was sooo engrossing that I felt myself losing steam in comparison by the end.

This is one of those books I’d truly recommend to any person. It’s clever and literary (the title is a Shakespeare reference!), technical and nerdy, fast-paced while still rooted in character, and with a good mix of light, feel-good moments and devastation. I’ll be thinking about this for a long, long time -- tomorrow, and tomorrow, and probably the day after too.

It was super interesting, and not my typical read. I was seeing this one everywhere, so I wanted to check it out. If it’s not your usual read, I still highly suggest giving it a chance. I throughly enjoyed it!

Worth the hype! One of my favourite novels of 2022. One of those books where the characters stay with you after finishing the last page. I didn't want it to end.

This is not a book for my demographic. I decided to read it because of many positive reviews, and because I liked The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by the same author. I am not a gamer. I don't like reading about kinky or casual sex, or recreational drug use. Will I read another book by this author? Maybe.

Truly speechless over this book. My favorite read of 2022. Gorgeously written characters that are actually unforgettable. The bird chapter was perfect, the video game chapter was incredible. The writing was really out of this world. I love this book and have been pushing it on everyone I know.