A deeply researched love letter to the video game industry, from the perspective of three college students who go on to found a "game"-changing game studio. While the relationship dynamics between the main three characters were often tense and dramatic, they didn't come across as unrealistic or out of character due to strongly established character motives and stakes. The nerd in me greatly appreciated the small video game references to Ico, Commander Keen, Bioshock, Animal Crossing and The Last of Us- as well as the use of game mechanics as metaphor. My only critique is that I preferred the pace of the first half of the book to the back half in terms of pacing and style.

This is a story about all of the yesterdays you accumulate when you love someone.

It’s taken me days to review this book, because I loved it so much, but I’m having such a hard time putting it into words. This is a transcend story- I suppose it’s technically literary fiction, but some much of it exists in the world of video games, and the non linear elements felt almost like time travel. I laughed & cried and have had dreams that the games in it exist (can @bethesda get on that please?). It’s already been optioned, and I can’t wait to watch the adaptation!

Thank you so much Knopf Doubleday @netgalley @prhaudio & @librofm for the e & audio copies!

Alright folks, I think I've found it: my favorite book of 2022 (so far). I know a book has launched itself into my favorites list when I want to live in its world forever - and when the emotions I feel at the end of the book are all-consuming, exhausting, fulfilling: like I've been on a journey with the characters. There is so, so much heart here, with the characters and their growth, the backstories and worlds of the games created, and the perfectly imperfect evolution of relationships.

Sadie and Sam are two kids growing up in Los Angeles who meet in the game room of a children's hospital. They immediately bond over their love of games and start playing Super Mario together - Sadie keeps coming back to play with Sam, and they spend literally hundreds of hours doing nothing but enjoying the intimate act of childhood play. They have a falling out and don't talk for several years, but they reunite again when they are both college students in Boston - Sam at Harvard and Sadie at MIT. Soon enough, Sam proposes that he and Sadie take a summer to build a game together. As the reader, you learn that this game goes on to be hugely successful, the start of an epic game production partnership between Sam, Sadie, and their roommate/funder/producer/jack-of-all-trades, Marks.

There are so, so many things to love about this book. First and foremost is the evolution of the characters. You truly feel like you're growing up with them, watching not only their creative career progression, but the complex and sometimes frustrating dynamics of their relationships together and individually, change over time. The characters are not perfect - rather, they are flawed humans whose decisions don't always make sense. But they're so real and so human. Second is the rich construction of the games that Sadie and Sam (and Marks) build together, each with a beautiful, storied history, representing the most intimate parts of the game designers' lives that they choose to share with others. I have never really been a "gamer," but that didn't matter whatsoever - I loved living in that world for a a time. Third are the difficult concepts that the book addresses - most importantly, grief and loss. Zevin does an excellent job of showing and allowing you to live in these emotions in a way that feels so accurate to the real-life experience of losing someone dear to you.

I am so impressed by Gabrielle Zevin's range and depth, as this is so different from the other books I've read from her. I know I'll be thinking about this for a long time to come (another mark of a five-star read). Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for the ARC via Netgalley.

This book was very complicated for me to read and review. I liked the story line, and the characters, and i wanted to really love this book, but it just felt so long and drawn out and i found myself skimming. I really enjoyed the first maybe 40 % of this book as we dove into Sam and Sadie’s story, but it became very dull past that point and became a hard read.

The marketing for Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin had a very specific mission-get cool millennial literary girls who have never played a video game in their lives on board with a book that is, on the surface, about gaming culture, specifically making video games. A big mission IMO, but guess what-it worked.

For the first half of the book I was skeptical. I liked the almost fairy tale like element of 90s nostalgia and young adult friendships forming, but felt like I may not make it through all the video game nuances and highly specific references. And I’ve very lightly dabbled in video games throughout the years, I’ve just never been passionate about them, so I was trying to imagine how someone who had truly never played a video game would relate…

But then the second half of the book did exactly what I was looking for, which was that it leaned into beautifully immersive prose, describing the main characters’ relationships with each other and drawing attention to the parallels between empathy and human relationships as reflected in video games in the exact same way that I understand literature to create space for understanding, connection, and feeling seen on a page.

Needless to say, my emotional journey with this book ended with finding myself reading the last pages sitting by a hotel pool crying over a book about, of all things, video games.

Honestly, I would read anything that Ms. Zevin releases. I waited for years for this and then I read it in one sitting. Now I have to wait for years. She captures characters better than almost anyone in the game. She manages to write for teens, new adults and adults with such ease that the writer part of my brain is jealous.

The only thing I felt was remotely problematic with this was that the final act sort of dragged on. Still, I highly recommend anything that Ms.Zevin does to anyone who listens.

Several years have passed since I read and loved Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, and I always enjoy a well-written book about book lovers and book stores. However, I was not sure I would like Zevin’s latest—Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Recognizing the title borrowed from Macbeth’s soliloquy as he recognizes the futility of his ambitions, I took a chance on this novel about video game developers. I could not have made a better decision.

Readers don’t need an interest in gaming to fall for Sam and Sadie. From the moment they meet in a California hospital playroom as preteens through their years of ups and downs, their overnight fame, love, rescues, and misunderstandings, their talent and their brokenness, they are sure find their place in hearts and minds and to remain there.

This reacquaintance with Zevin also served to remind me how beautifully she writes and how I enjoy her introductions to an occasional unfamiliar word. I need to read the books I have missed and look forward to the next.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday for an advance reader copy of this highly recommended new novel.

Posted to Barnes and Noble.

I don’t even have any coherent thoughts or words on this one. Trust the people. Trust the reviews. READ THIS!

REVIEW

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ~ Gabrielle Zevin

READ IF:
* You played Oregon Trail as a kid.
* Your friends are also your soulmates.
* You think game design is an art form.

SUMMARY: Sam and Sadie were destined. When they met as children, they never thought they would be reunited again in a Boston subway station - but with the help of a magic eye photo, their partnership begins. Sam Masur and Sadie Green collaborate to create the video game Ichigo, catapulting them into video game stardom and all the good and bad that comes with fame.

A story told over 30 years from one coast to the other, Sam and Sadie explore the power of play, the trials of collaboration, and the true love that endures in a friendship that seemed destined from the start.

REVIEW: I can easily say without a shadow of a doubt that this will be the best book I read this year - in fact, one of the best ever. There…that’s the review!

No, but for real, Tomorrow x3 is a treasure, a beautifully written saga about the most important game we play - life. I was nervous about the heavy focus on gaming but it instantly didn’t matter. The video games frame the story in such a way that allows the characters to evolve and express themselves, separately and together. Gabrielle Zevin can do it all - suck the reader in, get them to care, put a smile on their face, bring them to tears, evoke all the nostalgia, and stir the heart to love and want to be loved.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a yes, and yes, and yes!

I adored Gabrielle Zevin's "Young Jane Young" and was delighted to hear great things about her new novel in the Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide. I was slightly deterred by the references to gaming, but I needn't have worried – I'm not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but this was one of the things that made this novel so original and outstanding. Gaming is such an excellent jumping off point for the themes explored in "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow", from love and grief, to work and creativity. Viewing familiar ideas through a completely unfamiliar lens made this such a refreshing and invigorating read for me and distinguished this from so many other books that ostensibly deal with similar issues.

This book is one of those rare gems that rewards close reading, but is also a page turner that had me gobbling up the pages for hours past my bedtime. I related to the characters deeply, was invested in the plot and admired the writing craft. The novel has a thought-provoking non-linear structure and a satisfying ending. I'd love to see it nominated for prizes – I could see it being a worthy winner of the Women's Prize, for example – but, more than anything, to see it make its way into more readers' hands.

This is one of the best books I've read this year and I'm so glad I had the chance to read it early. My thanks go to the publisher and NetGalley for a free advance copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a bit meandering, but in a way that kept me wanting to read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

before reading this book, id heard amazing things about gabrielle zevins work (not from that many people, but the ones who loved it, really loved it!) and im happy to say i think they were right!
tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow tells the story of a trio of young people in the 1990s who decide they want to design games. i love video games so i knew i had to give it a try (i was also pulled in by the wave on the cover, its one of my favorite works of art!) and i actually learned a lot of things i didnt know about games! i felt like the trio— sam, sadie, and marx— were my friends, not in the sense that i was *with* them (though i guess i could also say i did feel a bit like that) but i cared for them so much. rather than being next to them, i felt like i was watching their story from afar, and personally, i loved that feeling!
i have seen some reviews mention that they thought it was too long of a book, but i didnt feel so. i felt like i could read about the characters and their life for a loong while more. that may also be because im a more character-driven reader though! i know some people prefer novels where the plot is at the front, i think this could be considered a mix, but leaning more to the character-driven side!
i also feel like people closer in age to sam & sadie would enjoy this a lot! i personally cant say much about it since i was born later on hahah. i have seeen a few reviewers mention that they felt a great deal of nostalgia about games back then, and it seems like those games mean a lot to people. i didnt really play video games when i was a child but this made me wish i did!
i also loved how everything was tied to everything, the references to stuff that happened earlier/inside jokes amongst the characters throughout the book really made me feel like i was a part of their group.
im kind of having one of those things where you love the book so much but you cant write a good review for it except for “i loved it!”.
at a certain point in the sotry, i thought oh noo they made the wrong choice and it will all go downhill from here. and maybe they did make the wrong choice, but i still loved where the story went.
sorry for a review thats all over the place with an awful order of thoughts hahah.
thank you to the publisher, knopft doubleday publishing group, and netgalley for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

I am very stingy with five stars so I debated for awhile about whether I was willing to go there with this book. In the end, I went with my first feeling upon finishing the book which included a sense of awe about something so beautifully written and uniquely told. I chose this title from NetGalley because of the author. I had read a YA book from her many years ago so I was surprised to see that this was an adult title as I began it. Sometimes that would be cause for me to DNF a book since I am a YA librarian and I am reading titles i can share with my students. But I was already intrigued by Sam and Sadie's relationship and where they were going. This is one of those books where the story and its mood affected my mood in real life. In addition, I was thinking about what had already happened and what was coming up whenever I wasn't actively reading. I used the highlighter over and over to capture lyrical sentences, and turned to the dictionary more than I ever have because of the SAT+ vocabulary. Everything was astounding, moving, and real.

This book started out so strong for me. I absolutely loved the first half, maybe two-thirds of the novel. The last third was not as compelling and I didn't love where Zevin took the plot. It felt like she was trying to say something with the events but nothing really came across as a statement - things sort of happened that felt significant, yet then the book just moved along. I also had trouble with the characters. Sadie in particular was so prickly and as a character, not for me. But I love Zevin's writing and I love her creativity and I love how every book she writes is different from the one before it. She is not the type of author that puts out the same kind of things over and over again. I have enjoyed a lot of her YA fiction and I loved A.J. Fikry. So I wanted more from this book but I did love some elements about it and other elements were a disappointment. But overall, I'd probably give Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow 3.5 stars.

This was just too long for what it was trying to do!

So many readers loved this, I'm sure this review will have little to no impact. The characters were very likeable, the relationships felt real and impactful, and the writing was well done. But there's just not enough happening for this to be a plot driven book and not enough characterization for a character book. It teeters on the edge and ends up being a boring love story with a splash of video game references.

**Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the eARC**

e-Book ARC from Netgalley- all opinions are my own

I LOVED Zevin's last book (AJ Fickrey) and couldn't wait to read this one. All of the blurbs I had read about Tomorrow x3 said that while video games played an integral part in the plot, you didn't have to be a gamer or an aficionado to appreciate the story.

The bigger overarching theme of the book is Sam and Sadie's friendship. Their story is told out of order- between now, flashbacks of them as children, and interviews with them a few years into the future when they aren't as close- but Zevin does a wonderful job of weaving these pieces together well enough that the reader can easily follow along.

The book IS long (400+ pages) and there are a couple of "on again, off again" moments in the Sadie-Sam friendship that could have been skipped, IMO. But the book is very well written and worth the read :)

“Maybe it was the willingness to play that kept one from despair.”

What is play, or gaming, but “the possibility of a different world”?

“The possibility that you might walk through the door and reinvent yourself as something better than you had been before.”

An epic of a read, lushly-layered with historically-accurate details, of a time and a place and a culture and a mindset, so quintessentially capturing the 90’s when our story begins, that this reader (not a gamer) felt the unmistakable tug and draw of nostalgia.

Based on the intricately-intertwining developing history of two friends, Sadie Green and Samson Mazer - eleven years old at the onset of this tale, each dealing with their own experience of trauma, pain and fear - who connect and form a life-long bond, over the shared experience of immersive computer-gaming.

Sadie and Sam, divergent in backgrounds, yet each a high-school branded “smart-kid”, grow up at a time when a world of possibilities cannot help but present itself.

As Sadie and Sam enter college (Sadie - MIT, and Sam - Harvard) , their relationship develops beyond friendship and love, into something perhaps deeper, - a sort of energy which coalesces their shared gaming vision and talents into a tightly-collaborative and highly-synergistic professional creative team.

“I want to make something that will make people happy. Something kids like us would have wanted to play to forget their troubles for a while.“

As Sadie, a brilliant and successful IT-technician (ahead of her time and her gender), falls into an unhealthy and destructive love affair, she also falls victim to a persistent struggle (both culturally and more devastatingly, internally), surrounding her work, as the author explores themes including female marginalization, imposter syndrome, and the fragmentation of identity (still prolific, yet so much more centrally a fingerprint of past decades).

“Going to MIT in a female body was an isolating experience.”

Sam, on the other hand ( a character this reader found particularly poignant), isolated, physically disabled, in constant pain, yet seeking a new and brighter future, has struggles of his own. Locked into the rigid emotional constraints in place for those of his gender, unable to express his hurt or his feelings (including, tragically, those for Sadie), his professional freedom his only outlet - Sam, for one, is prepared to take advantage of the only tools at hand.

“It was as if all these years Sam had been waiting for an audience.”

A fascinating and unputdownable story, rich with psychological insight and heart-rending in its insights of an industry and its champions, - I loved this tale, these characters, their journeys, (apart and together) and the opportunity to visit a world as immersive, artful and experiential as the computer games that resulted.

A great big thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

This book is beautiful and perfect and brilliant. I want to read everything Gabrielle Zevin ever writes. I adored Sadie, I ADORED Marx, and I feel like the author did a perfect job of writing such a nuanced version of Sam.

What. A. Book.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green have been on and off again friends since childhood. Their friendship was formed in an unlikely way and their bond grew over video games. Their love of gaming would bring them back together as adults where they would form a partnership in a lucrative business. This book spans 30 years and follows the two as they navigate love and loss, highs and lows, and everything in between. The relationships in the story were beautifully crafted and I fell in love with every character.

There was a lot of gaming talk, but it wasn't too difficult to follow and shouldn't deter anyone from picking this book up!

Set in the world of video game design, this novel pulls from 1980s, '90s, and early 2000's pop culture. It does this really fluidly. But the novel's greatest strengths are its character development and the ups and downs of those characters' relationships over the course of the story.