Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is flying off of shelves this summer. It's been one of the hottest books of the season and I understand why. Revolving around three friends, Sadie, Sam, and Marx put their creative minds together to create a video game, and later a video game company. Tx3 is a story of friendship, love, and success and failure. Zevin's prose is exquisite and highlights disability, biracial characters, and what it feels like to not fully belong. I did find some elements of the book a tad long or unnecessary, but overall I really enjoyed it.

While video games are a large aspect of the story, you don't need to have a gaming vocabulary to appreciate Tx3 for its excellence. To this day, Zevin's middle grade novel Elsewhere remains a story I will never forget and the same can be said for Tx3. And while Tx3 did not give me those ~5 star vibes~ it's one that I will be recommending to my friends and book lovers appreciative of a saga spanning several decades.

Content warnings: gun violence, suicide, death, toxic relationship, death of a parent, drug use, abortion, cancer

VERDICT: The story had potential, but I found the book too long and boring. My big disappointment for 2022.

I enjoyed The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry a lot. And as Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is about video games (a theme I appreciate a lot in novels, like in Ready Player One for instance), it sounded promising and I requested it for review.
But there are not too many authors I can order on repeat, as I need to remind myself once more, as this fiction didn’t work for me. And really, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry and this one don’t feel like they were written by the same author.

I know, you must be screaming at me, as apparently so many of you loved it.
At first, I liked the two main characters Sam and Sadie, two smart kids with lots of issues, and how they met originally.
Maybe I focused too much on the words “video games design” in the synopsis. It is indeed the place where they meet at a deeper level. But I was expecting more plots about these games.
Instead, I found boring text explaining each of the various games.

The real focus is the relationships between Sam, Sadie, their friend Marx, and others. Yes, it’s about love and friendship and connections, themes that don’t really grab me totally in literature, if there’s not much more around.

Some elements I really didn’t like at all, like all the details on passages with Dov and his taste for S&M. I found their relationship really sick and full of negative energy.

Then there’s a lesbian couple, totally unnecessary here. I have no issue with lesbian couples in literature, but here it felt like the author decided to insert one in her story to make it more marketable. It didn’t work with the rest of the book.
There’s also a lot of drugs.

I did enjoy all the references to Miyazaki and other Japanese artists, as well as the description of K-town in L.A.
But the book as a whole was too long (416 pages – The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry has only 260), with a boring plot. Things get finally starting in about the last quarter of the book.

One of my favorite reads of the year. I loved this coming of age book.
The story follows our two main characters as they go back and forth on their timeline. They were childhood friends who had a falling out. Once reunited they decide to embark on a creative journey of building a video game together. The book speaks of the trials both professionally, in friendship and relationships.
The author manages to successfully keep the reader engaged through the relationships built, nostalgic references and real life tragedies.
I highly recommend this book to all gamers, nostalgic 30 somethings and tech lovers.

Once again Gabrielle Zevin had me crying, laughing, and everything in between. The emotional ups and downs of Sam and Sadie, two young gaming geniuses, their successes and failures and navigating a business and friendship, kept me riveted. I cared deeply to see what would happen for these two.

My only slight frustration was the skipping timeline didn't always work for me, and wasn't QUITE as cohesive. Overall, though, a 5 star read, and I'm very thankful to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy!

It took a bit to get into it but once you do, it's so worth it. I loved this book so much. There is a lot of hype around this book and so I was weary, but I think it lived up to the hype. The reader forms a love/hate relationship with the two main characters.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an incredible coming of age story about growing up, love, loss, and friends who are like family. I was so touched reading this to see how much the characters cared for eachother, and it pained me when they had falling outs throughout the book. Although the core of the book is about video games, I don’t think you need to have any interest in video games to enjoy this book

First, a thank you to NetGalley for providing an eArc in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This book was totally out of the norm for me. While I enjoy YA, I don't really like gaming. It interested me because of the relationships that we were going to look at as we read the book. And thankfully, I was really able to enjoy the book even without a lot of knowledge of the gaming world and the computer knowledge that is needed to create them. I learned a lot, but now I know enough to be dangerous and get things totally wrong!
Regardless, I did enjoy this novel. I got to know the inner workings of the three main characters, I could anticipate how they would react in different situations, I got truly involved in their lives. At times I loved and hated each one of them, for various reasons.

From friendships to love, from use to abuse, we run the gamut with this group and those they deign to bring in. Would I recommend it, absolutely. Would I read other books by this author, without a doubt!

This is my first encounter with Gabrielle Zevin's writing and needless to say, I want more.

"Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" is a work of contemporary fiction focused on the lives of two main characters: Sadie and Sam. The two first met in the hospital as children, where Sadie stumbled across Sam playing Super Mario in the gameroom, an encounter that would initiate a future friendship. Due to a misunderstanding of the circumstances however, the two spend years without communicating until, after the two are in college (Sadie at MIT, Sam at Harvard) and cross paths at the train station. This second meeting resparks their shared love of games, and the two decide to partner with Sam's roommate Marx to create their own gaming company: Unfair Games.

The rest of the novel covers the complicated relationship and interactions Sam and Sadie have as friends, peers, business partners - all just crossing shy of a romantic relationship. There's a extensive detail provided on some of the complexities of designing a game and running a company; a look into Sam's past after he lost his mother in a car accident and survived with a damaged foot; Sadie's complex (and inarguably, unhealthy and abusive) relationship with her college professor; and how grief and loss can impact us, both temporarily and permanently. Zevin has managed to cover an immense number of topics in this book, all of which I enjoyed.

That being said, if you have no background of games, this might be a difficult and confusing book to wade through. While I am not an avid gamer by any means, I had played Oregon Trail as a child (and died of dysentery multiple times), as well as popular games like Harvest Moon and Animal Farm, Donkey Kong, etc. and I think at least having some background of these was helpful in understanding some of the intricacies of this novel.

I loved Zevin's writing throughout, especially as she does a great job of showing us different aspects and traits of people and relationships, versus telling. The pacing felt smooth, even with different time jumps and alternate reality perspectives (one section is entirely a description of a game scenario), and her crafting of these characters was complex and masterful. Definitely a recommended read for any game lovers!

Buzzy books...

This summer seems to be exceptionally full of buzzy books!

Summary
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

Started this weekend and I'm fully enjoying getting to know Sam and Sadie! Also loving all the 90s references - that seems to be a trend this year.

Thank you to @net for the ebook and @libro.fm for the ALC!!

What buzzy books have you read and loved this summer? What do you think the buzziest book is this summer?

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

Sam Masur runs into his childhood friend Sadie Green during their junior year of college. They reconnect and end up teaming up to become very successful video game designers. So much happens over their 30 years of friendship. There is a lot of pain between them, most of which they can move on from. Not easy to categorize the book but it was a great read.

This book has everything: love, relationships, friendships, family, school, gaming, work, death, etc. I found this book at just the right time and it broke me out of a reading slump. I loved the characters and learned so much about gaming and creating games. It also inspired me to charge my Nintendo switch and start playing games again. Thanks so. much for the review copy.

This novel got a lot of hype and certainly delivers in a lot of ways. It is a fun, smooth read. I am not a gamer at all and know little, if anything, about that industry. But that, mostly, did not deter me from enjoying the book. Though someone with an interest in gaming will likely enjoy it more. Solid novel.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green are best friends who create video games. This book tells the story of their friendship from middle school to college to adulthood, with plenty of nuance and complexity. I was drawn in and captivated by their relationship, by the video games they created, and by the references to Dickinson & Shakespeare!

When I first heard there was a romance in this book, I was nervous because romance in books usually annoys me. Then I was assured that it’s not the annoying kind and that person was right but the end was not anything like I was expecting, though I can appreciate it for what it is.

I was wrenched out of the story so often by words I’ve never heard before and needed to look up because context clues were no help. It kind of ruined the flow of the story a bit for me sometimes. Also, there were too many run-on lists. However, I really liked how the author seamlessly transitioned POV, many times in the middle of a chapter, even including perspectives of side characters.

I would consider myself a gamer (I spent 40 hours a week for months playing Animal Crossing when it first came out in 2020, And I love video games) but I felt like some of the Easter eggs and references went way over my head. Like I knew there was something of meaning there but it was just out of reach for me.

All that being said, these characters felt real and relatable. I highlighted several passages that just made me *feel* something deep inside because they were so spot-on.

This is a wonderful book about the complexity of friendship, love and loss. Even for a non-gamer, I found the premise, characters and storylines interesting and compelling. I cannot give all glowing remarks, however, because the author appeared to be trying way too hard to make herself sound smart by using "big" words sprinkled throughout the book. I found myself checking the Kindle dictionary too often only to discover that she could have delivered the same thoughts and messages in clearer and more succinct manners without negatively impacting the tone or context. This might be a case of using "big & smart sounding words" solely for the sake of using "big & smart sounding" words at the reader's expense. It interrupts the flow and pace of the reading process and serves little purpose other than to make the author sound pompous at best. Disclosure: I received a copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley.

Sam and Sadie and Marx. What a great story of friendship. I am not a gamer, but I still didn't feel completely lost as they discussed all things gaming. I will recommend this book to the some of my younger friends that I feel are the target audience. I think they will be pulled into this story quickly!

This is like nothing I have ever read before. I could not stop listening to it, and was enthralled by the characters and the plot. The writing is lovely and readers will empathize with all of the dynamic characters. I am unable to pinpoint why this book resonated so much with me, because I'm not into video games or anything like that. However, It was such a unique look at the capability of the human spirit to love, grieve, forgive, and create...and it was wonderfully done.

Despite not having any interest in video games, I was surprised how quickly I became absorbed in this newest novel from Gabrielle Zevin. The three main characters faced many issues in their deep yet complicated relationships. It was also interesting to follow the early history of video game development as Sadie, Sam and Marx plunged into creating their first games and ultimately forming their own company. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC!

Spanning thirty years, Gabrielle Zevin presents a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the nature of identity, disability, failure, redemption, and our need to connect.

I've heard so much about this book over the last few months, and it did not disappoint. Being a video game lover took this book to another level for me. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a heartbreaking, beautiful, special book that I'd recommend to anyone. Best book I've read in a while.

I loved this book! Although I usually wouldn't gravitate towards a book "about video games", this book had so much going on! The characters were all really well-developed and you got a sense of what was driving each of them. I could sympathize with the work that they were doing and their need to be fulfilled and to produce work that they were proud of.

My only criticism of the book was the chapter that took place in the game - that one lost me (perhaps it was too "video-gamey" for me). Overall though, this one was fantastic and I will be recommending it to my book club.