Just WOW. This book is ‘10’ with no caveats. Drop-dead-gorgeous writing, a complex platonic love story between two, no three, friends, and it made me care deeply about a subject I had no interest in (video games.) Through all the ups and downs with these characters, and a rollercoaster of emotions, this novel spoke so beautifully on friendship, craft, passion and pain (both emotional and physical) and I was truly blown away. Best book I’ve read in a really long time. Loved it completely.

I received a complimentary electronic ARC of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow from Netgalley, author Gabriella Zevin, and publisher Knopf Publishing Group. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend Gabrielle Zevin to friends and family. She writes a fine tale with humor and enough detail for us to respect game makers without overwhelming us with facts. The characters are personable and the story

I have my own personal Gabbie, the granddaughter of my best friend, who wrote her first game program before her tenth birthday. This Gabrielle Zevin will teach you to respect the art involved, and the necessary knowledge such a task requires, as well. When my kids were small we got them a Nintendo - and my talents lie there, with Duck Hunt and Mario Brothers, but I do appreciate the talent involved in the making of my husband's Xbox games as well as the entertainment Perhaps I will get out my Wee occasionally for more than the exercise program. But I don't think I will like anything as much as I did Duck Hunt. That dog....

Wow, this book is amazing. You don't have to be a gamer to enjoy the reading experience, but might have more insight into some of the references if you are.
Sam and Sadie meet as young kids in a hospital and become fast friends. They have a falling out and eventually meet again years later while in college. They reignite their friendship and end up starting a business together creating video games. The novel stretches across thirty years and travels from coast-to-coast of the United States. Themes include love, business, family, disability, and more. Highly recommend!
Listened to the audiobook and read print.

Discussed on Episode 160 of the Book Cougars podcast.
https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2022/episode160

Sadie meets Sam in the mid-1980s when they are both twelve-years-old. Her sister is in the hospital receiving treatment for leukemia and while she waits, a nurse invites her to pass her time in the hospital game room. Sitting and playing Mario Cart is Sam Mauser, who has been in and out of the hospital following a devastating car crash that killed his mother and irreparably damaged his foot. Sam is withdrawn and depressed, but playing with Sadie day after day draws him out of his shell, and the two develop a friendship based on their love of video games as well as their creativity. Six years later, they both move to Cambridge, Massachusetts for college - Sadie to MIT and Sam to Harvard. A chance encounter at the train station draws them back together, and Sam, noticing Sadie’s own depression, invites her to make a video game with him and his roommate Marx during the summer between their junior and senior years. The game they create becomes an overnight success, launching the three of them onto an illustrious career path of creative partnership. However, their decades long success does not come without its challenges. While the gaming world allows for one to create whatever world they want and reboot it at will, Sadie and Sam must grapple with the contrasts between fantasy and the unfairness and hardships associated with reality.

I was skeptical when I picked up this book because not only do I not play video games, I also know nothing about them. And while this is absolutely a book about video games and the artistic process behind them, the video games are just the backdrop for a much larger story about friendship, growing up, reinvention, and grief. It takes an author with incredible skill to be able to craft such a sweeping yet intimate story with fully formed and complicated characters. I do not have a negative thing to say about this book, contrary to what I think is an overly critical review in the New York Times. It is one of those rare novels that transports you to someplace new while also connecting you with a universal story.

As someone who hasn't played many video games (although I've been in the room while plenty are being played) I wasn't sure if this book would work for me. But the development of the characters over the years, that both endeared me & frustrated me, as real people over the years do, truly won me over. I loved seeing the thread of writing the stories of video games and creating games play into these long-term relationships. I don't think you need to love video games to enjoy this book, but you do have to be willing to hear about them. For me, this was much more about the creative process, loss & showing up in relationships. This book both won and broke my heart in good ways.

Trigger warning: gun violence

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is a fantastic novel about life, love, death and video games. This book has been on a couple of best of 2022 book list and it has made my top 5 list of 2022. The story is about how two college kids start a video game company and put their heart and souls in to each game, that can sometimes mirror their own lives. This book will make you respect the art, countless hours, and detail that go into to making a video game. I'm not a big video game player I did happen to play some of the ones mentioned, and I know next to nothing about coding and I was never lost in the narrative and actually more curious to how a gaming engine works. The book as much as it is about video games it's about relationships, and forming a community that understands them. This book takes risk my putting the character's in a video game when they cannot communicate any other way. This book is a n emotional ride with some general heartbreak. One of my hands down favorite novels is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, which is about life, love, death, war, and comic books. Which are easily comparable to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow since both are accessible to the main reading audience, are tearjerker with great characters and elevate the art form of their subjects video games and comics. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow had it's film right purchased by paramount to be made into a movie which I would very much like to see. I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin thanks to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is published on July 5th 2022.

Plot Summary: Sam 12 has been in a serious car accident that killed his mother. To get through his mother’s death he plays video games alone. Sadie 12 is in the hospital visiting her teenage sister as she is treated for Leukemia. Sadie needs a break and finds Sam playing video games she watches for a while then they trade and start a conversation. A nurse sees this and talks to Sadie. Sadie is shocked to find out she is the only person Sam has talked to six months after the accident. The nurse asked her to do a community service and spend time with Sam. Sadie who needs so many hours of community service for something anyway agrees, but a real friendship takes place. Sam finds out he was a community service and shuts her out until years later Sadie and Sam will not meet again at college, when their love of video games is fully realized and they should make games together. They form and make an international video game company, but can their friendship survive.

What I Liked: With me not being that big of a video game player, reading this book and coming away with not just an understanding of video games but respecting the art and story a whole lot more. I might have changed the way that I now play video games concentrating on the art a whole lot more now. The story and characters are very relatable. I love the story within a story about the games and how they relate to the characters lives. This novel made me very emotional at times. I love the cleverness of the within the game chapter, it was very effective. The characters are sometimes frustrating and man did I get mad at them an there sucky communication skills and how they both handle anger, but a thrill to watch them grow and get better and become the same but at the same time different people. I love all the pop culture references especially the Matrix / Ghost in the Shell conversation, the Donkey Kong tie and what it hides. I loved how the title came from Macbeth and how that fit in with the novel so well.

What I Disliked: The cover art is so bad for what this book is, I feel like so many people will not read it or hesitate because of it, I know I did when selecting it. The cover does have relevance to the story, but the novel is so visual it needed more. The pace of the novel was not always the best there are a couple of moments where it takes the reader a second to get to the point of what your reading. I will say that every side story did have a point but some did take a while to get there.

Recommendations: Please read this great book!! The story is incredible the writing is really good, so many quotable lines ( I would list a few but not line quotes is the deal I make when I read an advanced reader's copy). I already told you how much this book reminded me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon but another one it reminded me of is the AMC TV show Halt and Catch Fire, if you liked either of these then you will love this book. The beauty of this book is you don't have to know anything about video games to love and read it, but if you do then you will love it more. I rated Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 5 out of 5 stars. This is my first book by Gabrielle Zevin but I plan to check out The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, which is supposed to be just as good.

I truly don’t know where to start this review because I loved this book so much. It was tender, honest, and these characters will grip you from the very beginning.

Speaking of characters, I haven’t stopped thinking about Sam, Sadie, and Marx since finishing almost two weeks ago. Sam and Sadie first meet in a hospital when they are younger and bond over a video game, and then reconnect years later to create their own.

If you’re nervous about the fact that this book is heavily about video games, don’t be. You don’t have to be a fan to still absolutely love this book. I actually really enjoyed this aspect of the book, but this is about so much more than video games.

It’s about friendship.

It’s about forgiveness.

It’s about loving someone so much you sometimes hurt them.

It’s about deeply flawed individuals trying to take life one day at a time.

I loved how developed all of the characters were - including Sam’s precious grandparents. I can’t say enough about how impactful the characters were.

This is my first book by @gabriellezevin, but another thing that completely captivated me was her writing and how at times the style would change and drop you right into the heart of a video game. But it works. So so well.

5 ⭐️ and most likely one of my top 5 of the year, predicting it now!

I absolutely adored this. In the same way that Ender’s Game made me nostalgic for pop culture and a time period that wasn’t my childhood but felt like it could’ve been, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow made me feel some type of way about video games and nostalgic for an era that I was born in but didn’t quite grow up in (but wish I had).

The characters are excellent. They are all imperfect, they’re gritty, they’re real. They could be your friends! They’re brilliant, and brilliantly written. Their relationships are complex; they ebb and flow. They grow and change and make mistakes. They fall apart and come back together. It was messy, it was beautifully written, it was unexpected at times, and it was an altogether magical book. I won’t say too much because everyone should experience this for themselves.

5/5 wholehearted stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

An epic Gen X friendship unfolds over three decades of support, missteps, pain, collaboration, and restarts. Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) has given us a compelling, beautifully written, complex story about knowing and being known; about personal, emotional, and social survival; about the transition of a pre-digital world into a digital one; about story and play and vulnerability and trauma and context — all unfolding in the surprisingly Shakespearean world of game development.

It's a love story - but not what you think. It's the ever-present love between two friends who create video games together, the ups and downs of their friendship, their individual struggles, and just the right amount of GenX nostalgia.

I fell in love with the two main characters right away. It's a novel premise, but an age-old story. Perfect for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Ready Player One.

I was genuinely excited to read a book about the inner lives of game developers, their dramas, their relationships, etc. And it started out with a lot of promise: The fateful meeting of like-minded creatives who were clearly going to make something unique and wonderful in the gaming world. But after their first initial success it became somewhat of a slog to finish. The two main characters, Sam and Sadie, were pretty insufferable at times, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to finish their story. But, finish it I did and in the end I mostly just wondered: Who is this book for? It’s about gaming but lacks the excitement and visual artistry of gaming. It’s got a lot of interpersonal drama, but readers of that genre probably will be turned off by all the gaming references and the industry talk. It’s like this book wants to be a high brow Ready Player One, but the two things just don’t quite mesh. It’s an interesting idea but not enough to compel me as a reader.

Zevin once again weaves a story of life through time. This book had an interesting connection of video game creation that tied all the characters together. I will continue to read anything this author writes!

As children, Sam Masur and Sadie Green met under the most unfortunate of circumstances- Sam in the hospital from a horrific car accident, Sadie there visiting her sick sister. One day Sadie and Sam cross paths, seemingly bonding over their mutual love for gaming. For a preoccupied Sadie this meeting is fleeting, but for a bedridden Sam, the meeting is everything. The hospital staff notices a marked difference in Sam’s behavior after meeting Sadie, so they ask her to continue to visit him as a community service of sorts. Sam, however, doesn’t know about the arrangement.

And the game begins.

Although they drift apart as children, it quickly becomes clear to the reader that they were destined to meet. As the story unfolds, we visit with Sam and Sadie in different points in their lives. As teens in the 90s, they could never know the influence they would have on the gaming world, or on each other. Opposites in many ways, their love for gaming is what keeps them connected. Spanning decades, we see the evolution of their Lennon and McCartney like relationship, set amidst the backdrop of the ever evolving world of technology and video games.

If you were a gamer in the nineties, or even if you love books that deep dive into video game culture, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow might really resonate with you. In the beginning of this story I was drawn in by the Super Mario, Frogger, Duck Hunt references. Heck, even the Magic Eye stuff got me (although it brought back memories of not being able to see the images despite my best efforts). In a nutshell, as someone who played video games in the nineties and loved the likes of books like Ready Player One, I am, in many ways, this book’s core audience.

And yet…I had a hard time connecting with this story. At times, I think the literary aspect of this seemed too drawn out and unnecessarily verbose for my tastes. In the first half I nearly DNF’ed because I found myself equal parts confused and bored. The second half, however, grabbed my interest again. I suppose this is not unlike a video game itself. Some levels are really exciting, others you struggle to get past.

For the most part I’ve seen rave reviews about this book, so I suggest taking the controller in your own hands before forfeiting this game completely.

📚Book Review📚
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Genre: contemporary fiction
CW: gun violence, suicide, death, toxic relationship, drug use, abortion, cancer, cultural appropriation
Thank you @netgalley and @aaknopf for the digital ARC. I loved it so much I had to buy a physical copy immediately.

Obviously, you have seen this book making the rounds on the internet and know that everyone is loving it. Ashley Spivey put this one on my radar early which prompted me to request it on @netgalley. It is incredible.

This book is beautifully written. We see the characters grow, mature, learn some of life’s hard lessons, experience heartbreak, thrive, and go through everything else life has to offer. I honestly cannot express why this book is so good - it’s just a feeling. As I discussed briefly with a fellow reader, it’s a vibe. And I am here for it.

I’m already looking forward to discussing this book with my book club in September!

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was a slow but interesting book. I really enjoyed the ever-changing story of the friendship between Sam, Sadie, and Marx. I thought the book did a good job of giving each of the characters a lot of depth and backstory, as well as portrayed a very realistic look at friendships that span decades. We've all had relationships in our lives that ebb and flow, and change over the years - sometimes you grow together, other times you grow apart. This book delves into that beautifully, and shows how important it can be to fight for those relationships that mean the most to us.

I also enjoyed some of the throwbacks to Oregon Trail, Donkey Kong and other 90's pop culture references. It definitely made it easier to relate to for me. I also loved the descriptions of the games they created - I felt they were described well enough that I could get a clear picture in my mind of what it would be like to play those games.

That said, the focus on games and gaming is extensive and may not be for everyone. If you have never taken an interest in video games, I think it may be a bit boring for you at points. For the most part, I did not mind it, but also grew up in the era of games being referenced in the book. For those of you that love gaming or have always had an interest in the behind-the-scenes of the gaming world, I'd expect that you'll really enjoy it!

I also found the timeline to jump around quite a bit without blatantly letting the reader know it was jumping to a different time (this was an ARC, so I'm not sure if the finished copy is the same in that respect). I had a friend ask if it would be a good one to listen to on audio, and honestly, unless the audio version lets the listener know about the changes in timeline, I think it could be quite confusing. Just something to keep in mind if you are consider the audio (to be clear, I have NOT listened to it and am only reviewing the ebook at this point).

I'd probably rate the overall book as a 3 star (which in my rating system, means I liked it), but I'd rate the friendship plotline as a 4 (I REALLY liked it), bringing my overall rating to 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This one is tough to rate for me because I know a lot of people will love it, but it's not the book for me. This novel follows the lives of two avid video gamers whose lives intersect several times in meaningful ways. It's a raw depiction of the course that relationships sometimes take and how some loves can be fraught. I loved all the gaming references and the way that the games were woven into the narratives. Fans of Ready Player One will really enjoy this book for its references to classic games and creative descriptions of fictional video games. Why wasn't this the right book for me personally? I don't enjoy reading about relationships that fall apart, or characters who you just want to take their shoulders and shake them saying "why did you do that?!", which this book is filled with (in my opinion). I know some enjoy the realness of that dynamic = it's just not for me.

I also had to look up words in the dictionary a lot for a novel. It felt like the author wanted to show off a few times with a thesaurus and a French dictionary. I don't necessarily find vocabulary like that off-putting, but it often brought me out of the narrative and had me thinking why they chose an term that hasn't been used in 200 years instead of just saying the more common word.

I barely know how to review this one except to say READ IT! I feel that what I’m about to write isn’t going to convey just how much I loved this book or how much it made my heart happy so let me say this: I truly didn’t want this story to end, I could have stayed with these characters forever. I don’t often re-read books but I think I would pick this one up again as I have a feeling that it’s one of those books that you learn a different life lesson every time you read it and if that isn’t magic, then I don’t know what is.

To me this book is truly about love in all its different forms and how that love can transform over years. It’s about the love of friends, family and lovers. The love we have for our careers and hobbies and the things we create. But it’s also about grief and loss, which also are demonstrators of our love.

You’ll also be confronted with the topics of disability, power, sexism within the workplace and recognition of work; who created which bit, who gets the respect and adoration from the industry and media, does it matter, does it create resentment?

I also appreciated the social and cultural aspects the Zevin was able to weave into the games Sam and Sadie created as well as the overall story - cultural appropriation, same-sex marriage, gun violence.

Gaming is a character in itself within the book, and this made me a little nervous going in as I really know next to nothing about the community, but you don’t need to! What is written didn’t go over my head and the elements that were there truly served a purpose and made me understand the characters better but also the gaming world. What I took away is that it’s much like the book community, it is a hobby that helps you escape and take a break from the real world, sometimes allowing you to go off and live somewhere that we all wish was possible.

Thank you to Netgally and Knopf Doubleday for the review copy.

DNF at 47%. I’ve seen so many five star rave reviews for this one from friends - I suggest checking out other reviews! This may be a case of I came into it with too much hype from the other reviews and how much I adored one of the author’s other books - but this just isn’t working for me. Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley and Libro.fm for the free reading and listening copies.

Friendship, gaming, and a complicated history. I wasn't drawn to the cover or the description, but I kept seeing this book pop up everywhere, so I decided to give it a try. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! The writing was effortless to read, and that made it such a joy to get to know the characters. The complex relationships that take place between all of the characters was interesting to me, they were vividly described and I can recall more about each minor character than I usually can when I finish a book. (Great character development for sure).

Sadie and Sam meet as kids in the hospital game room. They play video games together at a time when Sam is ready to give up on life completely, it's life changing for both of them. They find a true friend and equal in each other in a world that is otherwise lonely for them. The magic of gaming and escaping reality sparks something in them that returns years later when they run into each other in the subway after having a falling out as kids.

Sam and Marx are roommates and Marx thinks of Sam like a brother. He watches out for him and takes him under his wing.

When Sam and Sadie decide to make a game together, they go all in. Marx lends them his apartment to use as their "base" and appoints himself their producer. The three of them run like a well oiled machine and their lives revolve around making a game.

The relationships change and evolve over the next 25 years and there is a lot of self reflection. I'm not sure what made me keep turning the pages, but it was compelling and I really came to love Sam, Sadie, and Marx. Definitely worth a read!

Thanks to netgalley for a review copy.

This will absolutely be one of my top reads this year. It's a novel about friendship, video games, family, work, and growing up; all based on a young man and a young woman of the Oregon Trail micro-generation. It had so many amazing nostalgic references, but mostly it was just an incredible work. I've liked everything this author has written, but this is undoubtedly her best so far. I have nothing to comp it to, but I believe this would appeal to anyone who likes well-written novels (note: this flirts with literary fiction, but I found it super readable).

Wish I could read it again for the first time.