Sam and Sadie have had a complicated friendship since the first time they met in a hospital while in middle school. After a falling out while Sam was still in the hospital, they don't speak again until they both end up in Boston for college. When they start designing games together, the book really begins. I was drawn to the relationships in the book. Although this isn't a book about gaming, the end heavily relies on a virtual world which my least favorite part of the book (I'm not interested in gaming at all.) The 90's and early 2000's look at technology brought back some great memories for me.

There's a rare but delightful category of great books - something like 'Books I wouldn't necessarily want to read based on the premise, but can't put down once I start' - and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow falls squarely into it. I was inspired to read this book about 1% based on its description, 99% based on rave reviews from people I trust; I don't have much to add to their effusive commentary other than to say the hype is JUSTIFIED. I was utterly invested in the three characters, I was engrossed by the plot, and I even managed to grow curious about video games - something I genuinely never thought I'd say. I found this book fascinating, heartrending, and heartwarming, and I'll be purchasing a hard copy when it's published - this is a book that warrants at least one reread, and I can't wait to lend it out.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for my ARC.

I never expected that I would get swept away in a novel about video games, but WOW did I get swept away. This is my first book by Gabrielle Zevin and she now has a new number one fan! I cannot even begin to express how much I loved this book. I know nothing about video games, I don’t game and generally could care less about the video game industry but this book is so much more than that. It’s heartbreaking (I sobbed at some parts) but also so, so beautiful. It is extremely well written and the characters were so real! I am going to miss reading about Sam and Sadie Green. This has been one of my favorite books I have read this year and I cannot recommend it enough.

I previously read and loved The Storied Life of AJ Fikry and Young Jane Young by this author and loved them. I was happy to receive a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Although this book lived in the world of games and gamers, which is a subject I have little to no interest in, I found it very compelling. Both Sam and Sadie have their faults, however they are relatable if frustrating characters who face a variety of personal and professional challenges. They are at their best when they face these challenges together but their own insecurities often get in the way.

I started drafting this review half way through the book. I was going to say this is my book of the year so far, but after finishing it I actually think it’s my favourite book of all time. If I could give it six stars I would.

Sam and Sadie - the most unlikely friendship, a friendship based solely on gaming, at least on the surface. Their level of intimacy developed via the building of a video game is stunning and beautifully written, gorgeous to watch.

In fact, I was totally invested in all the characters. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book where I absolutely wanted the best outcome for everyone. I thought they all deserved happiness.

I stayed up all night finishing this book, and will be thinking of it for some time to come. There’s not too much of the storyline I can comment on without giving away spoilers, and spoilers would particularly spoil this book, in my opinion.

I loved this so very much.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for graciously allowing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This story was an intriguing exploration of friendships wrapped around the rise of the video game industry. It spans about thirty years beginning with Sophie Green, who is eleven and hanging around the hospital where her sister is being treated for leukemia, meets Sam Masur who is in the hospital for one of many surgeries on his damaged foot sustained in a car accident that killed his mother. They are two lonely, bright children who bond over playing computer games. But the friendship is broken when Sam learns that Sadie has been keeping track of the hours they spend together - more than 600 of them - for the community service portion of her Bat Mitzvah. He feels betrayed and they don't speak for years.

They meet again as college students with her at MIT and him at Harvard. She's in a gaming class and somehow the two of them decided to make a game together with the assistance of Sam's Roommate Marx. When the game Ichigo is a hit, the three of them form a company to make and market their games.

Along the way, they all have personal successes and failures and business successes and failures. Their friendships wax and wane. Even though each of the characters was a deeply flawed personality, I enjoyed learning about them and watching them grow and change over the years.

The story had a complex timeline with lots of changes of viewpoint and lots of flashbacks. Each was more fascinating than the last. Sam's chronic pain was woven throughout the story and helped define his personality. Sadie suffered from bouts of depression. Marx was the most normal though he was dealing with his own issues too.

The story was filled with issues from the chauvinism Sadie faces as a female game developer to Sam and Marx's Asian heritages to each character's basic loneliness and feelings of isolation.

It is a hard book to describe since it is a story of long friendships and love in many forms, and it is a story about work in a field that makes many demands on those in it. I enjoyed this book very much.

This book is all over the internet and with good reason! It is beautiful. I loved this book… until I didn’t. Let me explain.

This book says some wonderful things about friendship and how it fluctuates throughout a lifetime. The musings on different kinds of love were powerful. I also love messy characters who are smart and not always likable. The prose was gorgeous - the kind of writing that makes you stop and reread a sentence to savor it.

But oof the disability rep. Sam’s character went from “he’s tough enough to ignore the pain” to “it’s all in his head” and those are both such dangerous depictions of disability and chronic pain. I am not someone with the same type of injury as Sam, but as someone with chronic pain, I really wanted a more nuanced and accurate depiction of it.

I still recommend this book, just with this caveat.

Could this book be any more up my alley? You've got video gaming, friendships, Shakespeare (a little), some 90s nostalgia, complicated and interesting characters, disabilities that do not define people but absolutely change their worlds... and no easy answers... it's all great stuff! I think it may not be a perfect book, but I haven't been this immersed in any world since the first time I played Zelda on my N64. I do not say that because you have to love video games to love this book, however- I think it can definitely have general appeal. I can absolutely see it as a movie and completely understand why it was already optioned by Paramount- and I can't wait to watch it! I am still thinking about it days later and pondering the bigger ideas that slowly build through the narrative about time, friendship, love, and art.

Spoilers are in this review!
Wow. Talk about complicated characters (which I love), complicated relationships (which are always intriguing), and the nostalgia of the 90's. I will be thinking about all of these characters for a long time. Especially where Sam and Sadie end up. I don't think their story is finished. I couldn't decide if I wanted them to be together, or if they were just meant to be soul mates as friends. I did not see Marx and Sadie working out, I feel she was too complicated for him and he would never understand her like Sam does. Although Marx knew how to handle both Sadie and Sam.
The writing itself was beautiful. Especially when Marx was in his coma. And the way Sam described the blood at the office after the shooting. I think all these characters needed therapy before and after. But their each unique flaws is what made them work and create friction.
I love that an interest in video games, created a friendship that through twists and turns, created a whole web of people, from Marx and Dov being producers, to Ant and the other employees of Unfair Games who became central to their work, and all of it created a universal language for people all over the world to play a game. Personally, I'm not into video games but this book wasn't really about video games. Although I did enjoy learning about the history. And everyone has heard of Oregon Trail or Mario Kart. This one I would consider re-reading, which is rare for me.

Sam and Sadie met when they are kids and quickly bonded over their love of video games. They develop a friendship that spans almost 30 years. The novel follows the highs and lows of their friendship, including falling in love, falling out, a love triangle, successes, and failures. Throughout it all, the one constant in their lives is video games. The narrative alternates primarily between Sadie and Sam's POVs. The dynamics of their friendship are complicated by love, jealousy, and misunderstanding. The novel blends reality and game worlds, and parts of the narrative take place in a virtual open world. There are also a lot of 80s, 90s, and early 2000s pop culture references mixed in. This is a book for all ages and every kind of reader. Another gem from Gabrielle Zevin.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing group for an arc of this novel.*

What a beautiful story! I'm not the target audience for most books about video games, although I recognized many of the games referenced from my childhood. But as with any great book, the plot isn't really what makes it compelling. The reason you will want to read this is because you know these characters and will want to read about them. They are so real, so delicately drawn, so specific, yet universal, so flawed, and so lovable. So if two kids meeting in a children's hospital and making a lifelong bond over video games is your jam, read this. But even if it isn't, read it. It's a story of friendship and love and the ways we betray each other and ourselves and how we keep going. And it's about video games.

I had high hopes for this book as it started out promising and I was enjoying the book very much. However, about a third of the way through that changed and this book no longer held my interest and was hard to finish. It isn't a bad book, which other reviews show, however, I just found out it lost itself along the way and I was no longer enjoying the ride.

Yesterday I turned 73. Fortunately, I don’t think of myself as that old. On the other hand, last week I read Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel #TomorrowAndTomorrowAndTomorrow and felt like a dinosaur. I don’t mean that as a criticism because I enjoyed and learned from this well written book who’s three central characters are about 25 years younger than me. It’s the 70’s and childhood acquaintances Sadie and Sam are off from Los Angeles to college at MIT and Harvard. Sam’s dorm mate Marx rounds out the trio and the three techno wizards begin developing video games. Since in my own life I’ve never played video games, I was completely engrossed, as I always am when I’m around people who are of generations that are not technologically phobic like myself. The trials and travails that the three go through make up the core of #Tomorrow And Tomorrow, and Ms. Zevin beautifully transitions from the algorithm world to a story of human beings with very real emotions making this a book worth reading for today and today and today. Four stars.

TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin is a novel I loved so much that I finished it in 1.5 days. Its opening scene takes place at the Harvard Square subway station, where Sam Masur and Sadie Green run into each other. These childhood friends/frenemies, now reunited, begin a creative collaboration that leads them to develop smash hit computer games before they even graduate from college. The book follows them from Cambridge to LA, from college kids to middle age, from besties to not speaking to each other, and through all the successes, failures, joys, and tragedies life brings. Ultimately, it’s a book about whether lifelong friendship, when cracked apart along multiple fissures, can be put back together again.

Zevin’s writing drew me in from page one and kept me turning pages way past my bedtime. I fell in love with the characters, flaws and all, but I also fell in love with her vision for the book and with the setting. Zevin accurately captures in a couple quick strokes what it’s like to be an outsider at Harvard, and the Cambridge references were so spot-on.

The themes she tackles - play, work, love, self-discovery, mixed-race identity, disability, creative ownership, trying to make it as a woman in tech/gaming - are refreshing to contemplate and never feel forced. Despite not being a gamer, I loved how she took us behind the scenes of the computer game design process, and it made me appreciate the richness of storytelling, world building, design, and emotional connection that these games involve.

I absolutely devoured the first half, felt some trepidation about where it was all going for the next quarter (while still turning pages like they were hot), and then Zevin won me back over in a sequence that contained one of the most memorable and poignant displays of friendship and care I have ever witnessed. Don’t miss this one! It hits that literary sweet spot of fun but not frivolous, intelligently written but not hard to read, covering weighty topics without being overly heavy.

4.5 Rounded Up.

I don't even know where to begin with reviewing this book. It was not at all what I expected (even though I didn't know much about it going into it). This book had so many elements and yet the author blended them all together in such a perfect way. It was a coming of age story dealing with friendships, love triangles, romance, abuse, depression, murder, death but while it dealt with so many heavy subjects, it never felt like a depressing book. At it's core, this is a book about two childhood friends who met at the perfect time and created a life together through video games. There was a lot of nostalgia, especially for me as I was a child of the 90's playing Oregon Trail, Duck Hunt and Marios Brothers. The two main characters were very relatable but at times not likable but the author had the perfect ability to still make you love them. The ending was very anti-climatic and at first I wasn't a fan but now having had a chance to reflect back, I think it was the perfect ending. The book is very dense and at times felt pretty long, which is why I subtracted half a point but despite the length, it seemed the perfect amount to properly tell their story. This book is going to stick with me for a while. I hesitate to recommend it to everyone because it wasn't a light fluffy book but if you were looking for an epic tale that will really make an impact, I recommend this book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy. Opinions are my own.

This book reminded me of Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff and The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker, both novels I loved. They all deal with partnerships and the complications that arise from ambition and the inherent unknowability of one person to another.

This is the kind of story that you sink into, with characters you want to spend time with. Thoroughly enjoyable reading.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy

Absolutely beautiful. I'm indifferent about video games but the games aren't really the point of the book - the relationships are poignant and the storylines finely rendered.

This is a tough review to write. I am clearly not the audience for this book, however much has been said that it is about so much more than gamers and videos games and it is for everyone. That is true, about being about more, however it is still not for me. I am going to give it a somewhat neutral 3 as the writing was strong, but it did not hold my interest at all and was tedious for me to get through.

“How strange and beautiful human beings are. And how fragile.”

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a unique, heartwarming story about two friends, Sadie and Sam, who meet in a children's hospital. Sam is in for surgery on his foot after a devastating car accident and Sadie is visiting her sister. The two of them bond over video games, which serve as a way for them to escape their realities. As adults they reunite and become successful creators of their own games.

I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to read this when I saw it in the Modern Mrs. Darcy summer reading guide. I’m not at all a gamer but I’d read some rave reviews, and the story is more about Sadie and Sam and their friendship and partnership, which later includes Sam’s roommate at Harvard, Marx. The three of them all had their faults but I grew to love them.

I will say there was a bit too much gaming in it for me, but I still really enjoyed the overall story of friendship and the writing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
- William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is about Sadie and Sam’s ✨love✨ story, though not in the literal and most common (aka romantic) way.

Sadie is visiting her sister at the hospital when she meets Sam at the hospital’s game room. Sam is in the hospital recovering from a terrible car accident that killed his mom. Though they fall out of friendship for stints in their lives, they always come back to each other’s friendship to get them through difficult times.

The story is complex and heavy (emotionally) and mentions death, grief, workplace shooting, and postpartum depression. The lack of communication skills might irk you (because I def got annoyed at times), but it lends to building the characters’ personalities. The plot is engaging and solid overall. I would definitely recommend this book to folks who game, folks who are into kinda condescending long-winded semi-annoying intellectual-type folks (or Can at least tolerate them ha), and folks who just genuinely love a world-creating book of fiction. Thank you to NetGalley & Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC!