Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about Sam and Sadie. It's about children and teens and young adults and adults and growing up and feeling old. It's about video games and games and play and rest and work and obsession and determination. It's about love and friendship and family and heritage and disability and hunger and rage and tragedy.

I love this book -- I feel like I read lots of literary fiction these days that shocks me rather than surprises me. It unsettles me rather than makes me gasp and think, I have to get someone else to read this. Zevin writes a decades-long narrative that retains its passion and its intrigue and made me laugh and cry. I love the voices of Sadie and Sam, I love being in their minds, I love their journey. I was wowed in particular by a few of the narrative sections -- the second person chapters and the game-play chapters in particular -- and wept when I realized where the title was from. This book was like a present that's just a bunch of boxes wrapped up inside each other and I didn't even care about what I would find at the end, I just wanted to keep unwrapping.

5 stars.

This book is so utterly pretentiousness and trying so hard to be woke that I should have given up on it instead of seeing it to the end. I would have if the beginning hadn’t been so beautifully done. There’s a line in the book about a video game sequel being awful because it was farmed out to Indian programmers who had no interest in the game and that’s how this book feels after the incredible start. The beginning was layered, nuanced and artfully done. I hate flashbacks but this book had managed to layer the present, past and future in such an incredible way before it fell off a cliff and suddenly feels like an entirely different writer took over.

The story began with Sadie and Sam central to the story. We found out about them in a narrative that skipped around in time to let us understand them and their relationship. Sam was the obviously the more sympathetic of the two and the one you as a reader care about. Sadie was often annoying and then fell apart in a ridiculous way. I hoped her awful college self with the horrible college boyfriend would evolve and grow up but she never does. Even worse for the story is the tangents that from that point became the story. We suddenly get a new character who is rightly called boring later on. He is a NPC. He’s just too good and uninteresting to take up so much space. We get his backstory we don’t need. In a similar way later on we get two new characters that happen to be gay that bring nothing to the story other than a celebration of their sexuality which apparently is worth their inclusion. Much like tangents about their game that take up unnecessary page time and continue to dilute any attempt at storytelling. There’s plenty of politics, even to a ridiculously degree like actual comical bad guys intent on violence against those in favor of gay relationships and marriage. Ironically for a book full of wokeness with characters never being straight, celebrating gender fluidity, the book managed to ridicule cultural appropriation. The book is very focused on the race of the characters but never explores them in more than a superficial way.

One of the author’s worst faults was her pretentious word choices. Instead of writing in way that flowed she chose to constantly check her thesaurus for jarring words like jejune and verdigris every couple of pages. Ironically much like the criticism of a game her character created this book is pretentious and full of itself. The worst part is that could have been amazing if it had stayed as focused as it was in the beginning. This is not a story worth the journey so do not push play. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

4.5 stars. There were a few short sections which I found a little annoying (conversations that just rang false and seemed like they were just inserted to set up a plot point), but overall very strong, and the core of the book (the relationship between Sam & Sadie) is excellent.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green are childhood best friends who connected over their love of video games. After losing touch for a few years, they run into each other in a train station during college. Sadie gives Sam a copy of a video game she made for class. After Sam plays it, he knows he must make a game with Sadie. The book follows Sam and Sadie over the course of the 16 years after they made the game together.

In high school I read a book by Gabrielle Zevin called Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, which I enjoyed. When I realized this was also written by her, I knew I needed to read it. I loved this book. A lot happens in this story, but the heart of it is the vibrant characters. It’s about love, friendship, trauma, and video games. Even if you don’t play video games, I think this book will be enjoyable for you. There is a lot to gain from reading it and it will make you appreciate so much about life.

There’s been so much attention put on Gabrielle Zevin’s new book that I felt I just had to read it. Unfortunately I’m in my mid-60’s and don’t play video games. I tried to care about the main characters, but somewhere over the 30 year span of their business partnership and sometimes friendship, I got lost. I’m sure this book will find a video game loving audience and it is well written.

Sam and Sadie might one day in a hospital and became fast friends however, that friendship only lasted a short time due to a deception. Several years later they meet by chance in a subway station and it is like that friendship never ended. They began making video games and they were so popular that a company was formed with Sam and Sadie as founders along with Sam's roommate, Marx.

The story spans several years through their Twenties and into their Thirties. Through the ups, downs, despairs, destructions, and repairs. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a beautiful story about friendship and love. It was hard to put the book down.

A fantastic book about friendship, love, life and video games.

The book follows the friendship between Sadie and Sam from their childhood days through to University and beyond.

The book made me laugh and it made me cry. A fantastic read that I highly recommend.

This is very much a book about video games. Playing, planning, making and marketing them. This is also a book about friendship that spans decades and is not always so friendly. The writing style is detailed and the story jumps between past and present always telling what we need to know just now. Sam and Sadie are complex and real characters. My favorite character is Marx. He's kind and gentle and always knows what to say and how to proceed.
This is not the easiest book to read if you are not very familiar with gaming, as I am not. The gaming aspect is very strong and told in intricate detail. It pays off to read something totally out of your comfort zone. You might learn something new. Enjoy the ride.

I absolutely loved the characters in this book! I had a hard time getting into some parts of it, mainly because I don't know anything about video games or coding but the way the characters were written kept my attention. This book was so unlike any other book I've read in the best way possible.

This is a book about love, friendship, coming of age, and video games. I think it will be very well accepted. The story wasn’t really for me, but the writing and plotting was first rate.

"This is a story about Sam and Sadie. This isn't a romance, but it is about love."

Gabrielle Zevin has been an auto-buy author for me since I read her YA debut Elsewhere in 2007. I have loved every single one of her books, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is no exception. I often struggle to describe her books because trying to categorize them feels reductive. This is a book about two gamers and messy, complicated, beautiful relationships. This is a book about success and failure and understanding the gray area between them. This is a book about growing up and navigating a relationship through decades of friendship and love.

It brought me to tears. I loved it. It is insightful and witty and literary, and all the things I've come to expect from Zevin.

I loved everything about it. Even if you're not a gamer, I can't really imagine anyone who enjoys contemporary fiction really disliking this book. Compelling, empathetic characters and fascinating worldbuilding – meta and otherwise.

Do yourself a favor and read this book.

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. Sam and Sadie meet when they are young at a hospital. They become friends. This book is about their journey.

I’m not a gamer, and some things lost me. But I do love a good story.

I loved how this book was split up. The Marx chapters hit me hard, I was crying throughout. The book is a love story, but of friendship.

I loved the characters. They were flawed. They fought. They made up. They figured out how to do life together… mostly. The end was sad but also hopeful.

I truly think this book is magic. I’d fully recommend it!

Thank you to Knopf for providing a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date: 7/5/22
Genre: coming of age, books about friendship
In one sentence: Friends Sam and Sadie were the brains behind video game sensation Ichigo - but what will happen to their friendship after early success?

Friendship is one of my favorite topics to explore in a book, and I loved how Zevin told Sam and Sadie's origin story. Their platonic friendship was more captivating than some romances, especially with the give-and-take that happens with a close working relationship. I'm not a big gamer, but I enjoyed the video game references (especially to Oregon Trail) and seeing how much games meant to both main characters. Sam and Sadie are both good friends and bad friends individually and as a pair at different times in their friendship, and I liked seeing the conflicts they went through.

The book lost me a bit in the last third - the plot didn't live up to the promise of the beginning of the book, and I could guess where things would go long before the book ended. I still enjoyed the book a lot, but I think it would have been a five star read with some editing. 3.5 stars.

Initial reaction: Holy shit. I love this book so much. A formal - and probably long winded- review to come. Going right to the all time favorites list though.

"Formal", long-winded review:
This is a story about friendship and love, but not in a way that you have ever read before. I absolutely loved this book so much, and I am going to do my best to explain why. First, there were many nights where I stayed up entirely too late, hours later than I should have gone to sleep, in order to keep reading. This book made me feel very intense feelings for these incredibly well fleshed out characters.

As for the craft of the storytelling: while the book follows a mostly linear timeline from the 80s through present day, there is some excellent use of non-linear storytelling which I thought was incredibly well done. You would understand something from a particular perspective, and then later Zevin would loop back around to the same incident and reveal something that completely shifted how you perceived an event or character, with new depth or clarity. It was brilliant.

I was so invested that more than once I may have sat up and said out loud "no they f*cking didn't" repeatedly and with new emphases on a different part of the sentence every time.

Warnings: this book gets sad. It's not a sad book, but you will be sad, maybe devastated, at times.
Content warnings: a suicide and an active shooter situation are both described on page (I know that sounds intense, which is why I felt compelled to mention it, although I hope it doesn't deter you from picking up the book)

Lastly - I may have one quibble. Still a favorite book of all time. But I have a quibble. And that is the absolute insane use of vocabulary words which I had never in my life heard before. It got to the point that 20% in, I started writing them down on a note in my phone. I have 34 words written down that I absolutely could not tell you what they mean. I would have been able to use context clues without a dictionary, but I am so happy that I read this on my kindle, because I used the in-device dictionary A LOT. You may be thinking, Lauren, surely it wasn't that bad. Here are a few examples: ligneous, grokking, copacetic, ameliorated, patchouli, hirsute, ouroboros, vertiginously, bloviating (2x), raconteur, habiliments, sepulchral, sinsemilla, puerile, palimpsest, ouroboros AGAIN, susurrus, purloined, jejune, simulacrum, verdigis. It honestly got to the point of laughable. Did I learn anything? Doubtful. But I felt compelled to mention it because it felt notable.

ANYWAY. LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH.
I even DMed the publisher on instagram to find out where I can pre-order a signed copy, even though they gave me a free copy in exchange for a reiew. Which:
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for providing an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book about many things tucked inside a story about video games. I’ve heard so much hype around this book, but unfortunately I just could not get into it. I rarely DNF, but I just could not make it through. I had heard that whether you like video games or not it would be possible to connect with the underlying story here of friendship, but there is a LOT about video games. And game development. And game companies. And…well, you get it. However, I recommend that if you find the premise at all interesting you give it a read as it seems to be enjoyed by many. I was provided an ARC of this book for review.

This was a lovely book about friendship and I have no idea why I liked it as much as I did. I know, what a weird way to start a review of a book I enjoyed, but hear me out:

1) While I understand this book covers the span of many years so this was, to an extent, necessary, this novel tells instead of showing way too much, which is something that drives me crazy. Don’t summarize the action for me, let me see it!

2) I did not find Sam redeemable at all. He gave me major incel vibes and was kind of a generally not a nice person. I get that he went through some intense trauma as a kid, but his possessiveness is creepy and over the top.

3) Boston/Cambridge doesn’t feel right to me. No one calls the T the subway. And when Dov was listing things that Boston does better than LA, he mentions bodegas, bagels, and late night dinners. He’s talking about New York, not Boston.

And yet … I loved this book. I didn’t care about things that would normally turn me off of a story. I loved the references. I loved the study of how a friendship evolves and changes throughout a person’s life. I found it moving and delightful and even cried. It makes no sense to me but that’s where we are *shrug*

The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars was because it dragged a bit, and the weird stalking chapter was unneeded and completely lost me. But this book was an absolute delight.

4.5 stars. Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and Netgalley for the ARC

I feel like I'm emotionally hungover after reading this book. I really enjoyed the story for the most part, and the video game premise was both unique and interesting, but Sadie really wore me out. I was just exhausted reading her parts sometimes. Overall it was a good and deep read.

Remember, the strawberries are a trap.
Gabrielle Zevin has written two books, and I'm surprised by how similar they are. If you like The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, you'll like this book.
The story revolves around three friends, from the childhood of two and the third comes in during college. They dropout to make video games, and ultimately make a successful video game company. We see them grow, fail, learn, adapt, and love. But not marry, cause we're bougies like that.
You ever have a dream and you see someone from behind and you KNOW it's your childhood best friend without knowing why? It's a dream, you just KNOW. That kind of logic only makes sense if you're in a dream, but Zevin writes like you're in a dream. The exposition is heavy, you as a reader need to KNOW things, so Zevin just tells you. Time gets in the way of the story, so time gets moved, we are where we need to be in the story for the story to make sense.
For the (at least) second time, Zevins also writes a great slow death, a character gets to process their upcoming death and we get to go along with them. Unlike A.J. Fikry though, this time we get to see the aftermath, the pain and healing of their loved ones. I think the accuracy is excellent, the way the pain flares up years later when you thought you were done.
Highly recommend.
**I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Brilliant and complicated love.
Many thanks to Knopf Doubleday and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am now a Gabrielle Zevin fangirl! I thought I enjoyed her writing before, but now I think that she may be an auto-buy for me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will continue to recommend it to friends and patrons.