Beautiful and sometimes heart wrenching telling of the life long journey of three friends making their way in the world of game making.

This was hands-down one of my favorite books of the year. The way Zevin captures the full spectrum of these character arcs and weaves them together so seamlessly over several decades is pretty remarkable. And I was following along without a hitch the whole time. I loved and so appreciated the author’s ability to candidly include topics like disability, the push-and-pull of our responsibilities to ourselves, our families, our friends, our careers, and, for these protagonist, to their fans, and the joys and challenges of human existence. Even though this is probably technically a coming-of-age story, it felt like so much more than that. Gabrielle Zevin is brilliant and so is this novel!

Thank you immensely to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-arc!

Never in a million years did I think I would enjoy this book as much as I did. Yes, this is a book centered around video games. But it's so much more... it's such a unique book about friendship, success, failure, relationships, loss, grief, etc. The character development was exquisite.

In 1986, Sadie Green, 11, visits a children’s hospital where her sister is being treated for cancer. There, she befriends another patient, a 12-year-old Korean Jewish boy named Sam Masur, who has a badly injured foot, and the two bond over their love for video games. Over 600 hospital visits later, they have a fight and don’t speak again for six years when they reconnect while attending college in Boston. The pair, with help from their friend Marx, form a company designing video games. Before even graduating, they have created their first blockbuster video game, Ichigo.

Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow explores identity, disability, failure, and connection over the course of three decades and various locations..

Despite receiving accolades such as the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction (2022) and the Book of the Month Book of the Year Award (2022), this novel did not resonate with me personally. Initially, I found the book's exploration of video games intriguing, but the excessive references to gaming became overwhelming.

The early chapters, focusing on Sadie and Sam’s childhood, were captivating, but my interest waned as the story progressed. While the writing and character development were commendable, the complex nature of Sadie and Sam’s friendship made it difficult for me to sympathize with or like them. In fact, all three main characters were toxic in their own ways.

Ultimately, the plot became too overwhelming for my taste. Incorporating significant amounts of trauma in the narrative left me feeling disheartened. The prevalence of LGBT characters and the extensive social commentary felt excessive and “woke” to me. I would rate this book three out of five stars.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

There is a lot about this book that positively floored me… in particular, how ‘smart’ this novel was metaphorically. Games – the gaming world – as allegory about living life, changing course, making different choices, was a brilliant literary technique. The notion of lives lived during video games … the escapism and ability to “get it right” by replaying a game, the notion of human infallibility and re-starting a life for a second chance… SO good. The book was really deep if you wanted to mine that metaphorical and allegorical messaging.

As well, the story about friendship and the different forms of love was, indeed, powerful. I enjoyed all of that very much as I part-read and part-listened to this book.

But for me, a serious non-liker of video games (they never interested me when I was growing up during nearly the same period as these characters), the game-speak was too much, despite the wonderful way the author wove characters into the mix.

What did (and does) interest me is the way the games have evolved from the ancient Intellivision and Atari games of my youth … that today’s games have actual stories, and characters with backstories and plots. And complexity. Who knows? Maybe I’d enjoy gaming more now than I did as a kid?

Beyond that, I’m not sure I entirely gel with this author’s writing style. I was among a very few who had similar sentiments with AJ Fikry. The style in this book seems less simple than her debut, but I struggled with the dialogue – so many “Yes,” responses over and over. There were also many, many “which is to say” qualifiers and “for his/her part.”

That said, there were some beautiful, astute lines in the book that I loved, particularly about perceptions of art, artists, creativity and who gets to create what:

Art doesn’t typically get made by happy people.

OR

It was 1996, and the word “appropriation” never occurred to either of them. They were drawn to these references because they loved them, and they found them inspiring. They weren’t trying to steal from another culture, though that is probably what they did.

Consider Mazer in a 2017 interview with KOTAKU, celebrating the twentieth-anniversary Nintendo Switch port of the original ICHIGO:

Kotaku: It is said that the original ICHIGO is one of the most graphically beautiful low-budget games made, but its critics also accuse it of appropriation. How do you respond to that?

Mazer: I do not respond to that.

Kotaku: Okay… but would you make the same game if you were making it now?

Mazer: No, because I am a different person than I was then.

Kotaku: In terms of its Japanese references, I mean. Ichigo looks like a character Yoshitomo Nar could have painted. The world design looks like Hokusai, except for the Undead level, which looks like Murakami. The soundtrack sounds like Toshiro Mayuzumi…

Mazer: I won’t apologize for the game Sadie and I made. [Long pause.] We had many references – Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, Philip Glass, Chuck Close, Escher. [Another long pause]. And what is the alternative to appropriation?

Kotaku: I don’t know.

Mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures.

Kotaku: That’s an oversimplification of the issue.

Mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people, with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that that world, don’t you? I’m terrified of that world, and I don’t want to live in that world, and as a mixed-race person, I literally don’t exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Koreatown, Los Angeles. And as a mixed-race person will tell you – to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing. And, by the way, I don’t own or have a particularly rich understanding of the references of Jewishness or Koreanness because I happen to be those things. But if Ichigo had been fucking Korean, it wouldn’t be a problem for you I guess .

While I wholly appreciated this diatribe, it felt that, often, the book’s time period didn’t quite fit the current social issues the author was deliberately focused on. The above, for instance… wasn’t the term cultural appropriation only really accepted into popular vernacular in 2019/2020? Similarly, I found it a bit implausible that characters in the 1980s or even the early-to-mid 90s would be so fixated on the “them” pronouns, a relatively new way to reference pronouns/gender. I went to college during that period – though, admittedly, not to an Ivy. Maybe Sadie, Sam and Marx were ahead of my peers regarding transgender knowledge. And, one last quibble: there was absolutely no 911 service in 1984, when the author has Sam’s mother calling about the woman on the sidewalk.

So, you can see that I really liked and then also questioned some things in this book, “which is to say” (see what I did there?) I had mixed feelings overall. (Another love was the double entendre with the Pioneer video game in which "Emily" is "living on the edges of Friendship." Excellent!)

Yes, overall, I’m very happy that I experienced this book, but think – had I read it only (vs. also listening), I might not have finished. The audio gave me an appreciation of the deep love story within.

This book is a perfect love letter to humanity, to creativity, and to the 90s. Even when I hated the choices the characters were making, I loved each of them. The storytelling was extremely well done. This is one of my new favorite books of all time!

It’s frustrating that I didn’t enjoy the book

Childhood friends, Sadie and Sam reunited one day and after few meet ups, they decided to create their own video game which then became a stepping stone into the world of fame. The blurb does sounds amazing, referencing many millennials things which I’m always up for 🙌🏻

The prose was intelligent but pointless. In addition to the pretentious MC, Sadie 🙄 I was delusional thinking Sadie could be the next Elizabeth Zott (from Lessons in Chemistry). Oh man, I was wrong..

Sadie is lowkey horny
half-hearted
and egocentric.

Sam isn’t an exception either. Choding (Korean slang word) suits him best. Although he’s better than Sadie when it comes to commitment.

This is not a friends-to-lovers story. Even the author has emphasised on that. But I can’t help not to be infuriated by their toxic friendship! Both are immature, constantly bickering (almost all of their problems are unsolved) and have no chemistry with any other characters. In fact, all relationships in here weren’t deep as claimed. Sadie was “delulu” when she slept with her own professor. That was a red flag 🚩 I should’ve realised sooner.

“Zoe & Sadie had two interactions and claimed each other best friend, but Sadie wasn’t affected to Zoe as much as Dov”.

What a sadist loner. Zoe is her only female friend mentioned in here (more of friend of a friend) but they had no interaction at all other than that one time before Zoe moves to different city, and of course Sadie has more affection towards her old geezer 😭

Sorry that this review felt like slandering characters but it’s only because this book is character driven. The plot mixes up with games’ storyline and interviews that took place further in the future. I- 🫠 but honestly, their games have better plots.

Often times, I felt the author was trying too hard to have mix race characters in her story and it’s just.. not giving. Lazy dumping of Asian American people, I’d say.

Gah the ending! Very unsettling - they weren’t really honest with each other IMO

P/s: justice to Marx please. He’s the only relevant character

A book about friendship and the love of video games. While the writing was good, I also wasn't necessarily thrilled by the story.

4.5 Stars rounded up.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a beautifully written love letter to friendship and video games. It's also a book I'll be rereading in the future.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow continues to occupy my thoughts as an exceptional book. Despite not having much in common with the Gen X protagonists, Sadie and Sam, other than our birth year, I am drawn to their coming-of-age journey. The narrative revolves heavily around video games, but Gabrielle Zevin's writing captivated me, holding my interest even in a topic that typically bores me. Sadie and Sam became the most cherished characters in my decade of reading. Although the novel is a masterpiece, it may not resonate with everyone due to its dense text, risky techniques, and unsettling plot. Yet, within its 416 pages lies a profound experience distinct from Zevin's previous works. It will be difficult for any future book to compare, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has unquestionably secured a spot on my all-time favourites shelf. My heartfelt gratitude to the author and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the gifted review copy via NetGalley. Now available.

What an incredible ride. Sadie and Sam's dynamic as best friends/????? was just beautifully written and resonated with me on so many levels. I am so excited to add this to our collection, as Zevin has quickly become one of my favorite writers. 5 stars.

A remarkable love letter to games and gaming told in a coming of age novel. This remarkable work of fiction feels as humanizing and as messy as you expect an honest narrative of two life long friends to be. Kind and nuanced disability representation is thoughtfully written. One of the best reads do the year.

This book was so unique and yet as I was reading it I could totally picture a movie being made about it. The ending wasn’t my favourite but still did not take away from an interesting read which included likeable yet flaw-filled characters. Great story, definitely recommend.

This book was SO GOOD. I was gratified to see that it received so much acclaim and press once it was released to the general public.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

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.



So when I first started reading this is could not get into it, didn’t understand the hype of it. I had to give myself a good month off of it to start it again. I don’t know what it was at first but I finally picked it back up and got into it!!

Once I got into it. I fell in love like everyone else. I felt like they were my best friends and they always had been.

This book is hard to describe. The complexity of this story and the characters is so much more than meets the eye. I am a big character driven book lover so if you are too then this will be something right up your alley. I also loved all of the video game references which made me nostalgic. The friendships in this book are unbeatable!

I am not going to lie I teared up several times.
I still have not yet recovered from the ending.

About 100 pages into this book I just knew that I was going to love it! It's such a great book about love and true friendships. It is definitely going on my list of favorite all time books.

I'm late to the game--always am with the most popular and talked-about books--but if you haven't given Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow a chance yet, do! This was an engrossing and moving book that is absolutely worthy of the hype.

While I appreciate the writing the book was just not for me. Found the subject matter dry and never captured my interest. 3 stars

A slow burn, this adult novel follows the dynamic friendship of two video game enthusiasts who blossom together through hardships. Although they are from different backgrounds, Sadie and Sam discover they have a similar interest, first meeting in a hospital due to different circumstances. They meet again in college, once again by chance as they go to different colleges. Both of them go through different traumatic experiences, one causing a severely damaged leg, while the other causes a severely damaged heart, and yet they both share the same trauma of being video game developers. Sadie's character is difficult to sympathyze with at first as she runs after a professor who she know is married, but her relationship with Marx changed my feelings. Sam, clearly an introvert, is a little easier for me to relate to, although his trauma and leg make it very easy to feel sorrowful. A secondary character, Marx, Sam's college roommate and later producer of the company Sadie and Sam develop, is honestly my favorite character of the novel. Together the trio create an interesting friend group dynamic that was a little cliche at first, but I think it naturally progressed the way that it did for good reason.