First and foremost I would like to thank NetGalley, Gabrielle Zevin and Alfred A. Knopf for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of Gabrielle’s latest novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which is scheduled to be published in early July, 2022. This is the first book of Gabrielle’s I have had the pleasure to have read, but most assuredly it will not be the last. Although the book ostensibly centered around the world of making and playing video games, of which I have only a peripheral amount of knowledge having raised children that grew up gaming, I enjoyed the book immensely. It also delves deeply into interpersonal relationships, physical and emotional pain and healing, love and friendship, life and death, and family. It actually brought me very close to tears in a few crucial moments.

The book makes a lot of twists and turns as it navigates its way through the lives of its two main protagonists, Sadie and Sam, whom we first meet when they are 10 and 11 years old. We do also come to know Sam a couple of years prior to then, as well. We follow them as their lives diverge and reconnect several times well into their 30’s, meeting various lovers, associates, family members and friends along the way. The writing is superb, taking us inside the minds of the characters, while sometimes even veering off into and immersing us into the game-worlds themselves.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.
4.25 out of 5 stars

There's a group of individuals who were born on the cusp of Generation X and Millennials, when home PCs were just becoming commonplace, when Newgrounds and AOL chats were the thing. Our parents didn't have the internet when they were our age... Hell, probably half our parents never learned even to this day. So they didn't know what to warn us about. Meeting romantic interests in real life that you originally met online was so strange and foreign it was assigned as dangerous and taboo. We remember playing Super Mario Bros. and PacMan with a reverent fondness, and Spear of Destiny was monumental. Looking back now, the word Diablo probably fosters a sulfuric nostalgia.

I am from that group.

This book spoke to me on so many levels I can't fathom getting this review right. I don't play games anymore, but damn if this doesn't make me want to get lost in Parasite Eve or Star Ocean again.

Sadie meets Sam in a hospital. Sadie's sister, Alice, has cancer and Sam is having another foot surgery. After being exiled from Alice's room, Sadie doesn't know what to do, until an orderly tells her there is a Nintendo in the waiting room. Sadie goes in, but Sam is already playing. She is amazed at his ability to reach the flag at the end of every level in Mario. He hands her the controller and tells her to finish the level he's on.

So begins a friendship that will go down in gaming history.

This is more than just a book about gaming. It is about the firsts we saw in our lifetime. It is about the repercussions of necessary change. It is about family and it is about friends and it is about friends who become family. It is about race. It is about gender identity. It is about love and lust. It is about life and death. It is about culture and cultural appropriation. It is about realism and escapism. It is about coming of age, and it is about being a parent. It is about roommates. It is about the lines drawn and crossed between professors and students, colleagues, and friends. It's Shakespearean. It is about darkness and redemption.

The way that this story was written could not have been more perfect. We get to know the characters on an intimate level, find the truth that they would never reveal even to themselves.

Trying to spoil anything, but my favorite parts of the book concerned Pioneers and my least favorite included Dom. I have some strong opinions on how long the friendship continued with him, but I suppose that aspect, like so many other aspects of this story, were real. That's what really got me about this book, how real it could be, how true it could be. The emotions and inner dialogues and betrayals.

I have not read The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, but now I know it is a must.

Outstanding 4.5 star read that at the end of book had me questioning everything about the characters. This story is about two friends, Sadie and Sam who become friends through playing video games while Sam is at the hospital recovering and Sadie visits her sick sister. The friendship starts out on mistrust and therefore the whole plot of the book surrounds mistrust and trauma. How much does trauma shape your life and the choices you make after such a traumatic event? Sadie and Sam are both dealt a great deal of trauma throughout this book. The book follows the duo from childhood to college and on to adulthood.
The character development and writing was so intricate and beautiful and what truly made me enjoy this book. The story is also about gaming and video games which is probably why I struggled at times with the book. However, don't let that turn you away from this read. The plot of the book was so unique with the use of gaming and not something I have read before. If you love a story about complicated friendship, frenemies, lovers, success, failure, family, and trauma then this book is perfect. The story as well as the characters of Sadie, Sam, as well as Marx will stick with me for along time. Also looking to read other books by Zevin as her writing style is beautiful and interesting.

Thank you to @netgalley and @knoph publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was not for me. It failed to engage me on many levels. Having never played a video game, has little to do with my review. The characters were, for the most part, unlikable. The story jumped around too much….and was much too long, in my opinion. I had to skim the last half of the novel just to end it! Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. #netgalley #netgalley.

I loved this book. It was like nothing I have ever read before. It brought to life the development and growth of video games from the 80's through with brilliant and complicated characters. It was funny and witty, observant, smart, and hopeful.

WOW - I loved this one. While not much of a gamer myself, this book is about what bonds us together, whether that be games or something else. I especially enjoyed how the book showed how the bonds of friendship and partnership can truly transcend romantic relationships.

Another stellar novel from Gabrielle Zevin! Her characters are so relatable even though I really have nothing in common with them (Ok, maybe I'm close in age/era, but my life is far from the Ivy league educated, west coast raised programming geniuses of the story). Yet, their struggles, their "trauma" if you will, feels tender and familiar. Zevin weaves incredible vocabulary with gaming lore and the ebb/flow of life we all fail to appreciate as we travel through.

4.5/5

Wow! This will leave an indelible impression. What a damn good book! Thank you for the opportunity to read.

I didn't like this one as much as The Storied Life of A. J. Fikrey, but still appreciated its unique premise and the way the author brings it all together. Not being a gamer, some of the references to video games and their histories were lost on me, but the book can still be enjoyed without completely understanding the gaming world.

The story focuses on 3 people who write and produce a video game together while in college. Each brings different strengths to the process, but jealousy and misunderstandings threaten their success. It all falls apart when a tragic event occurs.

I really enjoyed how the games reflected the lives of the characters and how they tried to relate the aspect of the possibility of infinite lives to the real world. At first the story reads like an upbeat novel about friendship, creative collaboration, and love. Unexpectedly, it takes a few dark turns and the examination of relationships is drawn out to the point of being infuriating. Eventually, there's some hope as each character ponders the past, realizes how fortunate they were to have each other, and tries to find a way to rekindle their relationship, despite the hurt from the past.

MOVING & WITTY!
Zevin has proven she is the master at making you care for her characters & her skillful ability to pull you right into this story won't disappoint! This was a story about friendship, love, & video games.
Sam & Sadie meet in a hospital when they are both younger & bond over gaming after dealing with their own tragedies. They drifted apart but in college, they meet up again by chance at a train station in NYC. They start talking again & come to find out they each still share the love of gaming. They eventually decide to make a game together. Sam's roommate, Marx, also comes along for this ride & the trio are a tight group. They all move to LA to start their gaming business. At this point in the book, I couldn't put it down.
The characters are so complex & well developed that I couldn't stop caring about all of them!
You don't have to be a gamer to enjoy this book. The 80's & 90's refrences were great. The story is also packed with many obscure, Zevin-like words that I highly enjoyed! (grokking, hirsute, bloviating, & ersatz to name a few)
This story had me smiling, laughing, & crying. I think this is her best novel so far. This book gets to the heart of friendship & love.

Thank you to NetGalley & Gabrielle Zevin for generously providing me with an ARC for my honest opinion.

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. Like many other reviewers, I’m not a gamer but the plot just sucked me in. I learned a lot about the process of making video games and it was super interesting. I also loved all the characters. They loved, suffered, and persisted through successes and failures. I think the middle seemed a bit too long but I was sad when I finished the book. It’s my first by this author but I look forward to others.

I’m sorry to say that this book never really took off for me. I kept waiting for something more and it never came. It just kind of jumped around and never formed an interesting story.

The last time I played a video game was years ago. When I read the blurb for this novel, that wasn’t the impetus to request an advance copy from NetGalley. First, I am a fan of the author’s work. Also, I was curious about two people coming and going from each others lives and of course, the title grabbed me. Shakespeare always draws me in. As I write this, I know I am going to come back in another week and say…wait. I just realized there was another layer I missed. To say this book was well written and clever is an understatement. Metaphors run deep here. I stayed up until 2 am last night to finish it.

Before I picked this up, I had zero understanding about how the gaming industry worked or how complex writing a video game could be. I mean it’s just code, right? I was so impressed with the author’s ability to move effortlessly in this world that I began to wonder about the similarities between video games and fiction writing. The two are so similar, I don’t know why I never thought about this before. As I discovered in the author’s acknowledgements, she is indeed a gamer.

When we meet Sadie and Sam at age 11, it brought to mind that young girl in The Queen’s Gambit. They are both kind of adrift for totally different reasons but gravitate towards each other forming a concrete bond. Sadie and Sam have that same kind of intensity only their world is not chess but gaming. But you could argue, strategy is strategy. We follow them thru reality and non-reality, and thru other influential relationships as they drift in and out of each others lives. How tragic that the book title lends a kind of resolute futility to their plodding. I was glad to see that hope resurrected itself at the end. Because in the end “the freight is proportioned to the groove.” The burden of the love that Sadie and Sam share is heavy, but doesn’t break under the weight of the burden.

In the final analysis, this book and its characters will stay with me. I found it to be both interesting and multi-layered. I highly recommend it.

Gabrielle Zevin writes the most relatable, poignant books. Her ability to understand humanity and our deepest emotions is unparalleled. Another hit from this author. I think high school students will love this book.

I received an ARC of this book from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

WOW. Let me make something clear. I would not in any way consider myself to be a "gamer" or even remotely educated on the world of video games, but I am not being dramatic when I say that this may be the best book I have ever read in my life. Yes, this is a book about video games, but its also a book about friendship, disability, love, grief, equality, and everything else that is important in life. Anything I could possibly say in this review will not give this book the justice it deserves, but I can't think of a single type of reader that this book wouldn't be perfect for. I am left with the feeling that I know every reader hopes for when starting a new book: a sadness that the experience is over and and overwhelming sense of gratitute for having come across a book that is just so special.

A big thank you again to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy of this amazing book!

4.5⭐️Video gaming…not my normal jam. Yet in this latest book by Zevin (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘑 𝘍𝘪𝘬𝘳𝘺), she pulled me deep into the world of game creation, world building and story telling and I seriously could not put it down. I adored the main characters, Sadie and Sam, who meet in the hospital as kids and discover a mutual love of gaming, an activity that can take one away from the sorrows, trauma, and tragedy of their real lives. And over decades of their lives, sorrow is rampant. But oh how I loved these two people, and the their musketeer, Marx, who sees these two and all their faults, and loves them unconditionally. Zevin has a remarkable gift, just like a video game creator; she is able, just through her words, to make these characters come alive, to live inside my brain, to the point that I felt bereft when I turned the final page. Do yourself a favor and entire the world Zevin has created - it is a beautiful place within an incredible new book.

“ A doorway, she thought. A portal. The possibility of a different world. The possibility that you might walk through the door and reinvent yourself as something better than you had been before.”

I’m not a gamer, and you don’t have to be to appreciate this beautiful book about a lifelong friendship that transcends romantic love. Two kids meet and weather separation and conflict to join creative forces—platonic soulmates who fall apart and lose touch over and over again without ever losing the love they have for one another. 4 and a half stars.

SPOILER ALERT: TW: mass shooting

If gun violence has impacted your life, you may want to skip this one.

A book about games, friendship, and love. It is primarily about games though. Sam and Sadie, the two main characters talk about games, play games and make games.
One thing I had a hard time with was following
along with the time lines and a serious lack of communication between Sam and Sadie. They could have resolved many a hurt if they had talked about the things they were assuming about each other. That being said, I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the friendships, the games from my childhood, and the love stories.
It must be stated with current times that there is a work place mass shooting.
I highly recommend this book.

I don't think this author will ever top The Storied Life of A. J. Fiery. This book, like her last one, was good, not great. Whiny, privileged people who make video games with very little plot. She is a good writer though. There's no denying that. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am a fan of Gabrielle Zevin's previous work and while I liked this book, it wasn't a favorite. The pacing felt a little uneven and the section of the book where the characters are interacting virtually in the game did not hold my attention. . .but I am not a gamer! The characters were nonetheless compelling and I enjoyed the story arc.