So good. Creative, smart, heartbreaking, and touching. I was immersed in the world that this book created. The story moves along quickly but it also develops each character so well.

It’s been awhile since a book has surprised me. I am not a gamer. Not even much of a board game lover. My children would testify to this. I would let them play video games but rarely joined them, and family members have often begged me to round out the number of players so a board game could be played. So, when I started this book and realized its protagonists are video game lovers and creators, I quickly doubted it would be for me. But I fell under the spell of Sam and Sadie and Marx. And in joining their journey, I began to see what people may find in video games. I began to understand their very construction in a way no textbook could probably ever explain. This is a great read. And when I realized that its title was inspired by a Shakespearean quotation, I was further chastised for too quickly regarding video games as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Read an ARC.

Demolished this book, simply could not put it down. There is a lot of video game content and references but unlike Ready Player One, it uses some iconic games like Oregon Trail to add depth to the story. While there are a lot of details about making video games, it isn't until later chapters when it starts to consume the story (as work sometimes consumes middle aged adults).

This story has so. much. depth. Spanning several decades it follows Sam and Sadie from the hospital where they meet as kids (he's being treated, her sister is sick) through a chance connection across the country and as they grow together then apart. Both characters are so authentic and so incredibly plausible, I can see why this has spread like wildfire.

There are some really heavy concepts discussed throughout. I did struggle a little with the NPC section for personal trauma reasons. Then reading through it, remarkably, near the end Sadie does say something similar about the generational differences in handling trauma. Incredibly powerful to feel like I could have a conversation with a fictional character.

Spectacular. Highly recommend to anyone looking to lose themselves in a book for a week.

I absolutely adored <i>The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry</i> by Zevin so I was thrilled to get an advanced reader copy of <i>Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow</i>. Unfortunately, this book doesn't have the same power as Fikry did. The characters are just as flawed, believable, real, and likeable, but the story drags on and on and on. If you took out about 100 pages, this story would be amazing. I loved Sam and Sadie as kids and again when they reconnect as college students, but as adults, they were obnoxious and hard-headed and self-indulgent and overall, boring. I had a hard time connecting with them as adults and wanting anything good to happen to them. I think the author tried to address too many social issues through the gaming and lost the story for awhile, which is just sad because the premise is great and has so much potential.

If you're a hard core gamer and want to learn more about the world of video game design in the late 90s and early 2000s, then you might enjoy this one more than I did. If you really enjoy complicated, convoluted plots, then you might really enjoy this book. Sadly, it wasn't my cup of tea.


Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

“A glimmer of a notion of a nothing of a whisper of a figment of an idea. “. This was my favorite quote from this novel. I saved it, because I just loved it and I didn’t want to forget it. I so enjoyed this book. I am not a gamer. I grew up with Atari, so I’m a little older than the main characters, and am not a gamer, but you don’t have to be to enjoy the dynamics between the three main characters. Once I started I was caught up in their lives. It was so well written that I will be reading more books by this author. Thank you for a great story.

Wow, I devoured this book. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, is a multilayered novel about friendship, love, and video games but is also so much more.

Sadie and Sam meet when they are kids and bond over their love of video games. And the book follows their friendship, relationship - professional and personal over the next 30+ years. We see them and other characters work their asses off to launch a game, go through the highs and lows of their friendship. We see them fall in love and out of love, we see them through their successes and failures.

Its really a beautiful book and even though its a book about video games - I am NOT a gamer and I was entranced. The writing didnt turn away a non-gamer and made me wish I was more into video games!

There is love, happiness, tragedy. You laugh out loud, you cry. Full range of emotions reading this book.

I cant wait to tell everyone I know to read this book!

This is a book about three students-Harvard and MIT, who develop video games. Not something I think I would be interested in, but the relationship with the three, as they grow their company and grow older together, was great. I really enjoyed this one, would recommend it even if you don't know anything or care about video games. #tomorrowandtomorrowandtomorrow #gabriellezevin #videogames #netgalley #bookstagram #bookblog #booklover #lovetoread #bookreview #bookrecommendations #tbr #bookloversofinstagram #readallthebooks #booksaremagic

Gabrielle Zevin's new book, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, is a masterpiece. The three main characters are all early Millennials, and this is the best depiction of the generation I've come across in a novel. Setting the story with a gaming theme is perfect as so many Millennials grew up, like the book's characters, mastering the products of this rapidly evolving industry (including my seven children). It's the perfect foundation for layering the complicated relationships and societal struggles this group faces.

And you don't need to be a gamer to enjoy the book. If you have absolutely no knowledge of gaming (if you have never even heard of The Oregon Trail, for example), you may struggle with Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But is anyone still out there who is totally unaware of video games? I'm not a gamer (I hate playing them), but they were a constant backdrop in our home for decades, which helped me engage.

Zevin's world-building was exquisite. Each character is wonderfully complex, broken, and gifted in their own way. I loved following them through three decades of their lives—the sub-characters add even more sun=bstance to the story. Further, Zevin masterfully rendered Boston and LA, giving them a true sense of place and time. All the small details added to my enjoyment as a reader.

My only criticism pertains to the author's occasional use of overwrought vocabulary. It felt like she had a "word of the day" calendar nearby and challenged herself to use each daily word in her writing. I'm glad, however, that I read with a Kindle, as I could (and often needed to) quickly look up word definitions.

Reader beware: This novel is not at all like AJ Fickry (which I also loved), so liking one will not guarantee you like the other.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an electronic version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

You don’t wanna miss this summer release!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was amazing and so much better than I anticipated. With books about video games, it's easy to touch on the nostalgia factor, but sometimes it's too much of that. I loved that Sam and Sadie were complex people and shared a love of gaming. I loved that the book touched on the artistic side of games, the storytelling and the motivation of players.
The book was mostly about friendship and the way people grow and change, but with the backdrop of being video game developers and connecting with people over game mechanics and stories.
I feel like my words cannot really do the story any justice.. it was so good and I loved the writing so much.
I enjoyed the authors other book, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, even though I don’t typically enjoy books about books. In the same way, I enjoyed Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, so I think even those who don’t enjoy video games would love this one, too.
I highly recommend this book and I feel like it would be a great book club read.

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Gabrielle Zevin, and NetGalley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first time reading anything from Zevin, and certainly not the last. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a beautifully written story of love and friendship, and one that I believe most readers will see a bit of their own story in each of the characters.

Sam Masur, a character whose childhood has been marred with tragedy and trauma, meets Sadie while they are both children spending more time in hospitals than children should; him, as a patient, and Sadie as the sister of a cancer patient. They find solace in their situations by escaping to a game world and from there, a friendship evolves that lasts them a lifetime.

I don't know anything about Zevin, aside from what was published in the acknowledgments section of the book (one of very few acknowledgments I bothered to read all the way through) and I am unsure how much of the dynamics of friendship, childhood trauma, and loss she's experienced. If her writing of these experiences is the product of the same meticulous research she put into learning the world of gaming in the 90s, then she is a far more remarkable writer than I can articulate. However, I suspect that Zevin has experienced much of the same experiences she laid bare on the pages of this book. Unfortunately, as I read a pre-release copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I cannot share any of the many quotes I highlighted in my copy. Much of the writing is raw and gorgeous, and for that reason I plan on buying copies for a few of my friends.

Where I struggled with the book was in the odd scattering of archaic language that felt out of place. Some writers write in a pretentious way and sometimes that style ends of fitting the narrative, but this book was mostly not written that way. The pop here and there of a superfluous GRE-esque vocabulary word felt unnatural. (As I write this, I wonder if Zevin sees herself in Sadie?). It also suffers from its length and the section titled "Pioneers" felt like it could be condensed if not completely scrapped, even though I do appreciate its contribution to Sadie's understanding of Sam.

Additionally, unlike some others, I never really cared for Marx's character, who was a bit of a "Marty Stu" type and thus, did not really care whether his character experienced any kind of fulfillment or actualization. Perhaps I connected too deeply to Sam and invested too heavily in his desires to ever really care for Marx.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, however, is a fantastic book that drew me in with its accuracy portraying the experiences of the characters. It's not without its faults, but ultimately a fantastic read for anyone who enjoys books about friendship.

This book was so well written and the character building was just wonderful (loved Marx so much!). I feel like I will be thinking about these fictional people for a while, which is a testament to the author’s skills since I’m not a gamer and disagreed with many things in the book.
There is a lot of game talk in the book, which is unsurprising, but evidently is difficult for some people. I suspect that if you’ve never played any games, you may not enjoy it. But if you (maybe are near my age group and) just played a little Nintendo as a kid and Oregon Trail on your computer, you’ll probably be fine because the book is much more about the intricacies of life and relationships than it is about gaming.
The ending wasn’t everything I had hoped for, but there was enough to allow my mind to imagine what comes next in whatever way I’d like.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice slice of life story with characters that I’d like to spend more time with.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow does for the video game what one of Zevin's most well-known previous books, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, did for bookstores. In this case, the story centers around Sadie and Sam, who connect in a hospital where Sadie's sister is battling cancer and Sam is recovering from multiple surgeries on his foot. The two share a passion for playing video games and become great friends until a misstep by Sadie leads them down their own paths for many years until they reconnect in Boston. Sam proposes spending a summer building a video game from scratch, and the pair, along with Sam's genial and generous roommate Marx, end up having a success on their hands. This success allows the trio to have unbounded freedom to create video games, but creative differences, the emotional angst that both Sam and Sadie suffer from, and the inability to let each other see every part of themselves begins to drive them apart. A sudden, and unexpected event in their lives could end severing a once-in-a-lifetime bond the pair share if they can't figure out how to communicate and process their emotions. Both Sadie and Sam are somewhat emotionally stunted. It's like so much work went into their brains to understand programming, graphics and storylines that processing those trickier things IRL got skipped. Not surprisingly this leads to constant misinterpretations by the other half of the pair. Sadie thinks Sam caused her to reconnect with a toxic boyfriend purely to get code for their game, despite the fact that the decision to stay with him was hers. Sam overlooks how isolated and disrespected Sadie is in a world that is mostly made up of men. Sadie thinks Sam is slacking off because he won't tell her that his foot is causing him so much pain that he can barely function. In many regards this is reflective of games themselves - they tend to be entirely logical and people are almost singularly focused on accomplishing their goal that they begin to disregard anything else. I suspect this was deliberate on Zevin's part, which is why Marx is so necessary to balance out the other two, with his easy-going, grounded ways and positive attitude. There are points in the books where both Sadie and Sam are dependent on him to help them find themselves. Sadie and Sam may just drive you crazy, especially when you know that if they were willing to be more vulnerable with each other they'd avoid all the conflict they create, but you still can't help but fall for the characters anyway. Finally, I'm not a huge gamer, but Zevin does such a great job of "creating" the games in the book that it's hard to believe they don't actually exist. She does such a great job of building out Sam and Sadie's world that making their world about building other worlds seems perfectly appropriate. A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Five stars for my favorite book of 2022 so far, which has been a year of great books! I became fully immersed in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, thanks to the themes of friendship and connection, characters that were complicated and interesting, and a peek into the world of video games, a place I didn't know much about before. I loved entering this world. I loved the characters and all their faults and the messiness of their relationships, which all felt real to me. What an immensely satisfying reading experience! I have been telling my library patrons about this novel already and am excited to start handing it to them in July! Thank you, NetGaley.

Thanks so much to the publisher and Net Galley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow and Tomorrow is lovely “slice of life” story about friendship and coming of age. Sam and Sadie meet when Sam is a frequent patient at the children hospital, and Sadie is the neglected sibling of a cancer patient. They form a friendships based on loneliness and gaming, that lasts a few years until Sam discovers that Sadie has been logging community service credits for her visits with him. He is hurt that she thinks if him as a charity case, and she doesn’t understand why he wont speak to her. This begins a life long pattern of not telling each other what’s in their hearts, while simultaneously supposing selfish intentions upon the actions of one another. There are incredibly moving parts, and incredibly slow dull parts- like life.
This is a love story, but not the romantic kind -but the kind born of true friends, which in some ways is even better.
There is a lot of focus on game building and game play, and while I am not a gamer, It wasn’t hard for me to follow. My pity take away, MIT / Harvard students spend a lot of really long days working on a game… then have incredible wealth…at age 23.

Wow! This was a five star book that I read in 2 days. I'm stingy with my 5 stars as this is my first 5 star since 2020. I've heard in multiple places that you don't need to know or even care about video games to enjoy this book and I can definitely agree to that. This is a story about friendship - pure and simple friendship. The friendship isn't perfect and it isn't equal but isn't that what friendship is? It was written so well that it just sucks you in and doesn't expect you to do anything but read the words on the page. I am so very grateful for getting this book as a Read Now and happy that I had a chunk of time this Memorial Day weekend to spend time with Mazer and Sadie and my favorite....Marx.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was the first ARC I received through NetGalley and it is an exceptionally-written story about the relationship between Sam Masur and Sadie Green, two incredibly passionate, intelligent, and imperfect individuals--and how it evolves from when they are children, to students at MIT and Harvard, to adults who experience heartbreak, fame, grief, and everything in between. Refreshingly, the focus on Sam and Sadie's relationship isn't romantic but centered on their complex friendship that withstands the test of time and their powerful partnership as two people who pour their entire souls into creating universes to escape into.

The book jumped between the narration of Sam's and Sadie's lives, newspaper articles/interviews/press releases excerpts about their work to the public, and in one very touching case, immerses the reader into the universe of one of the video games. Going in, I was a little bit scared of encountering technical/gamer terms but the author made it digestible and I was surprised to find I didn't mind it at all.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow felt very long. But for the most part, I felt that each chapter and plot point had a purpose and gave readers a better understanding of Sadie and Sam as multi-faceted characters who love each other deeply and, time and time again, act as lifelines for each other when circumstances seem unbearable or impossible. They make mistakes, struggle to express their feelings, and often find themselves the victims of poor timing--but somehow they find their way back to each other. A book like this, about a relationship so intricate and clearly meant to be, is rare to come by.

I never really "got" what it is about gaming that draws so many people in. But reading this book has changed that.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Gabrielle Zevin for the ARC!

DNNF at 20%. It's slow paced and I couldn't get into it. I loved this author's first novel but her last one was a dud so I thought I'd give her another try but this is weird and slow.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Thank you Gabrielle Zevin for writing such an amazing book. I can’t even express how much I loved reading this book. The story was engaging and I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended, and at the same time I never wanted it to end. I love video games and adored how they were an integral part of the story and the characters' lives. I didn’t always like the characters, but always felt attached to them and their wellbeing. Sam, Sadie and Marx will live with me for a long time. At first the length of the book was daunting, but the writing was so good I sped through it. The few parts that felt unresolved eventually got clarity as the book progressed. If you want to read a great book about friendship, work and life you should read this book. You won’t be disappointed.

Was looking forward to Gabrielle Zevin's new book, AJ Fikry is one of my favorites. I am not sure I was the right audience for this book. I double checked, and triple checked, to see if this book was being marketed as Young Adult (it is not). Also, I am not a gamer. This book focuses on three friends that start a design company to create video games. Much of the book is spent on graphics, programing, story lines of the games, and the interactions of creators and players. This is well done, however, it's not a world I am familiar with or interested in- so much of this was over my head or just not of interest. No criticisms, it is just not my world.

The relationships between the friends however, are deep and accurate. Each person has their own background with challenges, which factor into relationships going forward. The book is deep and has lots to think about, and I would often find myself thinking of the characters when I wasn't reading the book. The book covers several decades of life, starting with college age students (with flashbacks to childhood) and how different people each character interacts with affects future relationships, and relationships with current friends/lovers. The book shows how people come and go, and come back, over the course of life and the timing of these friendships makes differences. Also shows how some people are necessary in life, no matter what is happening in that particular moment.

The book gave me a lot to think about, and would be good for discussion. But because it wasn't really my type of book, I didn't enjoy it as an escape, so I can't rate it higher, for me personally. I am sure there is an audience out there that is going to love it and tell all their friends. That audience just isn't me, or my book clubs. Well written.