I loved this book in the same way I loved Elsewhere; I loved this book in a completely different way from the way I loved Elsewhere. When I was telling my husband about it, I realized that some of the themes are similar: these are books about life, and looking back, and choices. But this book, more than that, was a book of friendship and betrayal and inspiration and those who we find INTERESTING above all. It was about the ways that we love and mistrust and find each other again, all set against the backdrop of gaming in the 80's-00's.

"Promise me we won't ever do this again," Sadie said. "Promise me, that no matter what dumb thing we supposedly perpetrate on each other, we won't ever go six years without talking to each other. Promise me you'll always forgive me, and I promise I'll always forgive you." These, of course, are the kinds of vows young people feel comfortable making when they have no idea what life has in store for them.


Is this a book for gamers? It is clear that Zevin did her research, based on the copious books that she lists in her end note, so in some ways I'd say yes. (The author's background and characterization of Sam and Sadie felt so complete that part of me wondered if she was involved in developing games in college.) But it's not a book for gamers in the way that Warcross was a book for gamers, or Ready Player One, or books by Cory Doctorow. Those are books about a character playing the game, so if you are looking for a book that emulates that experience, I would not necessarily recommend this to you.

This is a book about making the game: about the worlds we build for ourselves, about the choices we make, about life and death and the different ways we are reborn.

We are all living, at most, half of a life, she thought. There was the life that you lived, which consisted of the choices you made. And then, there was the other life, the one that was the things you hadn't chosen.


I loved it. I don't want to tell you all the parts I loved, because SPOILERS, but this comes out to the general public right around my birthday. The timing is appropriate because reading this was an absolute gift.

Quotes are taken from an Advance edition of the book, and may not match the final copy

I absolutely adored this book. I think it will be the book of the summer. I know our company (B&N) will be heavily behind it because that is where I heard about the book. It's sooooo good and right up my alley. It gave me the same feeling as Ready Player One with all the pop culture references. But the characters are what really hooked me. How can you not fall in love with Sam, Sadie, and Marx. Just a brilliant book that I can't wait to hand sell to our customers.

I am not a gamer, but I absolutely loved this book. The friendships described in this book gave me all the feels. Highly recommend.

Sam thinks crowds are foolish and that made me automatically like him. This book had me constantly smiling just with the first few pages. Such heartfelt clever writing that I’m completely smitten. Gabrielle Zevin is now one of my favorite authors. The story mainly follows Sam and Sadie with their precious and rare friendship. This doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly when you find a kindred spirit, we are complex beings and Zevin wrote this exquisitely. We get to know Sam’s family and his loyal protective friend, Marx, our NPC. There are no games without NPCs and he is the tether to Sadie and Sam when things are difficult. I was so swept up in Marx’s last POV in the book. It was truly beautiful. This story spans over decades and brought me back to my childhood in the 80s and 90s. Growing up playing video games with my mom and brother, even though they loved video games way more than me. It is a story about gaming and a lot of it, but you don’t have to like gaming to love this book. If you are a fan, this will be a treasure.

This story has so many layers of the ups and downs with friends, creative partnerships, lovers, family, school, careers, grief and just the uncertainty of life. It encompasses the strength and fragility of humans. I loved how Zevin wrote about creativity. How painful and exhilarating it can be to creatively work with someone, striving for success. And when the meaning of success being different from one another, one thinking popularity and the other wanting it to be authentic art.

This story also touches on identity, trauma, medical trauma, racism, appropriation, homophobia, sexism, disability, sa grooming, and more. It is a very dense story, but so incredibly written. Everything was handled with care from the author.

Zevin’s writing made me think of viewing people as if they were Magic Eye posters. Seeing them from different viewpoints as you let go of your control on who you think they are until you get a clear view of who they really are. We are all working our way through this maze in a game we call life. I hope we don’t give up when we get lost and find others who want to play in the many pivots of searching for solutions.


A big thank you to Knopf Penguin Random House Publishing and Associate Director of Marketing, Kelsey Manning for this e-ARC via NetGalley.

This is one of my favorites covers of the year, and I loved the book just as much. I was a huge fan of THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY. This is such a different story that still has the same heart.

The inclusion of video game development was really interesting, and you can tell Zevin knows her stuff. It's a send-up to some of the most iconic video games of all time, and Gen X/millennials will enjoy the nostalgia (I certainly did).

But it's mostly just a beautiful story about Sam and Sadie, and how their lives and relationships grow and develop over 30+ years. It's also a study on disability, which is so important, and under-represented in new fiction.

My one criticism was I felt the book kind of dragged in the middle. It's over 400 pages, and I think it could've been closer to 350 and been a tighter story. I still really enjoyed it. I could see myself handselling it through comparisons to READY PLAYER ONE andTHE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED. Could do extra well with HE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY coming out soon(ish?).

I adored this book!

Zevin created an epic story of a friendship and the games they played, the roles they inhabited, and the worlds they created together and apart.

I loved that it was partly set in the 90's and was about gaming and so much more. There were so many layers to this novel - it was about relationships and love in all types of partnerships, but it also tickled my intellect in it's references to plays, secret Hollywood roads, doppelgangers, questions of cultural appropriation, class differences, gender expectations, and living your life through imaginary narratives.

The characters were very well done- they felt real in that cliché way that causes you to miss them when the book is done, and wonder how they're doing every once in a while, and then having to remind yourself they're not real.

But Zevin is also great with humor and tragedy- making this a book packed with heart and wisdom that will appeal to anyone who wants to read a well-paced, engrossing and fun book. Fans of playing video games will eat this up, as well as those who like books set in the 90s.

First of all I will be honest and I definitely judge a book by the cover and I honestly did not like this cover however; had heard good things from early readers. When I jumped in I fell in love with Gabrielle’s ability to paint a picture and conjure emotions with her words. I am not a huge video game fan but, my son had we match Ready Player One and I enjoyed it so, I dove into this book with little expectation. I was amazed and grateful that I picked it up. It was an amazing love story that will stay with you for years.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4658810189

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the book that pulled me out of my reading slump. The story is a love story, but not the way you think. It is a story about friendship and gaming and Gen X. Some of my favorite things. Sam meets Sadie in the game room of the children's hospital where he is recovering from a shattered foot after a car accident. Sadie is there with her sister, who is receiving treatments for cancer. Sadie and Sam bond over their shared love of games after Sam teaches her how to make Mario reach the top of the flagpole. Sam and Sadie are inseparable, best friends until they are not. After a fight, they go their separate ways, not speaking until several years later, in Boston. Sam is attending Harvard and Sadie MIT. They run into each other while waiting on a train. This chance meeting restarts their friendship and, along with Sam's roommate and best friend Knox, launches them into the world of game design before they even graduate from college.

This book is definitely about gaming, both creation and love of. The characters always go back to their favorite games at times of stress and depression. Like a comfortable blanket. I found myself wishing some of these games were real. I really want to try Ichigo.

This story is about the power of enduring friendships even after successes, failures, betrayals, tragedy, and depression. It was definitely a different kind of story, sometimes switching POV to side characters and even dropping into a game at one point. It won't be for everyone, but, it is definitely a 5 star unique read. Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Publishing for the chance to read this book.

I remember playing Super Mario Brother's when I was younger, the thrill of landing at the top of the pole and saving the princess. I also remember my brother throwing the remote at me and hitting me square between the eyes, but that's another story for another day.

Zelda was another favorite of ours, along with Mike Tyson's Punch Out (embarrassing) and some basketball game that I can't remember the name.

I've never read a book where gaming was the theme and this book brought a sense a nostalgia that I really enjoyed.

The intense and sometimes strained relationship between all the characters really pulled at my heartstrings. I love a good coming of age story and here, you were able to watch multiple characters as they grew from young video game programmers to adults in the business. You could feel their emotions through the pages. The concern they had for one another, the anger, the jealousy, the success, the love, it was almost tangible.

I really liked it.

I thought for sure this was going to be a 5 star read for me, but at over 400 pages it just came down to length.

The first half of this book was stunning, but towards the end it just started to fizzle out for me.

I can see where some may take issue with the language in this book. Thank you Kindle dictionary as I'm not ashamed to admit that I used that bad boy more than a handful of times, but that didn't bother me.

I'm still giving this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ because I was so emotionally invested in these characters and would definitely read another book by Gabrielle Zevin.

Long overdue in reviewing this beautifully written story. Sadie and Sam meet as kids in the game room of a hospital where Sam is recovering from surgery and Sadie waits while her sister is undergoing treatment. They instantly bond over their love of gaming. The friendship continues when they meet up again during their college years in Boston, one at MIT, the other at Harvard. They reunite and begin creating their own video games, quite successfully. Despite this being about gaming, which I have no interest in, it is a coming of age/friendship story, at times lovely, at times fraught with great difficulties and misunderstandings. You do not have to like or understand gaming to love this story.

This is a complicated and generous book about friendship, creativity, betrayal, time, identity, connection, and love. Those who love gaming may appreciate this book even more. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Honestly, when I read the publisher’s opening statement about video gaming, I thought I had made a HUGE mistake in requesting this book from NetGalley. While I don’t often find my mistakes to not be errors, in this case it was a wonderful ‘mistake’. While gaming is vehicle that drives the characters, this book is truly about young adults trying to understand themselves and each other. As we all do, these young people not only made great successes, they also made great mistakes. The author had been reading it as fast as I could-sometimes she had me laughing out loud and sometimes she brought tears to my eyes. But, throughout the book, she kept me engaged. I don’t like putting spoilers in my reviews so you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

A relationship based on video games! Count me in. I thought this book was a lot of fun and i love met in childhood, reconnect later stories. I do wish they hadn’t met in the hospital though, I felt like we have read that so much before and the rest of the book was much more original.

I am, and always have been, terrible at video games. Even Atari “Pong” was challenging for me. I never really played them as a kid, and the role-playing games are definitely way beyond me. So, I was really surprised to be as absorbed in and unexpectedly moved by Gabrielle Zevin’s TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW, which centers around two video game obsessed characters, Sadie and Sam. They meet as kids, when Sam is in the hospital following a horrific car crash that has completely mangled his foot, and Sadie is there because her sister is undergoing cancer treatment. They spend hours (609 hours, to be exact) playing games, and go on to become wildly successful video game designers as adults.
Of course, what makes the novel great is that it really isn’t about video games, as much as it is about the fact that life is complicated. Friendship is complicated. Love is complicated. These are all universal truths we can relate to. Disability is also complicated, and as a person born with one, I felt a special kinship with Sam, and was thrilled with the sensitivity and accuracy with which Zevin depicts what it’s like to have permanent limited mobility. Zevin’s writing throughout is clearly carefully thought out, layered with meaning and small bursts of beauty. But it all feels so completely organic and effortless. I came to love all the characters and was really sad when I got to “GAME OVER”.

While video games are a key element of the plot, I didn't feel it was necessary for someone to play them to enjoy this book. I don't play video games but my son does and this book actually gave me a lot of insight into everything from the designing to the marketing, all of which was presented in such a natural way, as part of the overall character development and story, that the story was still completely relatable.

Ultimately, this is a story about relationships - the ones that come easily and the ones that are incredibly complicated, the ones that we learn from and the ones where we become the teacher. It's about enduring friendships and characters with real flaws who are doing their best to navigate their way through life. At times hopeful and at others heartbreaking, it was a beautiful story - raw and real.

Fabulous story with rich characters that explore the relationships in our lives. Who do you consider family? Does that change over time? Gabrielle Zevin explores these questions in her new title that is a must read!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Loved this one and learned so much while reading! Didn’t think I could be so interested in video game development. Also loved the section written from the POV of a video game character. Like nothing I’ve ever read before.

I loved the characters in this book from the first moment the author introduced me to them. This book was a pleasant surprise. The plot was unique and the character’s were multifaceted and had such depth. I didn’t give this book five stars because near the end of the book the story became a bit stale for me and my interest faded but overall I would still highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I just loved this book. A story of love and friendship that incidentally centers around the collaborative creative process that is game development. I honestly think it's my favorite thing that Zevin has written, and that's a pretty high bar when I look at some of her other works I've loved.

I'll post a longer review closer to publication. I plan to keep up intermittent social media coverage in the months before release.

I am admittedly not a video game person, yet this is one of the best books I've read in years! If anything I gained an appreciation of the craft that goes into creating a game as well as the marketing tools that fail to give the creators all the credit they deserve. Zevin captures college life in the 90s/ early 2000s with pitch perfect accuracy, right down to the Magic Eye posters.

This such a deep story of love and the friendships that endure against the backdrop of creative and technological growth. I loved these characters and never wanted it to end!