I 5-starred the author’s The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry so I was thrilled when this popped up in my review shelf. Like Fikry, Tomorrow is about interestingly complex people leading interestingly complex lives, though here there is more heightened drama and there is a wistfully elegiac tone, particularly later in the book. There is a whiff of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings as well, another book which I gave 5 stars to.

The spine of the novel is the relationship between Sam Masur and Sadie Green who meet in a hospital when 12 year-old Sam is there with a damaged foot that needs multiple surgeries and Sadie is visiting her sick sister. They immediately connect over videogames and, though there is a schism, they later reconnect as college freshmen, eventually becoming a hugely successful game designing team. The story moves fluidly backwards and forwards in time, from childhood through struggling studenthood, to success and post-success.

But this is not, of course, a novel about videogames, though clearly the author did her research, and I found the descriptions of the games that Sadie and Sam design to be quite fascinating. Rather this is a novel about imperfect people living in the real world. Games have “the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption” but IRL, failure cannot be resolved with a quick reset and divisions cannot always be repaired or fixed seamlessly. Mortality looms over Sadie and Sam’s lives but not the sort of brief and spectacular death you get in a game that can be quickly forgotten with a respawn. After all, as Sam thinks “the best thing about games is that they could be fairer than life….“The “unfair game” was life itself.”

I was thoroughly immersed in this world. I loved all the characters: their intelligence, their energy, their creativity, and their hidden longings. Even though Sam can be too oblique and Sadie can be too spiky, even though neither of them will say what they want or what they mean, I still loved them. There are secondary characters that I loved too: Dov, Marx, Bong Cha and Dong Kyun, Ant and Simon - all flawed, all vividly alive. And, as a sidenote, the characters are a whole range of ethnicities.

A couple of small grumbles. There’s a long detour into a role-playing game which perhaps feels a little misguided as it so blatantly reflects real life. Also the author has a game of her own, throwing in sesquipedalian words like “oneiric” and “kenophobia” which meant I had to keep stopping to look them up.

But these are only slight glitches in an otherwise flawless and highly readable world. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Simply delightful. It felt tender and real and I wish Sadie and Sam were real people I knew. It reminded me and gave me the same feels as Zevin's earlier work Margarettown. Full of complexities of the human experience.

This book blew me away! I was unable to but it down. Perfect, dazzlingly, very well written. The details the author described throughout the book was so amazing. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin

Zevin’s latest novel was a very satisfying immersive read. Sam Masur and Sadie Green are childhood friends who first meet playing video games on a children’s hospital ward. Little do they know that this is the beginning of what will prove to be a life long friendship. The story really takes off when they are reunited as adults. Sam is a disheartened lackluster math major at Harvard and Sadie a restless video game designer at MIT. By chance, while catching a train, they are run into one another. Sam is searching for his life’s true passion. Meanwhile, Sadie, as one of only a few female game designers, has something to prove. Together they find what they are looking for. Sam suspects he would be happier designing video games and soon convinces Sadie to take a risk. Their first game, Ichigo, launches their meteoric success. In the manner that art reflects life, in all its glory and imperfections, Sam and Sadie’s games reflect their lives’ preoccupations and personal struggles. Through their games they find meaning, comfort, connection, are broken and find healing.

Like all great fiction, Tomorrow explores universal themes that we can all connect with whether or not you are a gamer : coming of age, the many complicated facets of love and friendship, the creative process, racism, disability, violence and life’s big and small traumas. Tomorrow is a book for everyone, but it will be particularly meaningful and warmly nostalgic for the gaming generation. In her afterword, the author shares that both her parents are in computers and she, a lifelong gamer. One can feel her personal passion for gaming and that she is a gaming insider. Zevin seems to have hit a comfortable stride with Tomorrow, freed up to experiment with time line, playing with shifts in person, quoting Shakespeare and dabbling with world building. I was happy to be along for the ride.

Add it to your summer reading list - pub date 05 Jul 2022. Many thanks to @netgalley and @aaknopf for the gift of this digital ARC. It was a delight to read and will not soon be forgotten.

Overall, this was a well-written and enjoyable read especially if you are at all into gaming. I think it has a bit of a slow start but once it gets going, you get invested in the story and the characters. If you're looking for a story about friendship, I believe this might fit that bill.

I think we all need a book like Gabriella Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow to remind us that even if we don't get what we want, life can be filled with joy and happiness. I am grateful to NetGalley and PenjguinRandomHouse for sharing an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book captured my heart by the end of the first chapter. Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green, a friend since childhood. Impulsively, he shouts out her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then she turns. A magnificent dance begins. A dance of romance and friendship, unimaginable success, and heartless betrayal. Spanning thirty years, this dance of love, loss and redemption carries us from the never-ending nightly work sessions on Boston campuses and dreams of dazzling success, to stark halls of corporate prosperity in California, as Sam and Sadie create a wildly successful video game which overnight changes their lives forever.

In the musical, Into the Woods, Stephen Sondhem writes:
Careful the wish you make
Wishes are children
Careful the path they take
Wishes come true
Not free

Sam and Sadie's wishes come true, but at a terrible price. But, like a video game, there is always another chance to play - to win or lose - another chance at redemption. There is always tomorrow.

A fresh story, eloquently told, with interesting well-rounded characters, nicely paced....a reader could hardly hope for more.

Every once in a while, you will read a book that touches you in a way that you were not prepared. Gabriella Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is such a book.

Having recently finished The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, I was very excited to have the opportunity to read this book. Overall, I like the story of Sam and Sadie and their extended family and friends. While I had read that you did not have to have a background in or knowledge of gaming to appreciate this novel, I disagree. There are a lot of references to the gaming world; someone who knew nothing at all about it would have a hard time with parts of the storyline, in my opinion. I also thought that the story dragged in the middle, and was a bit longer than it needed to be. That being said, I really did enjoy the story as a whole. I liked seeing the growth and transformation in both Sam and Sadie, and I really liked watching their personal relationship change and grow. I am definitely looking forward to reading another book by this author. Thank you NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

A well written story about friendship, love, betrayal, grief, oh, and video games, lots of video game references. Didn't really like the first couple of chapters, but once the story gets going, I was really invested in the characters. Stayed up way too late reading and picked it up first thing in the morning. Highly recommend!

This book was such a challenge for me to finish. There were multiple points where I wanted to DNF it but pushed through. I was looking forward to the idea of this story based off of the blurb, so I was definitely left feeling disappointed. The idea of a story following the same characters over 30 years really peaked my interest, not to mention that I am a huge fan of video games.

One of the biggest struggles I had with this story was how absolutely unlikeable most of the characters were. I respect that the author wrote characters with trauma and disabilities and pain, but it is so unsatisfying when a story spans 30 years and there is little to no actual character development. The lack of communication and the near-constant bickering between Sam and Sadie became almost unbearable for me. As realistic as this might be to real life, I read for escapism. If you want a book that irritatingly depicts a somewhat toxic friendship, this might be a great read for you. But it definitely wasn't for me. I will note that I loved Marx and his character is probably the only reason I didn't DNF.

As for the writing, I know that this novel is literary fiction which is typically known for its use of more complex words, but this book felt a little pretentious. It almost felt like the author kept the thesaurus open next to her as she was writing which left it feeling forced. There were even spots in the book where the language felt so inappropriate in the context that it pulled me out of the story. As an example, the author writes about an article in the magazine <i>AdWeek</i> in which the word "verboten" is used. I find it very unrealistic that a magazine would an obscure word over the well-known "forbidden" (maybe I don't read enough magazines, but it just felt out of place for me).

The author also switched between multiple different writing techniques. She occasionally employed a second person POV or jumped into interview style storytelling. The variety of styles was one of the things I did actually quite enjoy about the book.

TL;DR As a whole, <i>Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow</i> is not a book that I would recommend to most people. The story was slow, the characters were unlikable, and the vocabulary felt forced.

I received an e-ARC for this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! What an incredible novel and story! Completely sucked me into the story and I was very invested in the characters lives. I will be suprirsed if this isn't one of my favorite books of the year. Such an incredible read!

I loved this exploration of friendship! It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but in the best way.

The references to gaming (although I'm not a gamer myself) were great and applicable to many other creative endeavors. I loved the changes in the relationship between Sam and Sadie. It was interesting without being too melodramatic.

Gabrielle Zevin is such a talented writer...I'll follow her anywhere.

This is my third book by the author. I was already a fan going in. Enough of a fan to pick up a book over 400 pages (yes, I don’t love fat books and I cannot lie), enough of a fan to read a book about video games (not really my jam either).
So yeah, I did it and it was good. The writing just as terrific and engaging as I expected based on previous works. In fact, a writing so good it completely overrode most elements I didn’t much care for.
If one was to describe this book, using other well-known books, and yes, it is grotesquely reductive but it’s all the rage and all the kids are doing it, this book is Adventures of Kavalier and Clay meets Ready Player One. Mind you, it’s nowhere near as good as the former (and few books are), but it’s substantially superior to the latter, which I found to be extremely overrated.
Which is all to say, this is a book about a longtime friendship between two creative individuals and a story about their real lives intermingling with the fictional video game worlds they create.
This is a story about Sam and Sadie and their complicated, loving, antagonistic, devoted, all-encompassing friendship of two plus decades. A friendship that gets challenged over and over again by the trials and tribulations of life and emerges battered but not defeated.
It’s a story of second chances, as the title hints at, the infinite possibilities and endless opportunities of the willing and able, in real and virtual lives. In fact, the two are often cleverly juxtaposed for maximum effect.
It’s a sort of proper literary novel that grabs you, draws you in and doesn’t let go. It has the power to delight you, to charm you, to emotionally devastate you and it knows it and relishes in it. It’s a novel good enough to make the not-especially likeable characters compelling. It’s a novel good enough to make a not-especially interesting (to some) subject of gaming compelling. So yeah, it’s long but worth it.
Not a perfect novel by all means. Or not a perfect novel for me, I should say. Kavalier and Clay had comic books, which are awesome. Games…not so much. The author is a gamer, her enthusiasm shows.
The main characters I didn’t especially like. I’m not even going to get into the tragic fate of the character I did like.
But honestly, those are pretty small potatoes in a large perfectly seasoned and cooked stew that is this novel. Or no, maybe that metaphor doesn’t work – potatoes are always delicious. At any rate, this was a very good, just about great read that’ll remind you of the magic powers of real literature. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

I was intrigued that this book dealt with games .. I really enjoyed that although this book is a game book it is also more. It felt like a trip down memory lane and a look toward the future. The characters were interesting, and relatable and even though some of their decisions i didn't agree with, I still cared where they ended up. Would highly recommend if you love video games or like interpersonal stories.

This book is such a departure from what I usually gravitate towards, but I really enjoyed it! The story is very interesting and kept me interested! If you're in to gaming ( or if you're not, like me!), most will enjoy seeing behind the scenes and learning more of this world.

Thank you to net galley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Two adults reconnect in their college years, dispelling misunderstandings and misperceptions from childhood. These characters are pivotal to one another across time, both as creative coworkers and friends. Yet, while they may have experienced more across the years together than any others, neither is willing or able to truly share their innermost thoughts or feelings. This leaves the other with continuing incorrect assumptions. While the author continually has novel ways of pulling them back into one another’s orbit, is there too much distance to overcome?

This was a little out of my normal reading comfort zone but it was phenomenal. It's one of those books that really makes you think as well as one you will still be thinking about months later.

I really enjoyed this authors other books but unfortunately this one failed to keep me interested.. I believe there will be readers that like this book with the gaming references but I just struggled trying to finish this one.

I liked this! Flashback episode of Mythic Quest vibes. Sam and Sadie are vibrant and interesting characters and their world was very readable.

I'm not a gamer, but I was still immersed in this story from the first chapter. It's definitely a contender for a top read of the year for me. I'm now planning to read all of the author's other books.

While certainly a book about gaming, Zevin’s latest offering is more a story about character. It’s a book about friendships and partnerships, and how these relationships change, grow, and adapt over time due to circumstances. In that sense at its heart, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is rather reminiscent of those reunion films from the 1980s: Diner and The Big Chill.

Zevin’s characters are nuanced and true to life. More likely than not, readers will probably have met Sam Masurs, Sadie Greens, Simon and Anthonys and even Marxes at some point in their lives. These characters may not necessarily be likeable; they’re often rather selfish in their own ways, but they are fascinating to observe, as is the theme of gaming and how it becomes a converging and diverging force in these relationships.

Zevin also takes on the weighty theme of gaming obsession; how for some, fantasy can have the ability to distort reality—art seeming to dangerously mimic life. Zevin also shows how this art can desensitize situations, make one oblivious to underlying problems and their consequences.

Zevin’s story is simply a tale of day-to-day life, a basic character study. Yet it’s wonderfully imagined, thoroughly detailed and ultimately engrossing to readers.