Book Review - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Genre: Fiction/ Contemporary
Published: 2022
 
Description: 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 of the betrayals of their hearts.
 
Review: In “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” the world of gaming and literature meet. In itself, that seems like a clash of generations and cultures, but author Gabrielle Zevin manages to seamlessly connect those worlds in this novel.
 
Sam and Sadie have known each other since childhood, with videogames being the thing that connected them in the first place. They haven’t seen ach other for nine years, and they meet again. Both still into gaming, they decide to work together. But where Sam and Sadie can lose themselves in a videogame, there is no escaping the real world.
 
We follow Sam and Sadie in their lives together and apart, how they each deal with their success differently, but also with things like grief, love, friendship, depression, illness. It deals with pretty heavy themes at times, but it never gets too heavy.
 
“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is an ode to friendship, with the gaming worlds as its background. I can understand that people who are not into gaming, it might not interest you. I’m not a gamer, at least not like these characters are, but I could relate to both Sam and Sadie at several stages in this story. I understand the hype of the book, I feel it, because this book grabbed me and I was captivated from start to finish. The writing is beautiful and I loved reading about this friendship. But I do also understand people who don’t get the hype.
 
I found a new favorite in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow””, but won’t recommend it to just anyone who loves reading. Because the theme of the gaming industry will make or break this book for most people.
 
Rating: 5/ 5