Jun 30

Jun 30 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Knopf
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

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 or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

TL;DR Review

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is definitely going to be one of my favorite books of 2022. Alternating between heartwarming and heartbreaking, it’s a beautiful book about friendship and the messiness (and hope) of life.

For you if: You like books that follow characters and their relationships across decades.

Full Review

When John Green (who may not write in my usual genres, but is an incredible person) says an upcoming novel is “one of the best books [he’s] ever read,” you read it. I did not know this was a rule in my life before I heard about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, but I’m glad I followed it nonetheless; it’s absolutely going to be one of my favorites of the year and a book I recommend to everyone.

You will hear this about T&T&T many times: that while the plot involves video games, it’s not really about video games. (Although if you do like video games, you’ll probably love this even more than I did.) It’s one of those novels that follows a handful of characters (two friends, Sam and Sadie, childhood best friends who go into business making video games together) and their relationship across decades (30 years, in this case). It’s about friendship and love and loss and hope and coming of age and the way life hurts but also gives us so much.

This book is alternatively heartwarming and heartbreaking, with two main (and several secondary) characters who are both deeply lovable and also very flawed and frustrating. You know how sometimes characters are so good that they stay in the back of your mind 24/7, even after you’ve put a book down or finished it? Sam, Sadie, and Sam’s college roommate Marx did that to me. I laughed and cried (def cried) and cheered for them and wanted to shake them and by the end, found that I loved them very much.

I won’t tell you how the book gets its title, because I think it arrives at exactly the right moment and makes everything this book is about just click. But take my word for it: it’s a perfect title. And you’ll be glad you read this book.