Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

2.5-Interesting and strong start. You get to know more and more about Sam, but the time hopping is confusing and disjointed , at least for an audio reader. There was big anticipation and build up that just gradually dissipates in the middle of the book. I wish the book had centered more around the past and ichigo. I think delving into the future was a bad decision. The book couldve been several chapters shorter. Very anticlimatic ending. I also don't understand why there was so much unnecessary death. Death is natural and happens to everyone, but some of these deaths just felt forced to create plot.

I was told this book was about gaming, but similar to how I view Ted Lasso, the best parts aren't when the book doesn't show the actually gaming aspects.

I found the three co-founders of Unfair very relatable throughout, although (I'm probably being biased here) I found Sam's grandparents as my favorite characters despite their small cameos throughout the book. Other characters such as Dov, Ant, and Simon also were written fairly accurate to reflect the gaming generation of their respective eras imo

There are few reasons as to why I'm a bit hesitant to give it 5 stars is because I would've loved a bigger dive into the various themes such as racism, sexism in the gaming industry, etc. I felt that Zevin brushed over them and those problems were just easy to be conquered.

Moreover, while the constant change of Sam and Sadie's friendship status is fairly realistic, I thought it was unreasonable for Sadie to constantly hold some grudge over Sam on a myriad of reasons, especially when Sadie gave Sam the initial (and rightful) reason to halt their friendship (that Sam later acquiesced).

Overall, I'd recommend this book (and have been to a few folks) as it kept me engaging and enjoyed it!

I don't think you have to be into video games to enjoy this book. It might help make it a richer experience but anyone who engages in a creative endeavor that crosses over into pop culture would most likely find the characters in the story relatable.

I appreciated the way Zevin wrote about the struggle of being an artist and art vs. commerce or artistic goals vs. popularity. The conflicts and misunderstandings between game designers Sam and Sadie and their long-suffering partner, Marx kept me interested throughout.

If I break it down, there is not a lot of plot in this novel, it's mostly character and relationship stuff combined with Zevin using the character's thoughts and dialogue to express her philosophy of life/art/play and many social and political opinions.

Her thoughts are lovely and I found myself enlightened or agreeing with them most of the time. I'm sure she'd be really fun to talk to. It's just not my favorite writing technique when the author stuffs the character's mouths with her own messages, rather than letting behavior and story action speak for itself.

This book drags at times, especially given how little happens (Sam's backstory contains more drama than the actual story) and some of it could have been tightened or removed for increased impact.

Two absolutely amazing reads one after the other?

This book starts out engaging, drawing you into the story of the two children who bonded over games. Then it becomes slow and detailed as it takes you through the adult life of these children, still passionate about games. There are some heartbreaking scenes in this book, so be prepared. But this is a beautiful, well written (although sometimes it felt too literary and it annoyed me that the flow of the story was disturbed by a sophisticated unknown literary word which could have been replaced by a normal one most readers would know (I'm looking at you - GROK!), raw and emotional world with adorable characters who do not pretend to be perfect. Kind of sounds like a believable story, in fact, and pulled at all my heartstrings. Definitely would recommend today, and tomorrow and tomorrow. I loved all the game and book references, very refreshing to read.

Given the hype I expected so much better. Zevin's early YA novels were so well-done but I find myself repeatedly disappointed by her adult forays. Tomorrow3 was like a second draft that needed to sit in a drawer for a year before being completely rewritten as something different. The structure was compelling initially but it wasn't sustained, falling over entirely come the climax.

Zevin is a gifted writer. I know this because she has given us 400+ pages about two video game creators. And I know very few women readers who play video games or care at all about video games- and yet here we are- so many of us loving this book. It spent 48 weeks on the NYTimes Bestseller List and I say again- they are Video Game Makers... now normally I would never, ever pick up a book about such a topic. This time, however, it was recommended by enough people that loved it- women like me- that I knew I needed to read it.

I tell you what it is- it's a triumph about the lives of two young, brilliant friends with lots of baggage. This story tracks their lives- successes, failures, tragedies, loves from age 10 to 40(ish).

I took my time with this one, allowing the story to wash over me. Beautiful, complicated characters that will stay with me for a long time. Fantastic read.

I picked up this book solely because of the hype around it and I'm sad to report that I did not enjoy it at all. I kept waiting for it to catch my interest to make me see why it was so loved and it never did. The characters seemed like they could have been real people and the things that happened to them felt mundane or even trivial, things that would have been great in a cozy novel but this didn't have the levity of a cozy nor the depth that would have made its tone work for me.
I can see why some people would enjoy it but personally I was just bored, and I wish I had just DNFed it.

A book tackling just about every serious topic under the sun without feeling too serious and while genuinely providing interesting commentary that doesn’t just feel cringy.

It touches on relationships of all kinds, change in people, mental illness, suicide, parenting (and pregnancy/abortion to some extent), gun violence, radicalization of homophobia on the internet, abusive relationships, physical disability, healthcare in America, it’s all there.

And yet it’s a book that reads positive and feels exciting and hopeful most of the time. It has moments of support and love and forgiveness to match those of betrayal and falling out and violence and death.

It felt wordy at times, but honestly I really did enjoy it. The characters were all believable and deep. Recommend overall, 4.5/5, though it feels that may be a bit high but it was just such a thrilling and deeply thought provoking ride.

For hyped up novels, it's difficult for them to deliver. It's never really the fault of the novel or the novelist. People fall in love with something because it perfectly aligns to their tastes, then they become a loud public advocate for it and it snowballs from there.

Needless to say, my expectations going into this one were, “this will be fine, I guess.” It was a lot better than fine. It was really good.

This is one of those novels that covers a long period of time, focusing on the relationships between two characters, Sadie and Sam. There is a third character, Marx, who's in the mix, but Marx is more, in his own words, an NPC of sorts. He's there as the muse and support for both characters, sometimes more, sometimes less, but a pivotal part of their lives.

Sadie met Sam when her sister was in the hospital with leukemia. A nurse saw her, bored in a waiting room daily, and pointed her towards a playroom set up for the kids, where she met Sam, an odd boy who was playing Super Mario Bros. It turned out Sam hadn't spoken to anyone in weeks after getting in a horrific car accident that mangled his foot and killed his mother. There was just something about Sadie and Sam that worked.

So, when they met up again years later in Boston while they were both in different colleges, Sadie handed off a student project videogame she was working on led to Sam and his roommate, Marx, playing it and finding it amazing. A bulk of the novel focuses on the creative relationship that ensues between the three, with Sadie and Sam creating a super popular, mildly artistic game, while Marx helped manage operations, which blossomed into them forming a game studio, developing more games together, and having the friction that creative partners always run into.

There was never a romantic relationship between Sadie and Sam, something they both mull over numerous times in their lives, but realize they're already partners even when they are furious at each other, coping with the loss of a shared loved one, and dealing with all of life's complications. There are parts that are heartbreaking and prescient. What happens to Marx is... well, I wasn't quite sure if it was necessary, but it served its purpose, I suppose.

I enjoyed that it showed a realistic creative relationship without feeling the need to dip into a basic love triangle kind of thing. Creative relationships are real, different, and can be intense. Sometimes that's enough of a story worth exploring, and this one was.

My opinion on this book may change, I get the feeling that this book might kick around the ol' noggin for a good while yet. I passed on this book when it was released, the blurb seemed to suggest that video games would be a part of the story but that at its core it was going to be about on-again-off-again nerdy lovers and that didn't really speak to me. Not the case, romance is a big part of this book but the core of it is centered around a tenuous but platonic collaborative relationship. This is yet another book where the blurb has misled me, and I am glad that my friend insisted I read this because it was so far up my alley I've been coughing it up.

Set in 90's Cambridge, MA, and later in LA this book follows Sam and Sadie from the outset of their friendship, through college, and ultimately to the establishment of their game company. The blurb does not mention that this book has a distinctive split focus, some chapters follow Sadie and some follow Sam, but every chapter is focused on their work and extraneous relationships. It also bears noting that while he does not feature prominently at the beginning, the character of Marx (Sam's roommate at Harvard), eventually becomes the third focal point of the narrative and this book is as much about him as it is about Sam and Sadie.

This book had me nostalgia-tripping for the entire first half. I love video games, and I got started on them really young so I have fond memories of almost every game mentioned. Some of the strongest moments in this book are when the characters are simply playing a game and trading controls after a life. There may as well have been a functioning time machine in this book because I was transported every time one of these passages was offered up. Nostalgia plays a big part, and these passages are expertly crafted to evoke that feeling, but there is also the philosophical exploration of the joy of gaming. I loved the reverence with which this book treats the act of play and the intimacy of having a playmate, Zevin really captures the depth of the subject, “To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk.”

Outside of the game-focused elements, there is a lot to love. This book has a unique narrative structure. I never felt like there was ever one “main character” and as the book goes on the scope of the story expands and begins to include the perspectives and narration of the ancillary characters. This book treats all of its principal cast as equally important and uses them more as lenses by which to explore a larger narrative than it does for 1 to 1 storytelling. There is a strong focus and exploration of relationships and relationship-building, the characters grow over time and as they grow they branch out and bring minor characters into the fore. I loved this style of storytelling because it kept the focus on the games without leaving the interpersonal storylines to stagnate or progress inorganically. The lack of focus does make this book drag just a little between the 30-50% mark, but once you reach the halfway point and the focus becomes their game this book really catches its stride.

I think I would call most of the storytelling in this book organic. This story rides on its own momentum. Every development is directly related to the choices or actions of the principal cast (whichever characters happen to be “principal” in that phase of the story). Of course, this is a story that is in part about a female game designer that was published in 2022 so there are a few milestones that the story had to hit namely: issues of sexism, design credit, workplace harassment, etc. “Gamergate” isn't in the rearview, the games industry is still male-dominated and everything that concerns Sadie's story is based on reality, with most female programmers not having the luxury of being the boss. I felt that the story that was told around this framework was fantastic, unlike the hack-job focus on this issue in reality there is some serious ambiguity and nuance that's added in. Male characters that you start off hating mellow out as the story goes on, but they never truly come around and I found that to be true to life.

I only had one major complaint, and it's a matter of personal taste: This book is trying to tackle way too many social issues and by the end, I felt like I was riding the rollercoaster of evening news melodrama. I can't say anymore because of serious spoilers but there was a distinct moment where I noticed that every plot development was taking the most dramatic turn it could possibly take without breaking the story. I get that it is part of a story's job to deliver drama but I found the first 3/4th of this book to be fantastically grounded and poignant and organic only for the last act to turn into a k drama or a Spanish language soap. It seemed to me that the author was more interested in commenting on social issues than keeping the story tonally consistent. I think that if I hadn't made this observation this book would have immediately lodged itself as one of my favorites. What made it even more of an affront is that the development that I am talking about leads into what I thought was the most beautiful passage in the whole book “Pioneers”.

Overall this is a well-crafted and mature read. Sure, it's about video games at the heart of it all (it was a definitive pro for me, but your experience may vary), but it's also about much much more. I loved the cast of characters, I enjoyed the narrative structure, and I'm realizing I didn't comment on the prose but it's also quite good. There are flaws if you go looking for them, but all in all, this was a good read. Thanks to Sophia for the recommendation!

TL;DR: Two friends make a game and launch their own game studio, while they do that a lot of other shit happens.

I wish I could wipe my brain and reread this book again. Truly so beautiful and sad and lovely. Loved the pop culture references. Loved the descriptions of Boston, New York, LA. Loved the fragile, flawed characters. This book was perfect. Even the things that weren't perfect felt like they were intentionally so.

Also, I wish the games that were in this book were real.

Just a few pages before the end there's what I think is an exquisitely meta moment: Sadie recognized the look in Destiny's eyes. She knew what it was to be ravenous with ambition but to have your reach exceed your grasp. I'm 99% sure this is Zevin winking at the reader. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is tremendously ambitious, and not entirely successful, and Zevin is clearly self-aware enough to know this, while also knowing that her aspirations make the world a better place.

Imperfect, but so is life, and despite the gaming themes this is entirely a book about the oh-so-messy real world. A stunningly perceptive and mature one. I did not always like the characters, but I loved them. They're complex, troubled, inconsistently kind one moment and assholes the next. Their (lack of) communication skills had me gritting my teeth and sending exasperated late-night emails to a friend: why oh why are we humans like this? Zevin wants us to do better, but I think she also recognizes that we can't. Her insights on cognition and mind are poignant.

Please keep overreaching. That goes for Zevin and also all of us. I want to do better. I will fail, fail again, then—until the Game Over point—pick myself back up and learn and carry on.

Gabrielle zevin's writing is so enjoyable that i never lost interest in Sam and Sadie's worlds - either the real one of their day-to-day existence or the virtual ones they were building even when I'm not really into video games. I really liked Sam and Sadie but I LOVED their friendship and I hated the fact that they weren't friends for a good portion of the book. Them not resolving their misunderstanding can be chalked up to both of them being absolutely workaholics. I grew to love Marx a lot and the chapter that's from his pov is so beautiful. That chapter moved me in a way that I'm always longing to be moved by a character. This is a special book.

This book is genius. I'll miss opening the book to Sam, Sadie and Marx. To be a fly in the wall of their process to create worlds - and to live their game life's as they have their own personal earthly adventures. I'll miss overlooking the sliver of the ocean from that rooftop view from a small office in Abott Kinney.

“There was the life 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. And sometimes, this other life felt as palpable as the one you were living.”

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