Title: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Knopf, July 5, 2022
Pages: 416
Genre: Literary Fiction
From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: 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 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.
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 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.
I absolutely loved the use of time in this book. Obviously for dramatic irony, but it really helped to make each section/act/part of the book feel like its own distinct game.
We're following Sam and Sadie throughout their lives. They meet as preteens and bond over video games. Sam gets his feelings hurt and they don't speak for 6 years. They reunite in college and decide to make video games together. Sadie gets her feelings hurt this time. And it goes on like that. They have a very volatile relationship, but they make beautiful games together.
There is way more than one lifetime's worth of trauma packed in this book. You've got witnessing self-unaliving, horrific car accidents, childhood illness, losing parents, abusive relationships, losing best friends, losing partners. Literally so much trauma.
I really love the concept that play is the thing that always brings you back to the people you love. There is a quote that stuck with me. "There's no more intimate act than play, even sex." It's framed as a quote from Mazer that the public takes poorly, and I get why they do. I would argue that sex is simply an intimate form of play. When this quote appears in the book, I was so angry. I hated it. However, after getting to know his character better, I absolutely understand the quote better and it makes a lot more sense.
Ultimately. I'm really freaking mad at this book. My favorite person in the whole book did not deserve any of the baloney he went through. Sam and Sadie absolutely deserve each other. They both suck. I think that's what we were going for, right. Realistic people with realistic trauma making realistic bad choices. But UGH. Marx deserved better. :(
Ratings
Stars: 4/5
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