I adored Zevin’s first novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, so I was excited to jump into another story. Zevin is obviously a very talented writer and I’ll probably grab her next book without bothering to read the description. Even if I liked her first novel better, I still really enjoyed this one.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Publication Date: July 2022
Length: 416 pages
Other books by Zevin reviewed on this blog:
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (5/5)
An exploration of relationships that grow and change like the people in them. Zevin has found a way to tell the story of storytelling.
Summary from Amazon:
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.
As much as I enjoyed this book, I couldn’t help myself from thinking I’d like it more if I was into videogames. I would have appreciated the descriptions of the visual and the coding and the game mechanics so much more if I was more familiar with them. That being said, I still really enjoyed this book. I liked Sam and Sadie and Marx and the intricacies of their spiderweb of relationships. I liked hearing about how the struggled and overcame it and helped each other and hurt each other. It was a beautifully written story about how complicated life is and how things we think we’re doing to help someone can hurt them. If this was the first Zevin book I’d read, I think it would be a Five Star read. I was just spoiled by a book I liked even more.
The main three characters are all complicated and that made them so interesting and a joy to follow for so many years of their lives. Their work and personal relationships are very intertwined and the longer plot led the reader to be able to explore these in depth. I liked how Sam always seemed to be looking out for Sadie, even when she didn’t want him to. Marx had to straddle a lot between his friendship with Sam and his romantic interest in Sadie and I thought his character was the unsung hero of the Unfair Games’ success. I would happily read a sequel to see where these folks end up and how they navigate the later years of life together or apart. Zevin created some very deep characters and they were a joy to follow.
This book spans decades but is written in a way that flowed well. I liked how we meet Sadie and Sam in college and then flashed back to their meeting and relationship beginning. I don’t think I would have appreciated Sam as a character if I met him when he was recovering from his accident. Even though the plotline was relatively linear, I think Zevin added flash backs in where they advanced the plot rather than slowed it down. The time we spent in the past, mostly with Sam’s childhood, was always building on what was happening in the main timeline and helping to give more context around what was happening and how the characters reacted.
The recent past can be difficult to write because it feels so much like what we’re living in now, but there are elements that have to be changed. Technology has grown exponentially since the years Sam and Sadie were living in. Especially with the technical details in this book, Zevin had to be very careful to do her research for the time she was writing. Since I am not and haven’t ever been very involved in video games, I can’t say for sure how accurately she was able to do this. I did appreciate how much she consistently had her characters rely on phones and communication aligned with the era they were in. And I’m all for a good Oregon Trail reference.
Love and expressing love come up often in this book. There is platonic and romantic love and both are exploited by these characters. Sadie and Sam both think their platonic love for each other should excuse some of their behaviors. Sadie thinks her romantic love for Dov should excuse some of his behavior. The ways the characters show they love each other are often well intentioned and misinterpreted and then both parties are too proud to say anything. I loved how real this felt and how much I’m sure this happens in most friendships and romantic relationships on a daily basis.
A really enjoyable book and one I hope everyone can try to pick up at some point. Four out of Five Stars.
Read Alikes: Landline by Rainbow Rowell, The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Until next time, write on.
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Review of “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin | Rhapsody in Books Weblog
An Alphabet of Authors: Z – Gabrielle Zevin’s ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ | Martin Crookall – Author For Sale
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