Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Reviewed by Jess
📘📘📘📘📘

I saw this book in @waterstones and despite knowing absolutely nothing about it, I picked it up for the title. The cover is pretty too, I’ll give you that, but I was intrigued by a book that might be about a new future. How wrong I was, and how right I was at the same time.

This book is the story of a life lived over 2 decades by two friends, Sam Masur and Sadie Green. They meet in the hospital, aged 11, bonded by their respective medical traumas and a love of 80s video games. Playing together is a respite, a release and a revelation, “the most intimate thing two people can do”, Sam says later on. Over the course of the book, and their lives, we watch their relationship rise and fall as they turn their gaming passion into a true tech company reality, face illness and unspeakable tragedy, and try to maintain this lifelong bond of love amidst fighting their own demons.

I never imagined that a story about computer programming and computer game worlds would grip me this much but I might go on record here and firmly tell you this is the best thing I’ve read all year. What starts off on the surface with the premise of a YA novel blooms into so much more as you grow with the duo in real time, and I feel like I was truly there with Sam and Sadie throughout their lives. Gabrielle Zevin not only masterfully builds these characters and their world so well for us, much like the games they create, but we see so many other themes addressed and woven in, from sexism in gaming, anti-Asian racism, disability, grief, parenting, imposter syndrome and toxic relationships too. Nothing felt out of place though, and I was so devastated when the book ended to be leaving the world of Unfair Games. No spoilers but the ending comes full circle without being too saccharine, and I’m grateful that there are infinite tomorrows of Sam and Sadie. A real escape of a novel and an absolute masterpiece.