Book Review: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

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A thoroughly entertaining and engaging tale of friendship which, whilst I enjoyed the reading experience, does not quite justify the social media hype that it has received.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a novel that has won plaudits, praise and Goodreads Choice Award. For many readers, it has been lauded as their best book of 2022. Even so, there was something I found off-putting and the book kept slipping down my tbr list. Maybe the clunky title. Maybe the imagery of the cover – the iconic Japanese wave feels too close up, the text colours and font too artificial against the wave.

Obviously, I recognise the allusion to gaming in the font, and the importance of the Japanese wave to the novel and to the games that Sam and Sadie produce. It still jarred for me, though.

Anyways… this is  very much Sam Masur and Sadie Green’s story. We meet them as university students, their friendship having already been formed and tested before then. The novel alternates between flashbacks that flesh out that backstory, and the main narrative that follows them creating computer games and founding a gaming company.

Sam had certainly had his trauma in the flashback sections: his mother – a Korean actress and model – had been killed in a car accident that had shattered Sam’s foot. Whilst recovering and being reconstructed physically, Sam finds solace in gaming, in immersing himself in worlds that were maybe more manageable and less traumatic than the real one. Whilst there, he meets Sadie who is visiting her sister recovering from cancer. They bond over classic simplistic games of the 1980s such as Oregon Trail and Mario.

I actually found Zevin’s use of the flashbacks very well judged and organic, structurally, and powerful emotionally. The trials his mother had in the entertainment industry – somehow either too Asian or not ethnic enough – and her battling toxic sexualisation whilst knowing where her story was headed was heart wrenching.

The friendship breaks over a misunderstanding and Sadie ends up in a very unprofessional relationship with her married teacher at college. By the time she and Sam meet each other again, she is in the midst of that complicated relationship which is heading to a breakup and a severe bout of depression. She had, however, been making games for her college course and it is through those that she and Sam again reconnect.

Over one summer, supported by Marx – Sam’s Japanese roommate and friend who becomes their producer – they make one stand-out game together and manage to sell it making enough to create their own gaming company. And Ichigo sounded like a fantastic game! One thing Zevin’s novel boasts is a real flair for coming up with credible ideas for games. I believe there is a film being made of the novel… but who is making these games real?

Zevin gives their friendship a lot of tests in the novel: Sam’s impoverished upbringing and debt conflicts with Sadie’s relative affluence; their game needs a game engine and Sam encourages Sadie to ask her teacher, to whom she returns; the publicity surrounding the game puts strain on them; Sam’s foot eventually needs amputating and he chooses not to explain his pain but simply to keep away; other games are less well received; Sadie and Marks end up in a relationship.

Zevin never suggested that Sam and Sadie had any romantic or sexual entanglement or attraction – although they do on occasion ask why they never got together. Zevin makes it clear that the friendship between them is an experience of love – a term that Sadie is comfortable using, and Sam is not, even when he acknowledges it. We do load that one word with so many meanings, dont we? I do think the novel would have felt cheaper if it had degenerated into just another will-they-won’t-they romance.

One thing I did love about the novel was its inclusiveness and representation. Race was not an issue in the novel but Sam felt authentically Korean and I loved the way that that background mixed with Sadie’s Jewish heritage and Marks’ Japanese upbringing to create something new and energised and creative. Sam did seem to me to be somewhere on the ace spectrum – and is described within the novel by other characters as somewhere on the autistic spectrum – and same sex marriage becomes an issue in one of the MMORPGs that Sam develops. The novel felt like a very positive example of representation, a celebration that people of all identities are valuable and wonderful human beings.

Tragedy does strike in the novel – and was movingly done – along with the old debate about violence (and politics) in gaming. And, for me, the second half of the story loses focus and somehow unravels. The narrative becomes meandering. Without giving too much away, I found some of Sam’s actions, which others praised as romantic, more than a little creepy! Building a game world for someone? Okay. Populating that world with a range of your own avatars gaslighting that other person…? Not so much.

So in conclusion, whilst I found the novel thoroughly engaging and I loved the time I spent with Sam and Sadie and Marx and the rest of the characters – and especially their games, which I would definitely play! – I do not think it quite lived up to its hype. Would I read another Zevin? Absolutely. Will I rush to catch up on her back catalogue? No.