Goodreads: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Buy: Bookshop.org UK | US
Synopsis: 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.
Review: Picking up a book in an airport always feels dangerous. You’re rushed, the selection is mostly John Grisham thrillers, and the book needs to be worth carrying around in your already too heavy rucksack. Fortunately, this time, I get to say that the book was well worth the effort.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a book I picked up while hunting through Heathrow Airport for this year’s Booker Prize winner, and I’m unbelievably glad I picked this up instead. It’s a sharp and nuanced look at relationships, with a heavy sprinkling of gaming culture that really enhanced the narrative for me. I think for some this book will feel long, it’s 400+ pages of two characters lives and very character-driven, but every single time I picked this up I didn’t want to put it back down again.
With the book being so character driven we’re in need of some excellent three-dimensional protagonists to carry us through the plot. Sadie and Sam do this effortlessly, they are both passionate, driven, and can be infuriating at times, just like your real friends. The relationship is fraught with misunderstandings and arguments that often come when you’re as passionate about something as these two, but they always end up coming back together, and you’ll find yourself wanting them to, just so you can read about them creating something together again. I do think an existing love of video games will help you love them more, but I found their complicated love combined with Zevin’s magnificent writing a joy to read.
If you’re a childhood gamer, this book will leverage that nostalgia to great effect, and if not, you’ll find an interesting exploration of human relationships. Gabrielle Zevin has written an excellent coming of age novel, that had me infuriated and teary-eyed in equal measure.
Recommend: If you’re a lover of contemporary character-driven novels, then this one is for you!
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