Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Book Review and Summary
Review and summary of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by author Gabrielle Zevin
Spoiler Free Review
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love story at its heart. However, this is the love between two friends not between romantic partners. I’m thrilled to see a story about a man and a woman that don’t end up sleeping together. However, I’m less thrilled that there was some sexual/romantic frustration along the way.
That part was unnecessary. Two people can be friends without ever falling in romantic love or becoming jealous of other partners. The story would have been just fine without the brief love triangle moment. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The novel follows Sam and Sadie from their childhood friendship playing Nintendo together to their successful career as game designers with their own company. The characters in this book are well rounded and written but I found them unlikeable in the end.
Sam refuses to let anyone in and is self destructive in his inability to accept help or advice. Sadie becomes a dysfunctional pile of selfish depression at any misfortune. Together they fight and bicker and I’m happy they found each other because I certainly wouldn’t want them around me.
Although the two main characters are disagreeable there are many other characters in the book who make up for it. I hate stories with zero likable characters so it is nice to find a bit of a balance here.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is 400 pages of trial and error as Sam and Sadie try to find a work life balance, maintain relationships of all varieties, deal with the failures that happen on the way to success, and recover from unimaginable hardships. All of this would probably be a lot easier though if they could learn to trust each other and actually embrace their friendship instead of wallowing in self pity.
While reading this book I found myself torn. It’s entertaining, I liked the story, I like that it’s about the video game industry because we don’t see that very often, but goodness I did not like Sam and Sadie. That’s what ultimately brings the book down a notch.
The characters are definitely real. The flaws they display are true to life and we can likely even relate to them even if we don’t want to admit it. But I found myself screaming at them to just grow up already! Talk to your best friend like you care about them! Just have an adult conversation and none of this needs to be a problem! Also, Sadie, I know you’re sad and all but that’s what therapists are for, get help.
In the end I’m glad that the story is about friendship and not traditional romance. I’d love to see more books with male/female friendships and I’d love to see them never even mention wanting to fall in love with each other. But I suppose that Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a start. Next time I find a book with this theme I hope the characters just evolve and learn a bit more throughout the story.
It’s a good book, just about lame people.
4/5 video games 🎮🎮🎮🎮
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What is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow about?
Gabrielle Zevin’s novel is about two young game developers named Sam and Sadie and their tumultuous friendship from childhood to adulthood. It’s a love story about platonic soulmates.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Summary
The novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin begins on a subway platform. Sam runs into old friend Sadie and they look at a magic eye poster together, Sam cannot make out the image but lies and says he can. Side note, we never get to know what is in the picture 🙁
He’s shy and thinks that this will be the last time he sees her, just a chance encounter and nothing more. Until Sadie hands him a disc with a video game she made on it. It has her contact information and she asks him to play the game and let her know his thoughts.
Sam and his roommate Marx play the game and are completely entranced by it. However, classmates in her game design class find it highly offensive. Not everyone sees the brilliance in a game about the evil of mindless compliance and they got upset when the game called them Nazis.
In a flashback we see how Sadie and Sam first met. In a hospital Sadie is visiting her ill sister and Sam is there for many surgeries trying to fix his foot that was shattered in the same car accident that killed his mother. They play Nintendo together to pass the time and get to know each other well.
Sadie’s mom suggests that she use this time as community service hours toward her Bat Mitzvah. She ends up getting over 600 hours logged and receives an award for her service of keeping the poor lad at the hospital company. Although her friendship feelings are real it’s obvious that this log of obligation will eventually hurt some feelings. It ultimately leads to them not talking to each other for years.
Back in the present we are introduced to Sadie’s Professor Dov who is now her inappropriate boyfriend. He’s older and has a wife back in Israel. She thinks she loves him but knows she’s unhappy.
As is usually the case with these things he ultimately decides to go back to Israel and try to make it work with his wife. He leaves her with a broken heart and nowhere to live since her name was never on the lease to his apartment.
Depressed, she moves into her friend’s place and isolates. Sam writes her several emails about the game but she doesn’t respond. He finds her address and shows up to find her despondent. He continues to show up, every day, for two weeks until she’s willing to get out of bed and talk to him.
They fall back into being friends and decide to make a video game together over the summer. Throughout this process the reader gets peeks into the future where this game, Ichigo, is very successful.
As they are making the game Sadie becomes frustrated that she doesn’t have enough knowledge and experience to program the game to her own high standards. She reaches out to Dov for help. He pops back into her life just like that. He’s willing to help but he has ulterior motives. Sadie moves back in with him.
On the night they finish the game Sam joyfully attempts to skip down the street but slips on ice and breaks his ankle above his bad foot.
Dov helps them market the game to two competing companies. Sadie wants to go with the smaller one that gives them more creative control and isn’t sexist toward her. Sam convinces her otherwise because he has too much school and medical debt and wants the money from the bigger company.
This company changes the titular character Ichigo from nonbinary to male and pushes similarities between Ichigo and Sam. Sadie begins to fade away from the marketing narrative.
After the initial success of Ichigo they release a sequel and it is received as redundant. They are forced to plan how to proceed but they have core disagreements about what should be done next.
This whole time Sam has been hiding how bad his foot has gotten. He knows amputation is the next step but doesn’t want to be put out of work.
Marx wants everyone to switch coasts and move to LA so he manipulates Sadie and Sam into joining him. This switch involves Sadie breaking up with Dov, who is still married by the way, and he doesn’t take it well. This involves him abusing an S&M dynamic and handcuffing her for extended periods of time. I am glad that this kind of abuse of power within S&M is portrayed as wrong. S&M is about consent, Dov is just abusive.
Sam finally agrees to get the amputation and him and Sadie are back in the hospital together the night before the surgery. She gives him the award she got for all those community service hours.
Sadie begins to plant seeds of doubt in her own mind about the nature of her relationship with Sam. After the surgery he is plagued by phantom limb pain and grows distant. They split work on their latest game and barely interact with each other.
After the game is complete Sadie, Marx, and his girlfriend Zoe take ecstasy together and share a three way kiss. Awkward.
The reviews for the new game are overwhelmingly bad. Sadie becomes depressed and blows up at Sam. Their friendship has become pretty rocky.
Then Zoe dumps Marx right before a scheduled trip to Japan, Sadie takes her place. Of course, they end up having sex.
Sam picks up on the intimacy from them when they return and finds himself jealous. He outs them and it rips them apart. Sam is an asshole about it and resents Marx even though he never demonstrated romantic feelings for Sadie in the past. Apparently these stories are just required to have a love triangle pop up. Sadie and Sam can barely be around each other at this point without fighting.
Sadie releases a new game that the media decides is also Sam’s game which causes even more resentment. Then two big turning points occur:
Sadie discovers she’s pregnant.
Marx is shot.
Men with guns arrive at their office building demanding to see Sam. They are unhappy that their games approve of gay marriage. Sam isn’t present and Marx gets everyone else to safety but is shot trying to talk the men down.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow then shifts to a point of view chapter as Marx experiences his 70 day coma before dying. This style choice greatly enhances the sadness of his passing and is a showcase for Zevin’s writing talent.
Sam carries on attempting to run their company, Unfair Games. Sadie is a pile of self pity and depression. Around this point I really started to resent her myself.
She further strains any relationships she had left but manages to finish her game before the deadline and before she gives birth.
The game that she releases deals with a theater troupe playing Macbeth and here we discover the meaning to the title Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It is a quote from Shakespeare and something Marx often referenced.
Unfair Games also put out an MMORPG that Sadie has been playing from her self imposed isolation. Sam found her and created characters to befriend her in the game. This is a highly manipulative way to get close to her again. Honestly, it’s pretty creepy and violating.
The novel then flashes forward about a year and a half. Sadie is teaching what used to be Dov’s class back in Boston. She happens across a magic eye book and decides to send it to Sam. He doesn’t respond.
She gets word that his grandfather has passed away and goes to the memorial. Sam sees her there but they don’t speak. They are finally forced to communicate when it’s revealed that the grandfather left Sadie his Donkey Kong arcade game.
They finally meet in person and talk about their relationship. Sam says he’d like to make another game. Before getting on her plane Sadie hands him a disc of the game she just started.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ends right where it began and we can hope that the friends are once again able to reconcile.