This book took me a little while to get into but the second half floored me, it make me sob and I loved it.

The time it was set and all the references gave me all the nostalgia and it thought the insight into the world of game developers at that time was fascinating.

I also couldn’t stop seeing comparisons between Sam and Jude from a little life!

I think this book is probably already huge, so no one really needs to know what I thought of it... but I loved it. It's about friendship and love and creativity and escapism. About chronic pain and vulnerability (physical and emotional). It's charming and funny and sometimes heartbreaking and at one point I wanted to put it in the freezer. I didn't want it to end.

Absolutely loved this and couldn’t put it down. You don’t need to be into gaming to enjoy this book (I’m not), but I imagine it would be very satisfying if you were. Gabrielle Zevin has written a very emotionally mature book about love and friendship, and it’s also very insightful on the subject of creativity. I’m recommending this one to everyone.

11 year olds Sam and Sadie meet when Sam is in hospital recovering from a car crash and Sadie is visiting her sister who is fighting cancer. They bond over a game of Super Mario and a lifelong friendship begins.

We follow that friendship through all of its ups and downs with a constant theme of video games. From their first meeting and throughout their lives, it is this constant link to video games that keeps them coming back to each other.

I am not a huge gamer, but I do live with one, so have some knowledge, and I think knowing at least a little about famous games will make this more relatable. But while the theme is ever present, the real story is around the enduring relationship between Sam and Sadie throughout the 90's/00's/10's, marking some significant subjects and incidents along the way.

This book feels like a breath of fresh air, and it is somewhat surprising that they aren't more books that feature video games, accidental Zelda recipes aside.

We follow a team of young game designers across various stages of their lives, from their childhood discovery of video games, to their growing love of them, to their early forays into the game industry, and to being experts in the field sharing their wisdom and watching the next generation rise up.

The time can jump about a bit, which is a little jarring at times, but you quickly get used to it, and it stops the book from feeling too linear, or building towards a predictable end. In that sense, the book quite neatly mirrors the games it is inspired by, building new narratives and layering them.

I found it fascinating to get a peek into the creative process behind making a game, but most of all, what shines through is the author's own absolute passion for stories and gaming. It is there on every page, and this book feels like the best kind of love letter to games.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a book that it was impossible to rush through. Normally when I get really into a book, I want to read it quickly because I'm enjoying it so much, but I found myself slowing down in order to savour this one. Sadie, Sam and Marx are a trio that work perfectly together, both within the plot and as fictional characters. Their story held me captive from start to finish as I cheered their successes and wept for their failures. They leapt off the page and sprung into life and when I was away from them, I found myself wondering what they were getting up to.

One of the things I loved about this book was that it kept me guessing the whole way through. Every time I thought I could tell what was going to happen, Zevin subverted my expectations and took the plot in a different direction, until it eventually circled back around to my original expectation, but fulfilled in a way I hadn't expected.

Much of the plot centres around the creation of video games and as someone who has zero interest in them, I was surprised to discover that some of my favourite parts of the book were the ones which were centred around events in the games Sadie and Sam create. However, there was one stand-out passage where the writing was quite simply, exquisite. I can't go into too much detail as it would give away a major plot point. However, suffice to say, it described something that very few, if any, people experience and truly remember. It was heartbreakingly beautiful and so well explained that I was utterly convinced of its authenticity. Zevin's writing is truly wonderful.

At its core, the book is about love. Not romance. Love. In all its forms and all its beauty. It celebrates the vulnerability that love brings with it and the powerful transformative effect it has on people's lives. More than that, it is a celebration of friendship.

A much-hyped new release, with a really high rating on Goodreads, lots of very promising early reviews and a movie adaptation in the works, I’m feeling a little ambivalent towards this book.

Sam and Sadie are childhood friends. They meet when Sam is in hospital recovering from a serious car crash and Sadie is visiting her sister who is recovering from cancer. They bond over their love of gaming and build the foundations of a lifelong friendship that will be tested many times over their lives.

At just over 400 pages, this book feels a lot longer, mainly, I think, down to uneven pacing. The midsection of the book really dawdles along and I found myself coming up with any excuse not to pick it up.

And despite many reviews saying “you don’t need to have an interest in gaming to love this book”, I would argue the contrary. There’s a lot of games, gamer talk and gaming culture that will really resonate with lots of people. It didn’t with me. Gaming is about as interesting to me as fly-fishing or basket-weaving, despite my kids’ best efforts to tell me regularly about their Minecraft world.

There’s a passage in the last quarter of the book where a game (Pioneers) is being played and the story of the game is told in painstaking, tedious detail. To say I found myself rolling my eyes and wanting to skim read it is an understatement. It knocked a star off for me.

There is lots to love about this book too. The two main characters are given lots of depth and room to grow. Sadie and Sam make for a pretty dislikeable pair a lot of the time but they are fully realised as characters and the portrayal of Sam’s chronic pain is vivid and insightful. The climax of the book is dramatic and gripping and the aftermath of the event in question is pretty devastating.

Would I recommend it? Yes, with the caveat that there’s a lot of gaming in it that may grate after a while if it’s not your thing. There’s a wonderful story of platonic friendship in there too, but you’ll have to wade through some MMORPG* to get to it (anyone else just hear the voice of Rex from Toy Story when they read that in the book?!). 3-3.5/5 ⭐️

*massively multi-player online role play game

*Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was published yesterday by @chattowindus @vintagebooks. Many thanks to the publisher and @Netgalley for the ARC. As always, this is an honest review.*

In my top 5 reads of 2022! Really excellent, reminded me a bit of A Little Life (tragic in parts and follows a group of friends over 20ish years). I loved all the gaming regencies and I thought that element of the book was really unique without being too exclusionary to people who don’t game.

This is a new author for me. I knew I wanted to read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow when I read the blurb. I’m a gamer so this appealed to the geek in me. I enjoyed the book a lot. I liked the way the book explores the friendship between Sam and Sadie. It really warmed my heart. The geek in me loved all the video game references. I laughed a lot reading this but there are some sombre, almost heart-breaking moments as well.

New favourite of the year. Scrap that - maybe of all time?

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, follows Sadie and Sam from childhood (and their experiences in a children's hospital), to their adulthood (where they create video games together). I adored the switch in timelines, and absolutely adored the characters - Sadie and Sam are wonderful, but I think my favourite has to be Marx (Sam's best friend and college roommate). Gah, they're all so wonderful.

Not only did this book pull at my heart strings, but it has made me so keen to explore more of Nevin's work, and more stories through video games. I love books (and can't get enough of reading), but this definitely encouraged me to explore more mediums.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Vintage for this copy.

Sam and Sadie are the friends at the heart of this book, tied together by childhood friendship, youthful innovation, work colleagues and so much more. Their story spans many years and takes in the triumphs and the tragedies that they encounter and what they share.
While their relationship isn't a sexual one, the book explores the depth of love and friendship between the two as they age, and the tenderness with which they treat each other .
As well as exploring this relationship, the novel sketches out the world of computer gaming from its infancy, and captures the excitement of creating work you love that sees commercial success in the wider world.
It's a very touching book about friendship, about enduring pain, and about keeping on despite everything else.

I absolutely loved this book. I really enjoy novels that follow a character or handful of characters over an extended period of time and this has to be one of the best I’ve read that does this.

‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ follows Sam and Sadie, firstly as two eleven-year-olds that meet in a hospital recreation room, through to university and then into their professional careers as computer games designers. Sam’s roommate, Marx, becomes key to both their personal and professional lives and quickly became my favourite character of the three, often acting as a sounding board, driving force and mediator.

I found I ended up caring deeply about the characters and the experiences they go through, and – although not a gamer particularly – I also enjoyed the gaming references and a look at how PC and console games were developed. Another aspect to the novel I enjoyed was the 1990s / early 2000s time frame, which surprised me given that I’m a geriatric millennial (slightly younger than the characters) and I had to come to terms with my childhood now being written as historical fiction!

One of the novel’s most remarkable feats is the deftness of touch with which weighty subjects are handled, but still delivered with the depth, compassion and the gravitas they deserve. A key example is the way in which Sam lives with and comes to terms with his disability – I have a little limited experience of this myself, and it is so well portrayed here. Other subjects include race, sexuality, and the not inconsiderable issue of how friendships and relationships evolve over time.

I am afraid that this review has barely done the book justice but I will definitely be re-reading this book again and again, and soon, and that is one of the highest compliments I can give.

SPOILER/TW: It’s worth mentioning that this book contains subject matter that some may find upsetting or triggering, including a suicide, a fatal car accident, and a mass shooting.

I’d like to express my sincerest gratitude to the publishers, Vintage, and to NetGalley, for sharing with me the advance copy on which this review is based.

There were many parts of this book I enjoyed; the initial way Sam and Sadie meet, how they reunite years later, the gaming references and genius of how they work their ideas, the ending particularly how things moved along for both characters.
There were some areas that I felt moved too slowly and seemed to get bogged down for me, and though incredibly complex and intriguing, the main characters aren't particularly likeable people, which though I understand the arc of their development, was very grating at times.
It's quite a niche subgenre of gaming that is featured and there may be some points where the technical gets complicated and the themes dark for some.
It's clever and definitely gets better towards the end as the clash of hedonistic fame and the politics that comes from that has devastating, irreversible consequences for them personally and professionally.

*I received this as an ARC from NetGalley*
A book about gamers and video games. I grew up loving video games and I still do so reading about people that also have a passion for it was otherworldly. While I enjoy my romance books, I liked that this book didn’t really have that in it. I actually was a bit irritated when two of the characters did find love because that’s not what I wanted from this book, however, it didn’t go into much detail. It’s not about love. It’s about friends making games together. It’s such a simple concept yet it was done so well. You get to watch three best friends make both good and bad decisions and while you might get irritated with them, you love them at the end of the day. They aren’t perfect people by any means and I think that’s why you like them so much. Sometimes though, I can admit I would get extremely irritated with characters for making certain choices and it made me frustrated. But that’s what makes a good book. Characters aren’t going to do what you want because every person is different. The description of the video games and the ideas for new games was probably my favorite part of the whole book.

I dabbled in video games when I was growing up and I’m definitely addicted to playing the Mario Kart app, so my inner nerd is always keen to pick up gaming fiction - especially with womxn gamers. This book is the Normal People of the gaming fiction world and I really enjoyed getting stuck into Sam and Sadie’s friendship, love, tragedies and success. Theirs is a complicated relationship with the years showing them so much intimacy as well as so much distance through their fights and reunions, and Zevin shows the grittier side of being best friends, growing and changing together and apart, and knowing someone so thoroughly. It was, in a nutshell, beautiful. Through it all, gaming plays a huge part in Sam and Sadie’s lives. It’s how they first meet each other as children, and is something that connects them in different ways throughout their lives. It was sometimes a little heavy on the gaming talk for me, but that didn’t stop me from being drawn into the story.

It was also really wonderful to have a disabled character front and centre in the book. Sam’s injured in a car accident as a child and his foot never fully healed despite multiple operations, leaving him with difficulty walking and sometimes using a cane. He doesn’t let this stop him from doing what he wants to do, although this is sometimes at the expense of his own well-being. His relationship with his best friend and flatmate Marx is a beautiful, tender thing and Marx’s easy understanding of Sam’s struggles, whether his mobility or financial issues, and how he anticipates Sam’s needs and acts without Sam even realising… get yourself a friend like Marx!

Yep, that definitely wasn’t what I expected and yet it was??? Gabriele Zevin is again destroying my heart, my soul and my well being. I lived this book!!! It made me cry, laugh and having all the feelings. Sam and Sadie are wonderful and flawed characters and the multiple POV helps to understand what they are going through. I loved them but also wanted to shake them and made them see the mistakes they were making. if you also like videogames you will love the references and the world building here. I was invested the whole time and book flew by. I loved it and highly recommend it!

I devoured it. It’s a beautiful story about friendship and ambition and otherness and the importance of escapism. The writing is light and the narrative is steady. Maybe a little slow and tired towards the end - hence 4.5 stars - but a special book I will no doubt gift to numerous people

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a stunning take on an unconventional creative partnership, the impact it has on their lives and of those around them. While you might not always agree with all of their actions or decisions, Zevin has created a cast of characters who feel real, fleshed out and authentic - to the extent that I'll promise you'll miss them when you finally have to put this down.
Those of us who have ever enjoyed playing games, from arcade games to PC, will appreciate the ingenuity of the worlds within worlds that Zevin conjures and will long to play them.

Tomorrowx3 is a beautifully written, character driven novel. It follows the two main characters, Sadie and Sam as they bond over their love of games as children and how this influences their adult lives as we explore the ups and downs of life and their relationship.
Ultimately this is a book about friendship and I loved the complex characters and dynamic between Sadie and Sam. They were both lovable yet flawed and were so well described that you become immersed in their world and the trials and tribulations they face.
Gaming is a significant topic in this book and Zevin has done an excellently job of striking a balance of this content. I think those who enjoy gaming will appreciate the more detailed descriptions and gaming references whilst those with little interest will not be overwhelmed. I only played a few games on the computer as a child but this book still gave me a nostalgic 90s feeling which I loved.

If you enjoy slow burn, character driven books about friendship this is one you should try!

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

I feel so bad about this because I really appreciate that I was given this ARC, but I put it down after a while. I had read so many rave reviews and was sure I would like to but I didn't. Apparently I'm in minority 😬

I realize that I wasn't inclined to pick it up after I started it because I was bored. What were the characters goals? I didn't connect to them at all. Like I said, I'm in a minority here :)