Book 22/30.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was my fourth Gabrielle Zevin read. The first, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, was a 5 star read that I devoured in a day. The second, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, was a 4 star read. The third, Elsewhere, was a 2 star read that left me flabbergasted by how it was written by the same author who wrote Fikry. That said, I went into Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow not too worried about the progressively decreasing ratings as it won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction in 2022. Hence book 22 🤩🤓
Well. Turns out I should have been worried as it turned out to be a disappointing 2 star read 😒
Tomorrow… is the story of Sadie and Sam, two friends who are often in love, but never lovers, who come together as creative partners in the world of video game design. The two met in a hospital gaming room in 1987 where Sadie was visiting her sister and Sam was recovering from a car crash, and their love of video games becomes a shared world– of joy, escape and fierce competition. They lose touch (and will continue to do so too many times to count over the years) but reconnect years later as Sam exits a subway car at the Harvard Square. From that day on, the story of Sadie and Sam plays out over thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond. Their story is essentially one about gamers and video games, with the author throwing in constant references to the history of gaming and gaming culture.
I am not a gamer. Never have been. I may have dabbled a little bit in PC gaming when my family got a desktop while I was in primary school, but that all went away when I went to high school and I have never looked back. Like, I never even got into Candy Crush or Angry Birds or Temple Run when those games, and others, were at their most popular. And my disinterest in gaming is the main reason that I struggled to connect with this story. Sure Sam and Sadie’s own personal stories involving family, friends, sexism in the industry and toxic relationships play out alongside this, but the world of gaming remains front and centre in this novel and it just did not work for me.
I also did not like either Sam or Sadie much as I found their drama and their years-long silences unnecessary and dull. And do not even get me started on the author’s pompous word choices 🙄 Also, the book could have, and should have, been 100 pages shorter.
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing
Lwile the Leo 