So much attention has been given to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, and after reading the description, I was also excited to get my hands on this one. Maybe it is because of my childhood of watching my brother play video games while I followed along with Nintendo Power magazine (remember those?), but the synopsis appealed to me and I was ready for a different kind of gaming adventure.
The Situation: When Sadie Green is 11, she meets 12 year-old Sam Masur while visiting her older sister in the hospital. The two of them end up playing video games together and becoming friends, unknowingly setting up the course of their lives as coworkers, video game developers, and sometimes friends. While this initial friendship will see a temporary end, it will be on a cold December morning during his time at Harvard that Sam will see Sadie, who is attending MIT, and the two will once again bond over video games. But now, Sadie has moved beyond simply playing them and is taking a class in making them. And when she shares her first few attempts with Sam, it is enough to put them on the path to collaboration.
The Problem: When Sadie and Sam's first game, Ichigo, becomes a massive success, the two of them are instantly famous, and rich, and work must be immediately started on a sequel. But the creative differences have already begun to chip away at what seemed to be a solid friendship. While Sadie feels pushed to the side and ignored, Sam thinks Sadie is being selfish and cannot possibly know what real hardship is like. Unlike him, Sadie did not grow up poor, without her parents, or with a visible disability. Even with the help of peacemaking Marx, Sam's college roommate and future producer at their company, Unfair Games, Sam and Sadie will spend the next few decades making brilliant games, while not quite understanding the relationships in the real world.
Genre, Themes, History: This is a fiction novel that spans 30+ years of Sam and Sadie's life, beginning from when they first meet as kids at the hospital. While Sadie grows up relatively affluent and in good health, and Sam is raised by his grandparents and will have issues with his reconstructed foot for the remainder of his life, they both will end up attending college on the east coast. They also remain obsessed with video games, which leads to a partnership that is both lucrative and volatile. Whether the games are hailed by critics and fans as successes or failures, Sadie and Sam's relationship will be marked by ambition, resentment, perceived betrayal, and things unspoken. And yet, the relationship endures.
My Verdict: If 2022 has given me anything it is certainly a fair amount of books, particularly contemporary fiction books, that I would be happy reading forever. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the kind of book that easily and effortlessly follows its protagonists as they live both ordinary and extraordinary lives, and it is not difficult to imagine that the story continues beyond the last page. Of course, the issue with creating such fully realized characters is that, inevitably, they will get on the reader's nerves much like real people would. The longer the story went on, the less I liked either Sam or Sadie, but the more I liked Marx. It is a different kind of love story in which readers will enjoy getting lost.
Favorite Moment: There are small moments that focus specifically on Marx, and I enjoyed all of them. Perhaps it is because I have recently seen an on-stage production of Macbeth, but I loved Marx's references to the Scottish play and his general love of theater.
Favorite Character: Marx may be more of an NPC (nonplayer character) as far as the general story goes, but I adored him.
Recommended Reading: With this one, I recommend either Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, or Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
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