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A review by nhborg
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
5.0
«I believe that virtual worlds can help people solve problems in the real one.»
This was GREAT. Simply put, this is a book about people coming together to make video games. Other reviewers have mentioned that you don’t need to be into video games to enjoy the story, which I believe in. The writing style is solid; it is precise, endearing, clever and entertaining. The characters are so multilayered that I forget that they’re not actually real. The story is gripping with all its broad and narrow storylines, from globally successful companies to the inner core of individual characters. There are also some really interesting thematics being explored: cultural appropriation, creative ownership and collaboration, disabilities, Jewish & Asian heritage, politics in art, just to mention a few.
With that being said, I can’t deny that the video game aspect greatly contributed to how much I loved the book. I wouldn’t call myself a very big gamer, but I’ve always loved video games as a medium for storytelling and roleplay. In my dream-prone periods, I normally describe half of my dreams as being «video game-like». To me it is a synonym for the potentially surrealistic, creative and open-ended, which doesn’t feel realistic once you compare it to your actual life, but that you fully embrace as your truth while you’re living through it. Anyway, I loved how the book’s characters made references to game logic and metaphors to help them process what they were going through IRL; «life reflecting art reflecting life», as I call it. I somehow felt seen by the book, because although I experienced the characters as distinct from myself, I could relate to the tendency of having messages from fictional/virtual works influence how I view the world.
There’s so much more that could be said about this book and since this was a buddy read, I literally have notes for every single chapter. But to conclude, I had a wonderful time reading «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow». It’s endearing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and so very HUMAN. I can’t wait to do a reread in the future<3
(Minor spoiler:)
«For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.»
This is making me tear up..!! :’’)
This was GREAT. Simply put, this is a book about people coming together to make video games. Other reviewers have mentioned that you don’t need to be into video games to enjoy the story, which I believe in. The writing style is solid; it is precise, endearing, clever and entertaining. The characters are so multilayered that I forget that they’re not actually real. The story is gripping with all its broad and narrow storylines, from globally successful companies to the inner core of individual characters. There are also some really interesting thematics being explored: cultural appropriation, creative ownership and collaboration, disabilities, Jewish & Asian heritage, politics in art, just to mention a few.
With that being said, I can’t deny that the video game aspect greatly contributed to how much I loved the book. I wouldn’t call myself a very big gamer, but I’ve always loved video games as a medium for storytelling and roleplay. In my dream-prone periods, I normally describe half of my dreams as being «video game-like». To me it is a synonym for the potentially surrealistic, creative and open-ended, which doesn’t feel realistic once you compare it to your actual life, but that you fully embrace as your truth while you’re living through it. Anyway, I loved how the book’s characters made references to game logic and metaphors to help them process what they were going through IRL; «life reflecting art reflecting life», as I call it. I somehow felt seen by the book, because although I experienced the characters as distinct from myself, I could relate to the tendency of having messages from fictional/virtual works influence how I view the world.
There’s so much more that could be said about this book and since this was a buddy read, I literally have notes for every single chapter. But to conclude, I had a wonderful time reading «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow». It’s endearing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and so very HUMAN. I can’t wait to do a reread in the future<3
(Minor spoiler:)
«For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.»
This is making me tear up..!! :’’)