Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
A book review
I found this book on Adam Grant's podcast, Rethinking. When I heard the author, Gabrielle and Adam in conversation, I knew I had stumbled upon a book I would love.
And love it, I did! A book that is about love, but not romance. A love that runs deeper. The main characters, Sam and Sadie are children when the story begins. As they grow up, right in front of your eyes, you explore their worlds, their emotional 'matrices' with them, almost as if in real time.
I have never read a novel based on the lives of video game creators and it was insightful in a technical sense as well.
The pace of the book is just right; it doesn't hurtle at breakneck speed, but it doesn't allow the reader to languish either.
The language is another wonderful treat. I found new words (and some old ones used intricately) throughout the book. It is a literary feat to keep up such a high standard of writing, while ensuring the reader feels involved, and not ignorant.
The cover art of the book seemed simple enough when I began reading. But when I 'played' the games that Sam and Sadie created, the cover just made so much sense!
A special shout out to the design team for translating words (which were trying to describe an image in the first place) into such an apt rendition.
Read this book to enjoy a rich and diverse emotional landscape, superlative writing and for the joy of a lovely story.
I would recommend it to everyone above the age of thirteen. Savour it alone, or read it as part of a Book Club. In fact, I'm certain, like with most well narrated stories, this one will reveal different nuances to different readers.
After all, we need to bring something into the book before we can take something back from it.
"We are all living, at most, half of a life, she thought. There was the life you lived, which consisted of the choices you made. And then, there was the other life, the one that was the things you hadn't chosen."
- Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow