Lost in a Good Book

Published: 5 July 2022 (print)/12 October 2022 (audio)
Publisher: Random House /Vintage Digital
Pages: 397/13 hrs and 52 mins
Narrator: Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Fiction
★   ★   ★   ★  – 4 Stars

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. They borrow money, beg favours, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo: a game where players can escape the confines of a body and the betrayals of a heart, and where death means nothing more than a chance to restart and play again. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as art form, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before. 

I had heard praises for this book for so long, but I never knew it was about videos games until I actually started reading. I wish I’d picked it up sooner now. As a massive fan of Ready Player One I was curious about how this would be a similar love letter to video games but Zevin does a wonderful job. Not only showing how important, creative, and wonderful video games can be, but also how the human condition is balanced so precariously around friends, family, grief, and chance.

Zevin’s writing is incredibly vivid, this books reads like it is playing out before you on a screen. The other day, months after having read it, I was thinking of a scene and couldn’t remember the movie I had seen it in, before realising it was actually a scene from this book. There is fantastic foreshadowing but you never know it is foreshadowing which makes it even more incredibly heartbreaking.

The story is character driven but is also following a captivating story through their lives. It’s fractured and broken and strewn across the chapters and it is slowly pieced together as you read and switch perspectives. It’s skilfully told, interwoven stories and periods in their lives that reflect and mirror and resonate as you read. It’s fascinating to see the layers of their lives and the games they create, how their past and presents shape them and how those around them impact on who they become. Moments in their lives that shaped them, which tell a story of their own, are laid out before you and as the pieces fit together and you learn more, it becomes both beautiful and tragic.

An important thing to note is I don’t think you need to know anything about videos games to appreciate the story, or their role in it. There is enough context and explanation for you to know what is going on. The gaming aspect is very much behind the scenes while not being too actual game or tech heavy. It’s a love letter to videos games without being solely about video games. It goes through real history with a false history alongside and looks at the emotional and human connections that come through gaming.

I adore the characters. They are incredible realistic. They are flawed, compassionate, and human. Seeing their journey over the years and how the influence each other, adore each other, hate each other. It was wonderful to see the complexities of the human experience play out in a way that feels relatable.

Sam and Sadie are complex people and I loved seeing them grow from their youth to adults. From the beginning they are fully developed, alive on the page, and we follow their lives and their growth so intimately they only become more solidified as their experience shapes them. Secondary characters like Marx and Dove as great too, and Zevin balances our opinions of them through Sadie and Sam’s eyes well so it’s a constant see saw of how we think of them.

I read this as an audio and the format of transcripts, point of view swaps, and time skips aren’t hindered at all and you still completely experience and understand the wonderful story being told. There’s strings that connect that you aren’t aware of until they’re pulled together at the end when it falls in pace, but you are never left lost by the time jumps and the format. A truly beautiful story that is about an area not usually given the respect it deserves.

As the story progresses through the years you are reminded that the world was a much simpler place pre 2000, but at the same time post millennium has advantages too. It’s a perfect balance between the love of games and the knowledge of how impactful they can be coupled with an emotional journey through life and love and the universe.

You can purchase Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow via the following

QBD |  Dymocks

Wordery |  Blackwell’s

 Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible