Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a book that, logically, should not work. Meticulous detail about the coding and marketing of ‘90s video games, a sudden chapter told from inside an online role-playing game, and multiple **uses of the words ‘palimpsest’ and ‘jejune’ might have resulted in a pretentious, deeply convoluted novel. Add the fact that the story spans 30 years and the book has over 400 pages, and you should get a book that’s nearly impossible to read. What you get instead, by a marvel of writing talent, is a heart-wrenching, compulsively readable tale that you’ll end up comparing to every book you pick up next.
In their junior year of college at MIT and Harvard, respectively, Sadie Green and Sam Masur meet on a Boston subway platform. This is far from the first time—they grew up together in Los Angeles, inseparable best friends bonded over video games. After losing touch when going to college, though, they are coincidentally reunited on the other side of the country. But is it really a coincidence, or something more like fate? After the two meet again, they decide to create their own video games with their friend Marx. Their first effort is a blockbuster success. As their fame grows and their relationship shifts in an alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking chronicle of grief and love, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow might just make you believe in destiny.
As the blurb will tell you, this is not a romance. As the characters will tell you, though, the bonds between creative partners are more significant than that. Though the dynamics between Sadie, Sam, and Marx are complicated, to say the least, Gabrielle Zevin proves you don’t need romance to write overwhelmingly touching depictions of love and heartbreak. The sweeping timeline allows for such in-depth, flawed, and lovable characters that you’ll feel like you know them personally.
This is also not a book about video games. Yes, a love for video games might deepen your appreciation of the story, but it’s far from necessary. “What is a game?” asks Marx—known for his charming philosophical tangents—at one point. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption.” Instead of being a book about games, in other words, it’s about immortality, or at least the feeling of it.
Recommended if you like: reciting Macbeth from memory, second and third tries, the idea of soulmates. Recommended if you don’t like: L.A traffic, predictable romance, permanence.
Leo Downey, who lives in Thetford, is a senior at Thetford Academy. He writes about music, books, and pop culture.