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. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even …
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. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
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, 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.
Feel like everyone I know read this book last year - so I'm a little behind the curve - but finally I got around to see what all the hype is about.
I really enjoyed it. Having been a big gamer as a kid a still somewhat now, it all felt super real to me.
The characters were beautifully drawn, fully realised, deep and complex people.
There were a couple or irks I had (someone got word-of-the-day toilet paper for Christmas eh?) but nothing that stopped me having a great time with this book.
Este libro me ha hecho sentir como cuando sientes con alguien una intimidad instantánea. En un chat, en un viaje en autobús... das por casualidad con alguien con quien puedes conversar como si os conocierais de toda la vida. Mejor y más intensamente que si os conocierais.
Unos personajes desagradables a ratos pero siempre creíbles y humanos. Hay fealdad y desgracia pero sin regodeo. Una narración inteligente, que juega contigo, y una traducción superior a la media, que hace frente a bastantes complicaciones con elegancia. Maravilloso.
structurally flexible. engaging characters. lightly nostalgic (but not too much!). devoured in 4 days: it was enjoyable!
it was sad, at times. i think i enjoyed all characters? except for probably dov. the rendition of relationships over such a span of time is something i don't recall ever reading. the internal monologues and renditions of conflicts from different points of view were something special, i feel
Started off very strong and got me invested in Sadie and Sam's friendship. As the story progressed, their company grew, they made more games and got a little annoying? Especially Sadie. As many others have also pointed out, the second half was stretched out and honestly, I didn't particularly care about the new characters introduced past the halfway mark of the story (Ant and Simon-the-random-German-word-generator, for instance). There were arcs that, I believe, the author added to make the characters complex or interesting, but beyond a point, I didn't care about those arcs, either.
All in all, a pass for me.
This is one of those books that attracts you from the very beginning and you can't stop reading (until you realise that you don't want it to end that soon, either!). An interesting and well-written story that follows the successes and failures of its complex characters, driven by their passion for video games and full of lights and shadows. This is a story about gamers, and video games. But it also about life, passion, success and failure but, above all, about human relationships, and lives and worlds that could be but are not. Like a video game with the greatest engine: our imagination. Like a book.
A wonderfully written story about the adult years of growing up, on a backdrop of the intense creative processes of video game design. I want these games to be real. I want to feel the characters expression through their art.
There are books where it’s a novel situation played out through understandable and straightforward characters. And then there are books where you have no idea how someone can keep so many deep actors in their head, you wonder if they were real people. Each character with their own motivations, and perspective. Sometimes I cheered for them. Sometimes I hated them. Always I loved them.
In any case, it’s a beautiful story. Heartbreaking and tragic.
A wonderfully written story about the adult years of growing up, on a backdrop of the intense creative processes of video game design. I want these games to be real. I want to feel the characters expression through their art.
There are books where it’s a novel situation played out through understandable and straightforward characters. And then there are books where you have no idea how someone can keep so many deep actors in their head, you wonder if they were real people. Each character with their own motivations, and perspective. Sometimes I cheered for them. Sometimes I hated them. Always I loved them.
In any case, it’s a beautiful story. Heartbreaking and tragic.
És un llibre, com diu a la portada, «Una declaració d'amor a la vida.» que funciona pausadament, tranquiŀlament, amb tendresa pels seus personatges i que et fa sentir segur, que per més que pateixin, no pot acabar malament. Com en un videojoc, saps, des del principi, que al final, guanyes, signifiqui el que signifiqui això. om en un videojoc, saps que al final guanyes, signifiqui el que signifiqui això i et permet relaxar-te i gaudir de la resta: la fotografia d'un moment molt important per la creació i consolidació dels videojocs com a art i producte comercial a la vegada. Els anys 90 del segle XX van marcar com evolucionarien i quins dilemes morals produirien els videojocs, sempre amagats a l'ombra d'una societat que no els entenia, però que ells, els pioners, tenien clar què feien. Però no només això. L'autora, hàbil i ambiciosa intenta traslladar l'ambient de cada videojoc …
És un llibre, com diu a la portada, «Una declaració d'amor a la vida.» que funciona pausadament, tranquiŀlament, amb tendresa pels seus personatges i que et fa sentir segur, que per més que pateixin, no pot acabar malament. Com en un videojoc, saps, des del principi, que al final, guanyes, signifiqui el que signifiqui això. om en un videojoc, saps que al final guanyes, signifiqui el que signifiqui això i et permet relaxar-te i gaudir de la resta: la fotografia d'un moment molt important per la creació i consolidació dels videojocs com a art i producte comercial a la vegada. Els anys 90 del segle XX van marcar com evolucionarien i quins dilemes morals produirien els videojocs, sempre amagats a l'ombra d'una societat que no els entenia, però que ells, els pioners, tenien clar què feien.
Però no només això. L'autora, hàbil i ambiciosa intenta traslladar l'ambient de cada videojoc que dissenyen els seus personatges a la noveŀla i se'n surt prou bé. En tot moment tens aquella sensació de diversió del videojoc, de fugida endavant: Demà, i demà, i demà.
El joc conté pinzellades d'assaig sobre videojocs i societat, sobre tecnologia, etc. Es nota que coneix bé el mundillo, tot i que segurament no en forma part directament.
A part d'això m'ha fet molta enveja, sobretot per haver-se inventat els jocs que a ella li hauria agradat jugar. Solutions, EmilyBlaster, Ichigo, Both Sides... son jocs que es nota que l'autora s'ha divertit descrivint-los, donant-los forma i fent que la gent hi jugués. I a mi, que la meva vocació frustrada és guionista de videojocs, només podia sentir enveja per algú que ha escrit els jocs que volia jugar i hi ha jugat, encara que fos imaginàriament per muntar un món com aquest.
Review of 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' on 'Goodreads'
5,0 stars
A book about video games that is never really about video games. A book on people. relationships and how those change through life's stages. Felt like an old soul explaining it all, and had me feeling all those points in my life and remembering from the wonderful descriptions in the books, not of just the doing but the feelings in doing all the mundane and sometimes amazing in living life.
Review of 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' on 'Goodreads'
5,0 stars
This is the first book in a while that I've had trouble putting down, it kept me reading later than I intended more than once. It's a complex, touching story about friendship and the value of play, which spans several decades. During that time Sam and Sadie meet, have quarrels, make up again, quarrel again, fall in love with other people, and make video games both together and separately.
It's set in the world of video game development so knowing some of those terms probably helps a little but I don't think it's really necessary; it's more about creating art together than the games themselves. (The game making is a little simplified, and as someone who works in the game industry I found it a little unbelievable in places - making an MMO with the staff they appeared to have? No way.) But waving those beside in suspension of disbelief, …
This is the first book in a while that I've had trouble putting down, it kept me reading later than I intended more than once. It's a complex, touching story about friendship and the value of play, which spans several decades. During that time Sam and Sadie meet, have quarrels, make up again, quarrel again, fall in love with other people, and make video games both together and separately.
It's set in the world of video game development so knowing some of those terms probably helps a little but I don't think it's really necessary; it's more about creating art together than the games themselves. (The game making is a little simplified, and as someone who works in the game industry I found it a little unbelievable in places - making an MMO with the staff they appeared to have? No way.) But waving those beside in suspension of disbelief, I doubt they'd bother anyone who doesn't actually make games for a living.
Really the book is about friendship, and flawed, complex characters, and art, and loss, and being human. It's refreshing to read an entire book about a couple that is about friendship rather than romance. It was sweet, and touching, and thought-provoking, and also occasionally annoying when the characters are clearly being idiots, but they're so well written that at least you can understand why they're being idiots. I would highly recommend this book.
Trigger warnings: there are a couple of violent deaths mentioned, and there's non-graphic description of an inappropriate teacher-student relationship with non-consensual bondage elements. These are not dwelled on any more than needed for the story's purposes, but are unavoidable elements of the plot.
