Book of the Month: Tomorrow x 3
By now you will have seen all the hype surrounding Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (we’ll shut up about it soon we promise!).
Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. Their love of video games becomes a shared world -- of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over.
When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives.
This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.
As our book-of-the-month we’re here to answer the question: Is it worth reading or does it just have an extraordinarily beautiful cover?
Here is what our bookclub thought:
As it was her favourite read of 2022 so far, Rachel was delighted to hear that everyone else had quite enjoyed it too! It’s always risky asking someone to read about something they’re not interested in (video games in this instance) but we think that’s the fun of a bookclub, reading something you would never have picked up yourself.
The biggest take away from our discussion was you do not have to like video games to enjoy this book. We have bookclub members who have never played a video game in their lives and they still found meaning and beauty in the novel. Rachel always firmly says if Sam and Sadie worked in any other creative industry (movie-making, book-writing, fashion-designing etc.) a similar story could be created. The video games add a bonus level (pun intended) to it but it’s really about the characters and life and growing up and making hard decisions and raw human connection. Yes, we agreed and we can’t lie, you are going to get more out of it if you do love video games and that 1990’s nostalgia will feel like a warm hug, but don’t let that stop you from reading Sam and Sadie’s story.
We had a little debate on how they truly felt about each other because this is not a romance novel but it is still about love. We discussed how Marx was everyone’s favourite (also confirmed by everyone reviewing this book on Instagram) and rightly so, he’s such a genuinely decent human being. We could have talked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow for hours, and hours, and hours and not run out of things to say but we hope we’ve convinced you that YES, it is worth reading. +10 bonus points for the extraordinarily beautiful cover.
There is so much creative marketing being produced for this novel. Like the adorable gaming profiles created for the main characters. We even made our own avatars and you can too, click here for the official Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow avatar creator. You can also click here to actually play one of the games Sadie creates in the book.
Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow introduces her novel.