Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin, 2022
★ 4.10 from 1.5m ratings on Goodreads
Two friends make video games across decades, navigating love, grief, and the strange intimacy of play. For anyone who has ever loved a game—or a person—too much. A warm, witty, and often melancholy read that moves in long arcs through friendship, grief, and the pull of games.
Feels like nostalgia, hope and grief. About friendship, love and death.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy long friendship stories, game-making details, and characters who stay with you. Be aware that many readers find the main characters frustrating and the middle stretch slow, with heavy-handed commentary and sentimentality.
Why read it
It offers a generous look at how creative work and friendship shape each other over time, and why play can hold grief and hope together.
A page from the book
What would you attempt if no defeat were final?
What is a game?“ Marx said. ”It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever. What readers say
Readers are often deeply attached to Sam, Sadie, and Marx and moved by the decades-long friendship and game-making story, though many also find the characters frustrating, the pacing tedious, and the social commentary or sentimentality heavy-handed.
Gabrielle Zevin.The novel's title comes from Macbeth's 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,' a speech about time and futility; Zevin's characters work in video games, where a day can be restarted.
Books that feel like this
More by Gabrielle Zevin
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin, 2014
A bookseller, a lost child, and a life measured in the books we hand to each other.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy long friendship stories, game-making details, and characters who stay with you. Be aware that many readers find the main characters frustrating and the middle stretch slow, with heavy-handed commentary and sentimentality.
- What is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow like?
- A warm, witty, and often melancholy read that moves in long arcs through friendship, grief, and the pull of games. Feels like nostalgia, hope and grief. About friendship, love and death.
- What should I read after Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow?
- If you liked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, try Funny Story (Emily Henry), We'll Always Have Summer (Jenny Han) and Yesteryear (Caro Claire Burke).
A taste of the feed
The moment you realize you’ve been recast in your own love story.
The story tipped onto its side. Found a fresh point of view. And in this new telling of it, I was no longer the leading lady, but instead the teensy complication that would forever be used to jazz up their story.
Funny Story · Emily Henry
The sensible reason she gave for choosing that college, and the truer one she kept to herself.
We were just together. It all happened so easily and so quickly that it felt like it had always been that way. One minute we were friends, then we were kissing, and then the next thing I knew, I was applying to the same college as him. I told myself and everyone else (including him, including my mother especially) that it was a good school, that it was only a few hours from home and it made sense to apply there, that I was keeping my options open. All of those things were true. But truest of all was that I just wanted to be near him. I wanted him for all seasons, not just summer.
We'll Always Have Summer · Jenny Han
The voice policing a woman's anger often wears her own face.
A voice in my head, echoing softly: America hates angry women. The Lord hates angry women. You hate angry women. Do not be an angry woman.
Yesteryear · Caro Claire Burke
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