I can't stop thinking about this damn book
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is kicking my ass
As much as I read online articles every day, I’m not much of a reader when it comes to actual books. Aside from the required reading back in secondary school (and some college courses), the only books I’d read for fun were the Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, A Series of Unfortunate Events series, Bossypants by Tina Fey, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling, and What Happened by Hillary Clinton. In my young adult life, I tend to buy books, but never read them. (Call Me By Your Name and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous are still collecting dust on my bookshelf). But a couple weeks ago, Hunter Harris wrote about her “book of the summer” in her newsletter Hung Up (which you should absolutely subscribe to—I don’t know a more fun writer than Hunter Harris), in which she wrote:
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a book I cannot stop thinking about, a book that I scream-cried about when I finished, a book I have forced everyone in my life to read. I loved everything about this book but the ending, page 397, when there quite surprisingly to me weren’t any more pages. When that was it; when it was over. All I play is the game of Uno and the game of life — !!! — but reading this book about making and playing games, friendship, and collaboration, was the best reading time I had this summer.
I was immediately intrigued. I did more research on the book and found nothing but universal critical acclaim, on Google, on Twitter, even on TikTok! (Apparently there’s a thing called “BookTok”). John Green, author of several best-selling novels, including The Fault in Our Stars and the Putitzer prize-winning Looking for Alaska, said in his review of the book, “Utterly brilliant. In this sweeping, gorgeously written novel, Gabrielle Zevin charts the beauty, tenacity, and fragility of human love and creativity. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is one of the best books I've ever read.”
One of the best books he’s ever read!!
I bought the book for one of my friends, who’s an avid reader. I’m too lazy to read, I told myself. But, still, my interest in this book didn’t wane. After another week, I decided to buy the book for myself, and I finished in about three sittings over the weekend. And, y’all, the hype is real. The book was both an easy read and narratively dense. I’ve never fallen in love with characters like I did in this one. I wanted to stay with them forever .(I even have a crush on one! Like, what???). This was the first book to make me actually feel strong emotions, to the point I wanted to cry nearly two-thirds the way in.
But what is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow about? Here’s the official synopsis:
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.
That last part is often emphasized in online reviews I’ve seen. “This is not a romance, but it is a love story.” And it’s true! The book is a touching tale of love in all of its forms: romantic, family, platonic, work. It’s rare for me to see a platonic relationship like Sam and Sadie’s depicted, two characters who love each other strongly and deeply, but it’s never romantic. Author Gabrielle Zevin does an excellent job of portraying their decades-long, roller coaster ride of a friendship, the highs, the lows, the heartbreaks, the tragedies, and the reconnections. Sam and Sadie’s relationship feels so authentic because they’re both flawed individuals. They make mistakes and fight, and we never truly side with either of them because they’re both written with such grace that you can understand where both are coming from, even if they act irrationally.
Without giving too much away, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow touches on many aspects including disabilities, racism, sexism, loneliness, depression, absent parents, dead parents, loss and grief, American violence, but, most importantly, as previously mentioned, it’s about love.
I can’t stop thinking, nor talking (to myself, mainly, because I don’t know anyone else who’s read it), about this book. I always get this way when I’m deeply moved by a powerful work of art. The feeling this book gives me reminds me of the one I had at the beginning of the year for the HBO Max limited series Station Eleven, based on the novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel. I wrote about my love for the show before, so I won’t repeat much, but it’s similar to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow because it’s a decades-long story about two characters who lose each other and reconnect, it’s a purely platonic love, and they’re also both about the power of art and how it facilitates and maintains relationships. Both are, in the end, about love.
PS: If you’re not a video gamer, don’t fret! I’m also not one, yet I was still able to understand everything described in the book.
PPS: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow also reminded me of the Apple TV Plus sitcom Mythic Quest, a show that follows a fictional video game studio. In its fifth episode, “A Dark Quiet Death,” we follow two new characters we’ve never seen before (none of the show’s main cast appears), and their decades-long love story of making a video game together. It’s one of the show’s two best episodes. (The other is the show’s tenth episode, “Quarantine,” conceived and shot in the early days of the pandemic).
PPPS: The late Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic whose reviews inspired me to write my own reviews when I was in high school, famously disparaged video games and how they can never be considered art. I feel like Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow may have had a good chance of changing his mind, if only he were alive today to read it.
PPPPS: I found out after I already finished reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow that Zevin made an official playlist, with certain songs correlating with certain chapters. I think I would’ve wept if I had known about this playlist while reading, because two of the most emotional songs I know (“The Big Ship” by Brian Eno and “Funeral” by Phoebe Bridgers) are in two of the saddest and most emotional parts of the book.
PPPPPS: You know that phenomenon where you learn a new word and suddenly you start seeing that word everywhere? I had a somewhat similar experience with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, because after reading about the book I learned the trailer for the film adaptation of Zevin’s other novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, was released around the same time I first learned about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. And the film comes out in just a few weeks! This led me to learning that Zevin is also a screenwriter, having written Alma Mater (2002), Conversations with Other Women (2005), and even the film adaptations of her novels, including Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (2010) and the upcoming The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Excitingly, Zevin actually secured a film adaptation of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow a year before the book was even released, and she’s set to write the script for the adaptation. Fingers crossed that the film does the novel justice, that two of the three main characters stay Asian, and that it includes music from the playlist!
Don’t forget to vote!
The midterm elections are quickly approaching. Republicans have already promised to introduce abortion bans on the federal level if they take back the House and Senate, and even have a constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution if they overtake enough state legislatures. Please register to vote, check your voter registration status (even if you think you’re registered, your state might have kicked you off the voter rolls!), and find out where your polling place is! If it’s not too late, see if you can get a mail-in ballot, so you can avoid long lines and avoid covid.
Recommended Reads
Business Insider: 'Revealing' teen costumes, on-set massages, and a gender-discrimination complaint: Inside Dan Schneider's 'disgusting' Nickelodeon empire
The Verge: The Humiliating History of the TSA
The Daily Beast: Comedians Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears Accused of Child Sexual Abuse
News
My favorite show Community is one step closer to getting a movie!
Rutherford Falls, onne of the two shows I watch on Peacock, got cancelled. I hope it gets picked up by another streaming service.
Pixar’s Inside Out is, apparently, getting a sequel. Inside Out is one of the many Pixar films I don’t think needs a sequel but there’s a strong chance Pixar will prove me wrong again because I absolutely loved their other sequels-that-didn’t-need-to-be-made like Toy Story 4 and Finding Dory. Also, there are some reports that Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader might not be returning for Inside Out 2 due to salary disputes.
Shows I’ve enjoyed the last few months
Better Call Saul (Season 6, The Final Season) — AMC
House of Ho (Season 2) — HBO Max
Love, Victor (Season 3, The Final Season) — Hulu / Disney Plus
The Rehearsal — HBO Max
The Summer I Turned Pretty — Amazon Prime Video