Okay, I get it now. This book is amazing.
I’m still trying to process what I just read, but it was wholeheartedly a beautiful and moving story about friendship and time using video game creation as a metaphor for life and all its complexities. That was my takeaway from it. I’m sure like so many others who have read it saw something else (kind of like the Magic Eye that was mentioned in the beginning), but you cannot deny that there was so much depth and care in every page and every sentence Gabrielle Zevin wrote. It was subtle at times, but completely felt throughout the entire novel.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is about video games, but most of all it is about love and friendship. Before they were known as the designers behind some of the greatest video games made, they were just Sam Masur and Sadie Green. Two friends from childhood who stopped speaking after a miscommunication, but reunited years later by happenstance when they decide to work together on a video game. From that moment forward, the course of Sam and Sadie's lives were forever changed. Along with their dear friend, Marx Watanabe, the trio go through the grief, heartache, and loss grappling with their past, present, and future. "Yes, it is a love story, but not one you have read before."
When I first heard about this book being a love story, but not the kind you would expect, it had me wondering what that meant. Love doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be a deep connection so inexplicable that it tethers people together across space and time. Sam, Sadie, and Marx stole my heart and broke it into so many pieces, but after everything they were able to put it back together again. And this happened several times while I was reading. I felt for these characters and understood their past, pain, frustrations, and anxieties. Most of all however, how much they really cared about each other even when it was hard for them to express it or when their own insecurities got in the way.
I also must add that I now have a newfound appreciation for video games and the design and creativity that go into them. When I was in school, I majored in Computer Science and absolutely hated it. I found the course to be so difficult that it drove me nuts. It’s kind of funny to look back on it now and think, had this book come out earlier, or had I seen the vast potential in coding like making games, maybe I would have enjoyed it more. The truth is though, you put all your heart into something because you love doing it. That was the driving engine for Sam and Sadie. They loved playing games and loved creating games. It was a part of their lives that became expressive of their friendship, and a place of escape and connection.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book that will forever stay with me. It is without a doubt, the best book I have ever read in a long time.
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