From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin

Start date: March 1, 2023

Finish date: March 31, 2023

Discussion: MODERN / POPULAR READS

Why we're reading this: March 2023 - Modern Selection
[close] March 2023 - Modern Selection

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What Members Thought

Mar 19, 2023 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: 52-books-challenge-2023

I give this one 4.5 stars. At least half the reviews of this book note that you don’t need to like video games to like the book; I happen to dislike video games, indeed I’m not a fan of pretty much any game, but obviously I liked this book a lot. It’s not so much about video games as about the creation of the games, hence about creativity and about collaboration to create the games—the deep connections between creative collaborators. And it’s about why (some) people play the games. The games the I give this one 4.5 stars. At least half the reviews of this book note that you don’t need to like video games to like the book; I happen to dislike video games, indeed I’m not a fan of pretty much any game, but obviously I liked this book a lot. It’s not so much about video games as about the creation of the games, hence about creativity and about collaboration to create the games—the deep connections between creative collaborators. And it’s about why (some) people play the games. The games themselves function as reflections of the characters—they select and design games to play that reflect their emotional needs, and these are some very needy characters.

I read a review on Goodreads (liked by more than 1000 people!) where the reviewer complained that she didn’t like the characters from the start and grew to dislike them more. I totally disagree. Sure, the central characters are flawed people, but I found that one of the book’s strengths. Each of the central characters is damaged in some way and has difficulty connecting with others; games allow them to be close, to share a love they cannot otherwise communicate. But failure to communicate also creates conflict of course (and what good book lacks conflict?), which isolates them once again. I found that terribly touching. The book has several deaths in it, and returns frequently to the idea that while one dies frequently in a video game, one can just go back to the last “save,” and resume play (tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow). Comforting and, again, touching.

So why not 5 stars? Well, with the exception of one stream of consciousness section late in the book, I found the style clear but far from mind blowing. My 5 star books usually have an astonishingly powerful style. Also, and this may seem small, but I really liked the way the book riffed on literary allusions, including the central one to Macbeth, which inspires the title and is made plenty clear, indirectly and pretty subtly. But then the author just plops in a section of really unsubtle direct discussion of the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech: “Hey, reader, here’s what the title means. Here's a long quote. Let me explicate it like a paper for an English lit. class but with not very believable dialogue” Believe me, I’ve read enough explications, and they’re fine in their place, but not in the middle of a novel about video game creators. The speech should have been in the epigraph (instead of a minor Dickinson poem that is also important in the book, but not AS important), and the exposition about it should have been cut by about 90%.

Using for the “enemies to lovers” prompt in the 52 books challenge, though more accurately, it’s friends to enemies to friends to enemies, and I won’t give away where it ends in that cycle to avoid spoilers . . . . my one really big objection to that prompt. ...more

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