Wow, Wow, Wow
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a beautiful story about friendship
All of a sudden Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Ziven was everywhere. A full display at my local Barnes & Noble, the Best Seller shelf at my local independent bookstore, on instagrams and blogs I read, and yet I resisted picking it up. I’m not a gamer and incorrectly assumed that because I didn’t know that world, I wouldn’t be able to get into this book. Wow was I wrong, this book was truly amazing, and one of the best books I’ve read all year.
At its essence Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a story about friendship, and that is something we can all relate to. Not since I first ready My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante have I been so touched, moved, and emotional about a friendship relationship as I was in Ziven’s book.
The book does a bit of flashing forward and backwards with the main characters, Sam Masur (later going by Mazer) and Sadie Green. They met as children in a hospital while Sadie’s sister was being treated for cancer and Sam was healing his foot from a terrible car accident, bonding over a Super Mario Brothers game. Flash forward a couple years and both Sam and Sadie are in school in Boston, at Harvard and MIT respectively, when they run into each other in a subway station after not speaking for years. They rekindle their friendship and decide to work on building a video game over the summer. That run in changes the trajectory of both their lives as they work together to create a hugely successful game, Ichigo, and start a company together.
The book takes us on a journey of their work and friendship over 30 years, and explores all the ways friendship can sometimes be deeper and more painful than romantic relationships. It was beautiful, joyful, and heartbreaking all at the same time. I also appreciated the way Ziven took us into the world of gaming, and created an emotional connection with the process of game creation. As someone with no connection to that world, it helped me develop a deeper appreciation for it.
Run, don’t walk to get your hands on a copy of this book.
