Mini Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
3***
Perhaps in part due to the intense hype surrounding this book, and my expectations being so high, I feel I liked but did not love it. It's an interesting story, and I enjoyed the multiple POVs and the way it was told over the course of many years and many phases of life the characters go though. That being said, I did not much like Sadie or Sam. Both seemed a bit self-obsessed and reminded me a little of Sally Rooney characters (not a compliment, I'm afraid). I did really like Marx, though, as a balance between the two. Another reason why this book may not have resonated the way it did with others is that I am not, and never have been, a gamer. So the notion of getting excited about the creation of these, to me inane, games was not something I could identify with. In some ways, the games were probably a metaphor for life, but it seemed a little pretentious to me. I feel I am sounding too critical of a book I am rating three stars. I did mostly like it and despite being long, it held my attention from start to finish. I really liked Zevin's previous book, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, so maybe I am unfairly comparing the two. I think, perhaps, what was missing here was significant interior development of the characters. I felt the teenage versions thought much like the adult versions, were, in fact, perhaps less self-obsessed even. I am such a character driven reader, that it was this that may have bothered me most.
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