Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 1/10/2025 + 1235 more book reviews

A few years ago, I read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Zevin and was really enthralled by it. When I first heard of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I didn't realize it was written by the same author but when I discovered this, it made me all the more eager to read it.

Tomorrow is the story of two young people, Sam Masur and Sadie Green who meet at a hospital when they were 11 and 10 years old respectively. Sam was in the hospital recovering from a traumatizing car accident that left his left foot shattered. Sadie is there visiting her sister who has cancer. They meet in a game room and become friends playing video games. Sadie is the only person who is able to draw Sam out of his shell and make him conversant again after the accident. So Sadie agrees to continue visiting him and as a result she gets community service hours needed for her bat mitzvah. When Sam finds this out, he thinks Sadie was only there for the service hours and doesn't speak to her again for six years when they randomly meet at a subway station in Boston. They are both drawn to a "Magic Eye" poster at the station advertising the popular book where you can see 3D images if you correctly focus your eyes which Sam cannot seem to do. The two friends get back together and a collaboration between the two begins resulting in a successful company that produces video games over the next few decades. But are Sam and Sadie more than friends or are they only business colleagues. Sadie has affairs with a couple of men along the way including Sam's friend Marx who is also made the producer of the video games created by Sam and Sadie. There are more falling outs between Sam and Sadie along the way with Marx trying to be the peace maker. And then more tragedy happens.

I am not a video gamer and this book is basically played out against the background of games and gamers. But I was drawn into the story even though I have not played a video game since the arcades of the 80's when Pac-Man and Space Invaders were games of choice. The story is mostly about the very well-drawn characters. At its heart it's a love story but also includes a lot of trauma for all the characters. Sam, Sadie, and Marx will be hard to forget.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details