Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

TL;DR

Two childhood friends reunite in college to make a video game together and, over thirty years, build a creative partnership that outlasts every romance either of them tries. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a smart, moving novel about what it means to make something with another person — recommended for readers who want a love story that isn't really about romance.

What Is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow About?

Sam Masur and Sadie Green meet as kids in a hospital game room and lose touch, then reconnect at college and decide to build a game together. The novel follows the two of them (and Marx, the friend who makes their partnership functional) across three decades of studios, hit games, failed games, injuries, and the kind of resentment that only grows between people who need each other. It is not, despite what the marketing sometimes implies, a romance — it's a novel about collaboration as its own kind of intimacy.

Who Should Read It?

Readers who want fiction about work — the actual texture of making something with other people, the credit disputes, the creative differences, the specific loneliness of being misunderstood by your closest collaborator — will find this rewarding regardless of whether they've ever touched a video game. Some familiarity with gaming culture deepens certain sections, but it's not required.

Strengths

Zevin's central insight — that some of the most significant relationships in a life are collaborative rather than romantic or familial — is handled with real precision. Sam and Sadie are both frequently unlikeable in specific, believable ways, and the novel resists flattening either of them into a sympathetic lead and a foil. The sections depicting actual game design are vivid enough to work as craft writing in their own right.

Weaknesses

The novel's final stretch reaches for a scale of tragedy that feels somewhat imposed on the story rather than grown from it, and the tonal shift can feel abrupt after the more measured character work of the middle chapters. Readers with zero interest in gaming may find a handful of industry-specific passages slower going than the rest of the book.

Verdict

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow earns its reputation as one of the decade's best novels about creative work — even where it stumbles, it's stumbling while reaching for something real.