Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

804 reviews

hanloc's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I appreciated the experimental and reflective structure of the different parts of the book.

The referential layers in the pioneer part; the NPC part, the A/B structure of both sides.

The fictional elements are very well woven into the contemporary world, I believe there really is an unfair games with developers Sam and Sadie. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Gun violence, Hate crime, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, and Car accident

Moderate: Ableism, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Medical content, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Minor: Eating disorder and Abortion

rdt's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Car accident

eedle_cacleberry's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Car accident, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Minor: Vomit, Antisemitism, Abortion, and Classism

achuna2's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is a masterful game that gives you a personal stake in the survival of a friendship through game space and time. I believe that the writer and the hidden narrator give “the illusion of choice” that is so painfully an Achilles heel to both main characters. Most romance novels follow the tropes of missed opportunities, friends to lovers, “there’s only one room in the inn” but none compare to the way Gabrielle weaves these two characters’ s timeline’s into a knot of conflicts and interactions that somehow plateau or run parallel when they need each other most. Somehow you end up rooting for both Sadie and Sam because she does such a good job of revealing all the shameless external points of view and shameful inner dialogue that shape the way that we want to engineer a happy ending for them to continue their mission through life and through their work. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual harassment

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Drug use

jkwel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Sadie Green and Sam Masur. A beautiful relationship between two people. This book will be challenging me for a long time post read to evaluate my relationships with people and recognize how important these people are and can be in my life. Emotional story, beautifully written, this will stick with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

kjlewis494's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Grief

Moderate: Chronic illness, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer, Homophobia, Vomit, and Abortion

froozy94's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Grief, Car accident, and Death of parent

Minor: Antisemitism and Abortion

logsbooklog's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

usually, once a book fumbles hard enough, it loses me entirely and i’m taken out of it for the remainder. and this book DID lose me; an entire section of the book made me feel like i had been duped by the author into reading a much worse book than what the book had been up to that point (more on this in spoilers). but it brought me back from the brink in a way few books can by just being masterful at catharsis. even when the setup was rocky and even when the book is a bit in over its head, the pay offs hit like gut punch after gut punch of emotional release. despite its stumbles, i’m very glad i saw this through.

as for where the book lost me, there were 2 key moments that took me out entirely. one, sam being in love with sadie. i don’t think this is unrealistic, but it felt handled with the weight of a teen drama, not an adult literary novel. what had been a delicate balance of a friendship ends up heavily tilted in sadie’s favor for a while and it took over a hundred pages for that scale to even back out. secondly, of course, is the handling of the office shooting and marx’s death. now, this is a book filled with coincidence and happenstance, but this death felt so unbelievably staged as a third act conflict that i audibly yelled “oh COME ON” when marx’s mom was ALSO named anna lee. this entire section of the book has the suspension of disbelief shatter from showing way too much of what’s behind the curtain and i was extremely worried the book wouldn’t recover. it did manage to survive both of these missteps, but i can’t help but wonder what could have been

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Car accident

Moderate: Homophobia and Vomit

Minor: Abortion

jaduhluhdabooks's review against another edition

challenging sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I mean, how can you create such a vivid and heartbreaking timeline of lives strung together by “happenstance” and call it anything other than what it is… a masterpiece of both wills and defiances, of an inability to deny oneself of suffering. 

I recently read (in a book that I hilariously rated 1 star) a quote on suffering that basically read in summary, just because one is accustom to suffering doesn’t mean they always have to. And at first I thought this was stupid, because no person would choose suffering and the choice is not in the hands of those who encounter it. But that’s not always true, nor is it always truthful…. What I mean by that and what I found with these characters doing often is fixating on (unresolved and unheard) wounds of tragedy and self articulation. These moments that happened to them, defined parts of themselves that inevitably drove their relationships and their focal points in life. Obviously, that’s not profound because that’s relatively the human existence, but what I think Gabrielle does so well is even the playing field of fiction and humanity. Fiction is on this higher plane of “semi relational” and “this only happens in a book”. This novel is almost to on the nose with the existence of life lived in relationship with pain and grief. Even Marx, who I would argue was the first one to not choose suffering in the end, and it set him free, very much shows this narrative of altruism and decay. It’s an excellent contrast throughout the book and I just can’t wrap my head around it entirely yet, but it’s sitting with me. 

I know that’s morbid, buts it’s true. Sadie and Sam are this feedback loop of pain and neither one are willing to disrupt the cycle to seek out a potential, otherworldly circumstance of good, that maybe, just maybe, would result in…more good. I think Sadie tries, but the reality is that a loop can only break if it severs all ties with the end that it’s contributing shape to, and in the end, Sadie is just as unable to let go of the things and reminders just as much as Sam.  But isn’t that the cycle trauma and the reality of life lived in relationship with pain? We greet grief and loss as a friend, and the choice of joy and happiness is fickle and ludicrous and downright stupid without considering the stipulations that drive the efforts of creating such a reality. A figment. A virtual. A game. And that’s where they seemed to go to create such understandings in themselves and of the world.


I’m rambling. Basically. It’s hauntingly beautiful. A codependent masterpiece of broken people, in a savage world, seeking their next escape in each other, even if they’re estranged. Their actions are driven by the potential connection with the other and it maddeningly hits so close to home. 

I could talk about so much more. The representation of chronic pain and life lived disabled and how well that represented and depicted. The translations of grief and toxic relationships. the nuance of race and racism, misogyny both external and internal, and the search for belonging through two different decades of American histories. The beauty of gaming and the creativity of the story. I could. But I’ve said too much already. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Abortion

readwithkye's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This has made my list of books I will always recommend, knocking many others off that list that could never compare to this level of storytelling and writing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail