Reviews with content warning for Classism - Amanhã, amanhã, e ainda outro amanhã

one of those books that I was wary about because of all the hype, but I'm extremely glad to say that this lived up to expectations. maybe I had lowered my expectations a bit due to the excessive hype.

this was way more trauma-filled than I was expecting, fyi.

the list of new releases with commercial appeal that have a lot of hype surrounding them that I think live up to their lofty expectations is pretty short: Tomorrow x3, Lessons in Chemistry, and I'm Glad My Mom Died. all are very solid 4.5/5s from me.

Content Warnings

danalovestoread's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

There was so much I loved about this book- Cambridge, MA in the 90's, the emotional journey that the characters went through, insight into creating video games, and how every once in a while you'd get a glimpse of the characters' histories and past which made them feel fully realized. But gaming doesn't really interest me and I felt like it was about 100 pages too long.

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dustghosts's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

feeling very much "i did meet some of the most insufferable people. but, they also met me." about this one boys

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deetabz's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense 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

4.5

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isleoflinds's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I went into this book with mixed expectations. I tried reading it when it was first released, but couldn't get into it. When it started getting a lot of attention, I heard a negative review for it that made it sound really interesting, so I took another shot. As an ace person who is pretty steeped in nerd culture, I was really excited for a story sold as "two friends who were often in love -- but never lovers." To that end, I was not disappointed. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow delivered all the gaming nostalgia and a heart-tugging story about a different kind of love. However, there were elements of the book - especially the second half - that were tedious and, at least to me, undercut a lot of the first half seemed to build up to.

I thought that the characters - Sadie and Sam - were really well-rounded and flawed, but believable people. I was disappointed in the development of the character Marx, who felt most often like a plot device despite also appearing to be almost as significant as Sam and Sadie. Many of the tropes included about halfway through also felt unnecessary and I think a lot of the tension between Sadie and Sam could have happened without employing them. In general, I think Sadie's story was marred by too many gender-related difficulties. I know that being a woman in tech (now, but especially in the 90s) was difficult, but the bulk of the harm she experienced wasn't even related to her work, and I just wish we could have seen her face other issues.

The structure of the book was incredibly compelling - it is built around the vague idea that each "part" is its own game. Especially in the first half of the book, I could really feel the themes aligning with the structure of the book in an intriguing way. The story took a lot of turns in the second half that were just not for me (

miscommunication trope, two accidental pregnancy tropes for the same character, dead baby daddy, and just a general waste of what could have been a really enlightening use of the NPC chapter concept.

) and I do think it affected my reading. The execution of Part IV was by far my favorite use of the novel's video game structure, however, and made the closeout of the story more satisfying.

Overall, I think that Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow had great bones for a story, I just wish it had been a little shorter and/or that it had spent more time considering the significance of Marx. In a story about the complex ways that people can love one another, Marx was central to this, and making <spoilers>the NPC</spoilers> seemed more of an afterthought to be profound rather.

My final very small complaint is the little statement at the end about <spoilers>"this generation thinking their whole personality is their trauma." I am a millennial, so perhaps this very Gen X sentiment just isn't for me, but in 2022, the inclusion of this bit feels quite purposeful. It was said and largely abandoned, squeezed in at the end and unexplored. Why say something that significant and then end the book with "oh I guess maybe our trauma made us who we are too... or maybe not!" Trauma use colloquially often refers to 'the difficult things I have experienced in my life that give me perspective on the world and how I interact with it.' Perhaps this is nuanced, but it just felt quite dismissive and not necessary.</spoilers>

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chichisode's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

if a little life was less trauma porn and more of just "life happens to us and sometimes life means shit", also video games and just games in general. but we keep going. fucking cried when the reasoning behind the title was revealed on page. strong read for escapists— yes, even when you're not a gamer.

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charitytinnin's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-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

1.0

TL;DR:
This book has been celebrated as a book about lifelong friendship between a man and a woman. I see very little evidence of actual friendship here — at best, it’s a story of on/off colleagues; at worst, a story about a toxic friendship.

In depth thoughts:
I enjoyed the first part of this book so much. I mean, it had art and creativity, disability representation, a woman out to be the best in a sexist industry. And the marketing told me it was about a platonic friendship over decades! I was hooked.

And then Zevin killed off a lovely, supportive character needlessly. At least it seemed that way to me. It felt emotional manipulative the way that some Hoover, Picoult, and Sparks traumas are.

Unfortunately, by the end I’d fallen out of love. In addition to the death, I didn’t think the disability rep was handled super well. Still, I wanted to love the platonic messy friendship of it all. I wanted to.

But it felt like Zevin tried to cover too many different hard things/traumas (disability, abuse, assault, abuse of power, gun violence, death, depression, abortion, suicide — and these are just a few I remember off the top of my head; the entire CW list is massive) and those got in the way. I’m not saying real people can’t experience all those traumas, because they do. I just think it’s hard for an author to handle them all well.

Most importantly, at the end, I wasn’t sure I *should* want the friendship to last; it felt too dysfunctional, and I wondered if they’d be better off finding other connections. Which made me feel like I wasted emotional energy on something I shouldn’t have.

Maybe the problem with my experience is the marketing. Maybe Zevin didn’t set out to write a book about a platonic friendship that survives and upholds the MCs throughout decades, which is what I feel like was marketed. If, instead, she set out to write a story about two individuals who survive despite the trauma and dysfunctionally around them, that would’ve been more satisfying to me personally. I’d still say her MCs experience too much trauma for that page count, but I wouldn’t have been rooting for their friendship to pull them through …. (In some ways, it did, but I’m not sure it was in a healthy way.)

I know most everyone else loves this book. I wish I could see what others are seeing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

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owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

"Maybe it was the willingness to play that hinted at a tender, eternally newborn part in all humans. Maybe it was the willingness to play that kept one from despair."

A book that had so many lines I wanted to include here that I actually found it pretty hard to choose. Zevin has crafted such a wonderful piece of art. There are so many layers to this that I think I need to reread it almost immediately. The entire last third made me want to ugly cry. Every scene of this book was on the surface about moving its tightly-wound plot onward, yet simultaneously managed to further an extraordinary portrait of play, art, ethics, performance, love and sex, disability and illness, relationships and family. Zevin's ideas about these varied topics are finely painted, always finding room for levity, lightness, nuance and exploration. At the same time, the scenes that lean more heavily into these themes never feel like they lack depth. If anything, the lightness of touch here in everything from narrative voice to plotting to recurrent images and motifs felt carefully considered. I learned so much about the gaming world and its history which I have never really interacted with before. And yet most of all I feel the novel's important insights boiled down to how humans relate to and care for another. That despite everything, in the end, love can be very simple. The conversation with Dong Hyun near the ending of the book where he incredulously looks at Sam and says "Are you kidding? [...] Everything is funny now." Insane. I wanted to sob.

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