Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

I read this book fairly quickly, and except for some long tangents of telling rather than showing and some wild word choices, I enjoying the writing. But I found myself on a rollar coaster of "wow this is great, I like this!" to cringing at how badly these characters communicate and how off some of the gaming references are.

It's obvious the game development process stuff was well researched. I found myself really enjoying Marx's perspective as a games producer myself. however, the game dev "lingo" and the games they brought up in context were off or didn't make sense for the time (or even the character's personalities). The author researched game dev history, and design, but it seemed like she didnt actually talk to many developers, and it showed.

The MMO segment at the end was particularly weird from a player perspective - nobody pretends like they arent playing a game unless theres some REALLY stringent RP going on, rare in a full online game unless you have friends you actively slchoose to do it with.

I found any and all mentions of sex in this book to feel far too clinical. It made sense sometimes for Sadie and Sam's over-intellectual povs, but even from Marx who is an emotionally intelligent and loving person, any POV of sex felt completely stripped down of emotion. The scenes felt so impersonal they may have well been omitted, esp when they were one-off sentences of "they had sex." But of course, we get the excruciating physical and emotional details when Sadie is sexually abused by Dov. Make it make sense

This is a personal hangup, but I couldn't get behind was the fact that Sadie kept Dov in her life the entire time. I understood needing to keep the professional relationship for Ichigo, at least at first. But how the is the game that your abuser made your COMFORT GAME? and you're still GETTING BRUNCH with him 10 years later?!? and he gives her that teaching position... it just makes me absolutely sick and soured my perception of Sadie. I wanted to root for her, but between some "not like other girls"-isms and her inability to work on her mental health in any capacity, I just couldn't after a while. And I liked Sam as a character alone, but his obsessive friendship /romantic tension with Sadie was too toxic for me to end up rooting for in the end.

There were some beautiful lines in this book, some sentiments about life and friendship, and my chosen career that truly moved me. but the relationships between the characters ultimately left me wanting more resolution.

Marx was the emotional heart of this book for me in the end. His second-person chapter reduced me to tears. tbh, that chap alone is why I am giving this a 2.75 instead of 2.

Content Warnings