Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

I'm giving this book a reluctant five stars simply beucase I absolutely adore it despite its noticeable flaws. It was written so well, it's feels so good to read like I'm drinking warm soup. The vibes were extremely comforting and rich. Forgiving some unsatisfactory things like lacking plot (which is super ture to life) but in a way where I didn't feel as engaged around the 50-60% as well as the romantic relationships feeling rather weak and shallow and at one point including straight up physical and sexual abuse and the guy who did it is just chilling around for the whole book and they mention it for a couple one-off jokes. But despite those few things, this story is just so admirable and charming, yet terribly heart aching and depressing, all while being uplifting and comforting, as well as Introspective and transforming. Long story short, I fucking loved this book. And I want to play some games.

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samglade's review against another edition

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emotional 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

2.75

Please check the list of content warnings before reading this book, if you have any triggers at all - it throws a lot of dark elements at the reader offhandedly, without much buildup.
While I enjoyed the nuanced characters and their relationships, my enjoyment of the book was spoiled by some of the choices the author has made. The author decided on a style heavy on clinical, excessive details (e.g. a list of video game merchandise on a shelf having over 20 items, comma-separated), which betrayed that she is not a tech person and the incorrect usage of technical terms was jarring. More importantly, it felt like she was ticking off all the dark themes she could think of from the list of possible content warnings, all packed into the lives of three individuals. For shock value? I can't tell why it was needed. Given how the story was progressing, I was genuinely surprised that miscarriage wasn't used as a cherry on top.

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specialinterestbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.75

The only reason it’s not a 5/5 is that I think the structure could be a little confusing. I listened to it in audiobook form and it feels like a book created for audio.

I can’t stop thinking about The NPC - an incredibly well written literary short story slotted perfectly into the novel.

Creating a short story (of such high quality) that both works as a standalone and adds to the narrative of the novel requires incredible technical writing skills.

One of the best novels I’ve read in a long time from a technical writing perspective.

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lindsayd's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-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

It's intricate and emotional and compelling but not my thing. I wish I had checked content warnings before reading. I also wonder about the role/perspective of the narrator. At some times they feel like a journalist with excerpts of contemporary sources and at other times they are much too intimate to be.

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