A review by cndillon17
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

TLDR: poor character arcs, lackluster plot, unlikeable characters, toxic friendship

“Because we never say anything real to each other. We play games and we talk about games and we talk about making games and we don’t know each other at all.”

That quote, from the FMC Sadie, sums up the main characters’ relationship. I thought we were going to get this amazing friendship spanning years, maybe with fallouts but growth and understanding. Instead, we get a toxic friendship with very little substance besides their love of playing and creating games. There was never anything to show a depth of friendship beyond that. 

Sadie was an extremely unlikeable character. She didn’t want to take responsibility for anything. She would get mad at Sam for supposedly taking over and taking credit, but she never did anything to put herself out there. She wasn’t there for Sam when he needed her and then didn’t allow him to be there for her later on. 

Sam wasn’t much better. He was closed off and could have a superior attitude. I also felt the disability rep was done poorly. 

Marx was the only redeeming character. I genuinely liked him and felt he was decent and mature, at least more so than Sam and Sadie. (Besides a few side characters that didn’t have enough story time to count.) The way his story wrapped up was, again, unnecessary and did nothing to move the plot forward or develop the characters. 

Despite what the synopsis says, if you aren’t a gamer or don’t know much about them, you won’t enjoy this. There is SO much talk about gaming and most of it really didn’t need to be in the book. It did nothing for the story line. 

Also, lists. There were so many times things would be listed and it just went on and on. “This and this and this and this and this…”

I felt like the author had an SAT dictionary beside her. Some of the words used were unnecessary, pretentious, and drew me from the story. I am also traumatized by the cylindrical chamber of blood sponges. IYKYK. 

Dov. He never went away. His character and the relationship with Sadie added nothing to her character development. There was nothing about her healing from his abuse and he still shows up at the end of the story! 

Honestly, I felt like a lot of things that happened to the characters didn’t contribute to their arc. 400 pages isn’t a long book (for me) but this book could have been cut in half without the needless side stories, flashbacks, and plot points that did nothing to move the story forward. 

Normally, I’d have DNF’d but with all the rave reviews, I just kept thinking it had to get better. When I finally realized it probably wouldn’t, I figured I might as well finish it. The only reason it gets two stars is because I DID finish it. 





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