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

emotional sad slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

1.0

UPDATE: knocked it down a star due to plagiarism allegations regarding Brenda Romero’s 2009 board game, Train. “Solution” rips the concept and there’s no credit given to Romero in the acknowledgments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/03/24/train-board-game-brenda-romero-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow/

———————

I've taken a week to think about this review, but my mind remains unchanged—it was disappointing. I wanted to love it, especially since so many people told me that it was their favorite read of 2022/now in their list of top-ten favorite books, but I would personally prefer to forget that I read it.

Part of this is the story itself—I find it hard to believe that this is a book about friendship. I understand wanting flawed characters, no one is perfect, etc., but more often than not Sam and Saide straight-up hate each other. Constantly getting into arguments and not speaking for years, in my mind, is not friendship. Miscommunication as plot advancement is predictable at best and utterly frustrating at worst—moreover, it removes the realism of what's supposed to be a slice-of-life novel.

There are a number of instances that removed me from the story—the unnecessary thesaurus-chosen words, out-of-place anecdotes that don't fit the time period, Miles Davis being underground and "avant-garde," inconsistencies with Sam's injury.
There's a passage of him driving after he's had surgery. Unless he drives a manual, why would he use his left foot for the pedals?


Good:
The NPC chapter was beautifully written. Does it fit the book? No—it stands out as the response to a creative writing prompt, but it's done well.

Not Good:
Personally, I couldn't stand the Pioneers chapter. And I love Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing! I am the target demographic for that chapter, and it was a slog. The book was beyond overwritten at that point.
The first half was stronger than the second half. At one point, it gets deus ex machina and really just goes off the rails from there.
There were a lot of sociopolitical issues mentioned, but without resolve. It felt like a list of "oh, and this is an issue, too," but why? Get into the nitty-gritty of it. Otherwise it feels like a sideshow of racism, sexism, homophobia, abuse, and ableism. Especially regarding
Dov—I understand that there's a balance of writing his character casually because that's often how cycles of abuse are perpetuated and that, more often than not, abusers go on without consequence. But it would have been great to have some level of recourse. Especially, I don't know, maybe with Sam actually being a friend and not going to Dov? Asking Sadie what's going on instead of just noticing it and sweeping it under the rug? Again, it's hard to believe that they're supposed to be friends.


Not every book is for everyone, and this one isn't for me. I think the other side of the coin is that I've read a few other coming-of-age books recently (The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, and Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery). Obviously you can't compare these to Tomorrow because they are wholly different stories and settings, but they all are coming-of-age books, and that's where Tomorrow really fell flat for me. The character growth is nonexistent. Even
at the end, with a five-year time jump or whatever it was, Sam and Sadie are wholly unchanged. Even as flawed characters, how do you go half of your life without changing at all? Growing from experience? Learning how to communicate? Anything?


I also don't think this should be categorized as literary fiction—based on that, I expected something with deeper meaning, conceptual ideas, maybe a slight speculative fiction slant at times. I'd place Tomorrow somewhere between Young Adult and Adult fiction. More often than not, it read like a YA novel, which is fine if that's what you're expecting.

Also, hell, there should be a list of Content Warnings with this book.
Ableism, abuse, BDSM, cancer, car accident, death, death of a parent, gun violence, homophobia, mass shooting, medical trauma, sexism, suicide, racism, vomit, to name a few
. I tend to prefer books that let the reader infer what's going on, but Tomorrow just throws it all out there, often in an unsettling amount of detail. I would hate for someone to go into this book not knowing what CWs it entails and stumbling across something detrimentally triggering.

Overall, not the book for me. Frustrating, disappointing, and about 100 pages too long. I wish I could have read the book that a lot of other people seem to love. But the cover design is a 10/10, so it's got that.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings