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bearbooktime 's review for:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the whole time i kept wishing the story dove deeper into the actual game-making. my review might not be fair because i was expecting something else from this book.
i would have loved to read about the intricacies of game development: the triumphs and failures, the technical challenges, dealing with a customer base, etc. and don't get me wrong, there is a lot of that in the book. however, it seemed to be written by someone that has not researched how games are developed or even someone that hasn't played the type of games that are mentioned in this book. the most eggregious example is the game set in theOld West, with a protagonist that seemingly has infinite dialogue choices, that can switch from selling books to hand-making board games and selling them. it seems the author did not really imagine how the game would realistically look. what are the parameters of the gameplay? from what we see, players can farm, they can open up stores and decide to sell hand-made board games, they can become optometrists..? as a game, that makes no sense. it just made the game design feel very convenient for the plot and not actually realistic.
in the second half of the book, the story takes a shocking turn, completely sidelining the game-making aspect of the plot, which was disappointing for me. the constant time jumps did not help in keeping my interest. you have something extremely crazy happen and then the book tries to give some backstory about a character. i found myself partially skipping some time jumps because the current timeline was left hanging in the middle and i just wanted to finish the arc before going on a tangent.
a lot of the book is also multiple character studies on people i did not like, using archaic language that i have never heard in my life. so out of place.
for example, what put me off the most was the details of the abusive and predatory relationship between Dov and Sadie. female programmers are already not really talked about in the game-dev world, choosing to make your female character have her "big break" partially because of the help of a creepy, repulsive male teacher is just... demoralizing. and he kept showing up until the very end, it was weird how he was not really framed as an awful person. i did not love Sam or Sadie as characters, they were quick to make assumptions about the other, and extremely bad at communicating. that made their relationship frustrating to read about and hard to root for them. it's like those movies where the entire conflict relies on a miscommunication that could be resolved with an hour-long honest conversation.
overall, i liked the game-making aspects of the book and i wish it laser-focused on that, instead of trying to show off stylized writing full of "deep" video-game metaphors (in a game... you can start over... but in real life... you only have one try...)
i would have loved to read about the intricacies of game development: the triumphs and failures, the technical challenges, dealing with a customer base, etc. and don't get me wrong, there is a lot of that in the book. however, it seemed to be written by someone that has not researched how games are developed or even someone that hasn't played the type of games that are mentioned in this book. the most eggregious example is the game set in the
in the second half of the book, the story takes a shocking turn, completely sidelining the game-making aspect of the plot, which was disappointing for me. the constant time jumps did not help in keeping my interest. you have something extremely crazy happen and then the book tries to give some backstory about a character. i found myself partially skipping some time jumps because the current timeline was left hanging in the middle and i just wanted to finish the arc before going on a tangent.
a lot of the book is also multiple character studies on people i did not like, using archaic language that i have never heard in my life. so out of place.
for example, what put me off the most was
overall, i liked the game-making aspects of the book and i wish it laser-focused on that, instead of trying to show off stylized writing full of "deep" video-game metaphors (in a game... you can start over... but in real life... you only have one try...)