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

reflective slow-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

2.5

I'm going to be honest--this book is a slog and it suffers under the weight of its own attempted profundity.

The beginning of this story feels like reading something by Jason Schreier, who is a great writer but not apt for character pieces like this. And it is only downhill from there in terms of storytelling. (And in terms of utilizing video games as a narrative tool. Using video games to describe sex was an odd choice and not one executed well. Same with using "You're a gamer" to help comfort someone traumatized about a death they witnessed.) This book feels like it constantly wants to hide information and use it later for plot twists or clarification but this doesn't work when it uses (and abuses) perspectives from both Sam and Sadie (and sometimes Marx); so, instead, it just uses jumps forward and backwards in time to slowly unleash new information that every character knew but the reader does not. It feels cheap and often aggravating because the "new" information rarely slots in well with the older perspectives. For a book about video games, it should know how to retcon better.

And this feels like a larger symptom of what is wrong with this book--this book wants to overexplain everything and then begs you if you noticed. Very much like a 12 year old trying out a comedy routine only to ask you "Did you get it?" after each joke, only instead every "deep" scene or moment of symbolism is shortly followed up by someone just bluntly saying the point to really drive it home. This book thinks it's so deep it needs to hold your hand to bring you to the point, only for the point to have been very obvious and somewhat mundane the entire time.

And sometimes, the attempts to be deep and truly "literary" are so blatant, it pulls you completely out of the narrative. The ongoing saga of The Anna Lees, the abortion reveal that had zero narrative oomph, or the Pac Man scene about death. It feels silly. It feels overwrought.

And yet things like Sam and Sadie's (and Marx's) relationship feels undeveloped despite being the central focus. The foundation of their relationship is left vague--we know the details but not the conversations--and yet we watch them fight for and give up their relationship and are expected to care, even when the new reason for falling out is just suddenly dropped in and expected to be taken seriously. I never knew why I should care besides going these deeply lonely people are codependent and then not codependent. Okay, and?

This book is just telling me things and expecting me to care. And then telling me the same thing but more bluntly, expecting me to care more. I never did. I feel like the author handed me what she thought was a gold bar but then I knocked on it and it was hollow.

Every character felt flat, like they would flex to become whatever the narrative needed in that moment. They got worst, just to amp up drama, and by the end the main two felt quite loathsome and also quite dull. Some narrative flourishes like the shift in perspective and storytelling helped distract from this book-cratering issue and helped pick up the pace but ultimately this book left me unsatisfied.

It tried to be too many things for too many people and ultimately ended up not being a lot. It had a lot of small observations to make along the way but I wasn't wowed by it's conclusive statements.

Also, I do not think Zevin has played a video game or knows how video games work.

Which wasn't its gravest sin but was maybe emblematic of how this book bit off more than it can chew. 
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