Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I really fell off the reading-book-train towards the end of last year and it continued into the beginning of this year a little bit. I read a couple books for my literature class in the Fall term but not much and not for fun. So reading/listening to Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was almost like a breath of fresh air again. I had forgotten how nice it was to fall into a book's world, especially a YA novel haha.

I liked Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (god there must be a good acronym people are using for this title). I had seen its cover all over the place—all the young tech workers have it out every time they're on the muni I swear. To be honest, I avoided it a little bit for that reason, I didn't want the first book I read to be a overhyped YA novel. Eventually I got over it I guess and just started listening to it on my runs. The writing was good, the characters developed well. I think it talks about a lot of interesting topics. Games, specifically game development, is a topic I enjoy so +1, though, to be fair, the video game metaphors did get used perhaps a tad too many times. And then there's also a lot life as an asian american, or mixed-race american. Furthermore, I think Zevin did a really great job writing about grief, loss, and emotins in general. Things felt real, even if they were annoying at times.

There were times when I was left wanting, and I'm not sure if I should be attributing it to my poor hearing, or if it was meant for dramatic effect. Though the story is almost always in third-person, it takes the perpectives of multiple characters such that we're able to hear and understand their thinking. It's in some of these cases that I think they have misunderstandings? But then I also get slightly confused. To be fair, I think it only happened once or twice so it didn't really affect the story.

Overall, I think it was a great read. Fun, with a satisfying ending. The idea of a platonic soulmate or life-long partner is one that's personally compelling.

Quotes

“But it is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it.”

“Friendship,” Marx said, “is kind of like having a Tamagotchi.”

“Sadie, do you see this? This is a persimmon tree! This is my favorite fruit." Marx picked a fat orange persimmon from the tree, and he sat down on the now termite-free wooden deck, and he ate it, juice running down his chin. "Can you believe our luck?" Max said. "We bought a house with a tree that has my actual favorite fruit!" Sam used to say that Marx was the most fortunate person he had ever met - he was lucky with lovers, in business, in looks, in life. But the longer Sadie knew Marx, the more she thought Sam hadn't truly understood the nature of Marx's good fortune. Marx was fortunate because he saw everything as if it were a fortuitous bounty. It was impossible to know - were persimmons his favorite fruit, or had hey just now become his favorite fruit because there they were, growing in his own backyard? He had certainly never mentioned persimmons before.”