Contemporary Fiction Review: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Summary: I loved getting to know the characters in this book, although I had hoped for something a little happier.

I really loved Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry but I didn’t think much of Young Jane Young. When I saw her new book was about a pair of friends who come together after a misunderstanding to make a computer game, this setup grabbed me enough that I was excited to give it a try. It ended up being somewhere inbetween the other two books for me, but definitely captured a lot of the magic I saw in Fikry.

My favorite part of this book is how well we get to know the characters. I love that the book is 400 pages long. I love that we meet the characters in college and follow them into their 30s, with flashbacks to their earlier years. I love the discursive writing style, with long sentences and long paragraphs that feel like the way the characters would think. Sometimes it felt like the characters were overthinking things in a way that I related to. We got to know so many details about these characters – their quirks, insecurities, creative processes. It was really moving to follow them over the years and see how they changed. The way the author used different formats to capture the emotional core of the story she was telling also worked for me.

The main thing that I didn’t love about this book is that it felt a bit darker than Fikry. Both dealt with tough topics, but I think the previous book still managed to feel cozy. This book was more bittersweet, showing that some things can end up broken beyond repair. The initial discussions about gaming among the characters also felt a little cutesy, like the author was trying too hard to show us that they were games. That improved as the book went on though, with the characters’ experience with games becoming better integrated into the story.

Revisiting this book as I write my review, it’s clear to me that the good far outweighed the bad. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 star read for me is that I wanted and expected something happier – not really the fault of the book! It was a lovely experience to read and I definitely recommend it.

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