"We were together. You must know that. When I'm honest with myself, the most important parts of me were yours."

There aren't many novels that are truly about friendship in all its joy and complication, and there especially aren't many novels where the two best friends don't become lovers. However, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an exception!! Sam and Sadie's story is truly so powerful, and the author brilliantly unveils how their friendship changes over the course of three decades. 

Zevin manages to cover several important themes - identity, disability, trauma, gender inequality, fear, art, love, success to name a few - without it being too much or too messy. Her prose reads so smoothly, and lets the reader connects the dots so she doesn't have to over-explain. My favourite thing about the book, though, was the characters. They were so well fleshed out, and they felt like real people to me. I felt so connected to them throughout the story and it felt like they were taking me on their journey as well (RIP Marx, you were my favourite and I love you 😭). I was angry at them all at different points, but then I felt bad for them, and sometimes I really related to them. 

I also think I gained a new perspective on gaming from this book! I'm not a gamer by any means, and I kind of had a negative view of it in general due to its negative effects on the human brain and the role it plays in desensitization to violence. However, after I read this I feel I have a bit more insight into why people enjoy playing games so much. In some ways, if you think about it, it's like reading, except you're kind of controlling the book lol. There's a narrative that you're following, different characters which impact that narrative, different worlds you can escape to, dialogue, music (sometimes), etc. It's an immersive experience which can also be a way to socialise. The way that Sam, Sadie and Marx cared so much about their games and how they translated their life experience into their games was really interesting to read about, because I had never thought about game designers or video games as an avenue to do that. The gaming industry can still be problematic, but it's not all bad. 

I think the only reason this wasn't 5 stars is because I didn't love the ending. It didn't give me THE 5 star feel, and it felt a tad rushed. Also, the part where the writing becomes super abstract because it switches from the real world to inside the game kind of took me out of the story, and I was just wishing I could go back to reading about Sam and Sadie. I wish they had talked more towards the end, or at least been a bit more honest with each other. I know that it did wrap up nicely because they told each other they loved each other and all, but I don't know. Lots of their fights over the years were not ever really resolved, just forgotten. I felt like something was missing, though I don't know exactly what. 

Also, this was kind of a small thing in the grand scheme of the novel, but I thought that Dov's characterisation was very strange. He's a creep professor who dates his student, Sadie, and abuses her throughout their relationship, but after the relationship ends, it was all just kind of forgotten. Dov and Sadie are still friends, and they treat the fact that he sleeps with younger girls and was a shit boyfriend as a little oopsie haha funny, when it's actually just awful and wrong. Maybe this is because the book is set in the early 2000s, but I still didn't like it. 

This book was quite the emotional rollercoaster, but I would definitely recommend it!