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

2.0

Eeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh... I dunno... I just was NOT a fan of this!!!!

Okay to be fair... I hate video games. I always die in them, I find them overwhelming with all the graphics and music, and levels... and thus, I find them boring and I don't like them. I extract absolutely no pleasure from playing video games. So, the fact that I read a book about video games is my fault.

But the hype... people hyped this book. And I liked The Storied Life of AJ Fikry! I liked it a lot! So, I thought, okay I hate video games but I really liked AJ Fikry so, maybe I will enjoy this...

Blech. The entire book and story fell incredibly flat to me. The alternative title should be "This book starts out cute but in the end, absolutely nothing interesting happens, although there is one twist in the middle which, is sad, but does absolutely nothing for the character development or plot and also... all of the characters are pretty boring and have basic personalities that don't contribute to anything at all: the most interesting thing is that the characters are Asian so, it adds an "ethnic twist" I guess, but, again, the fact of their race has nothing to do with the story, plot, or characters' personalities so, I kinda think the author just threw it in the book so it wasn't a story about more white people because that's supposedly not "cool" anymore, I guess..."

Maybe that title would have been too long for the cover, though.

I also felt that Zevin just tried to cover way too many things in one book. Less would have been more. She threw in the date of December 5 (or 4th or something, I cannot remember) and never actually referenced the date or why it was previously mentioned when the thing happened... so, she made it a big deal at first but then the thing happened and there was zero build up or climactic feeling at its occurrence. She brought in a bit of classic poetry, there was some element of Japanese, Korean, and Jewish heritages but she gave us nothing to care about regarding that factor, there was a person with a disability, a rare female in 1990's video game world, a gay couple... it was like she was trying to hit all current affairs in one book with one set of characters but she thought it would seem more edgy since the story is set in the early 90's and 2000's. Except it was just too much at once and nothing was meaningful.

Why does this book have 4 stars? This is why I do not trust internet book reviews. This book should not have 4 stars.

I give it 2 stars because I finished it and didn't throw it across the room, but also, I really couldn't wait for it to end so... 2 stars.

https://youtu.be/kKcTryIs0po