Are you fond of online gaming? Do you take any interest in the world of video gaming? Are you also keen on understanding nuances of human relationships spanning multiple decades? Finally, do you dot on complicated confusing love stories? If you answer affirmatively to one or more of these questions then you have reached the right place by picking up this book. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin promises to fulfil your quests to understand all these topics and more.

The book starts in the 1990s when Sam Masur and Sadie Green accidentally bump into each other in Boston but the story kicks off in the 1980s when they meet each other first time in a paediatric hospital in Los Angeles. We get their back story that Sadie was there to visit her elder sister whereas Sam was admitted to get his crushed foot operated and healed. The traumatic event of losing his mother in a car crash which has led him to endure multiple surgeries on his feet, has also rendered him mute for weeks together. It is Sadie who manages to make him talk at least in bits and pieces when they both connect with their shared love of arcade gaming.

It is their shared fondness for gaming which restarts their long-lost friendship in New England where they both are studying in different Ivy League schools. Sam is studying math at Harvard and Sadie is enrolled into engineering at MIT. Sadie is fascinated by the world of gaming and enrols herself on a workshop conducted by a famed gaming programmer called Dov. What game she designs as a class project eventually finds its way to Sam and she asks him to playtest it. Once he and his almost-a-brother best friend Marx test this game, they are immediately hooked on the potential of designing innovative video games with Sadie.

What starts as a college project eventually turns into a successful venture. But as readers, we get a glimpse of what goes behind the scenes of the glamorous world of gaming. We can see how Sam toils ill health and physical limitations to see his first game come to life, we get to admire Sadie’s brilliance in transitioning all the nuances from paper to pixel and we also get to fascinate with Marx’s dedication to his friends. Their efforts pay off and their adventure turns into a full-time career which shapes their lives in more ways than one.

The novel feels all geeky and technical till the fatal scene in the office takes place and this curveball takes the story in a different direction altogether. In a way, the story becomes more humane by adding the elements of empathy, mental health struggles, trauma and love. That last enduring feeling is the one which brings this multilevel and multidimensional story to a satisfactory end.

We all can see why progressives and Gen Z have adored this book with its characters coming from diverse racial and economic backgrounds, the evolution of technology reflected in the gaming revolution and a coming-of-age love story; indeed it ticks all the marks. 

My only regret about this tedious and complicated storyline is that it lacks depth in certain places, making it difficult for a lay reader to resonate with its vivid characters. If you can ignore a few of these flaws then definitely it’s surely worth your time. Get this today, today and today to add to your summer reading list.