'TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW'.....FOR ONCE, THE HYPE IS DEAD ON

 

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

           Sorry to be away from posting so long......another long weary week of travelling between doctor to doctor and other family matters.

            Instead of the usual litany of depressing current events in a "Weekend Madness Wrap-up", we thought we'd tell you all about one the best, hottest books of the year. And believe it or not, this time all the delirious reviews and blurbs aren't a load of crap. 

            This one's the real deal.

          What an amazing, wonderfully ambitious and deftly written book.. It's an expansive story that follows the lives of three brilliant young people who, in a relatively short period of time (from college to their mid-30's) experience a tumultuous epic life journey.

            And it's a grand full menu of what these characters go through........crushing heartbreak, lifelong friendships kindled, demolished and then rebuilt, all the ups and downs of romantic relationships, the 360 turns between achieving fabulous success and then crushing failure........and lastly, the surviving of what fate sometimes cruelly hands out with a terrible randomness.

           Sam and Sadie, once childhood friends driven apart by misunderstanding, connect again as college students. Their own technical brilliance and gifted creativity lead them to create and design a groundbreaking stunner of a video game that captures the world's imagination. Marx, their somewhat rogue-ish, freewheeling friend, joins them as their lifelong producer and business partner

            Thus a powerhouse trio is born, with Sam and Sadie now forced to deal with the tensions, pressures and rivalries of suddenly becoming gaming world legends at the very start of their careers.

And Sam, who's struggled through a lifelong physical disability since childhood, must also cope and suffer through a repressed, equally lifelong unspoken love of Sadie, who's endured her own strange, turbulent relationship with Dov, her college professor and mentor..

            This is the kind of novel to lose yourself in completely, to laugh, ache, cheer and cry along with the three lead characters. And while we've never been a gamer or had the slightest interest in games, the book's skill at bringing that unique world to life makes for fascinating reading - the meticulous amount computer science, artistry, storytelling and marketing savvy to go into a game's creation, along with the accompanying blood, sweat and tears of its makers.

           Through the entire length of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow", Gabrielle Zevin's prose never fails to incisively hone in on her people and their all too human flaws with devastating perception.........and even, at times with some marvelous deadpan wit.

         So for anyone looking for THE book of the year,,......the kind of book you'd be thinking and talking about long after finishing it, this one more than earns its rep as a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.