Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
It’s the 80’s and video games are all the rage. Kids nag their parents for quarters and hitch a ride to the local arcade to play Pole Position, Donkey Kong, PAC Man and Tetris. For Sam and Sadie, fellow gamers, afternoons look a little different.
12-year-old Sam finds himself in the pediatric ward of a Los Angeles hospital, newly orphaned, mourning the loss of his beloved mother along with the shattering realization that his foot is ever changed. Meanwhile 11-year-old Sadie copes with her sister’s cancer diagnosis, exploring the rooms of the same hospital to find a possible preoccupation. The pair go on to meet in the hospital’s game room, where Sam opens up for the first time since his mother died.
I was happily surprised when I first encountered these two characters in section one of the novel, ‘Sick Kids’, seeing it as an innocent and wholesome way to start the novel. However, as the book and timeline progresses, I started to resent the characters, particularly Sadie and lose interest in what pulled me in in the beginning.
The novel advances to the characters reconnecting in Cambridge Mass. during their times at Harvard and MIT. Sam and Sadie are both studying computer science and share an interest in creating video games together. Sadie is pursuing a strange relationship with an older man named Dov and Sam is clearly interested in her. I find the relationship between Sadie and Dov very unimportant for the plot and just overall un-enjoyable to read. While the two main characters share some triumphant moments building their video game company and successful games like Ichago, the relationship between the two seems awkward and fabricated.
Additionally it feels like throughout the book Zevin adds unnecessary details, characters, and plot points where she could have dove deeper on the development of the two main characters this book was written about. This book would have been much more interesting if she focused more on the themes initially presented to the reader.
Reviewed by Teen Volunteer, 2/8/2026.