2024~31 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin. 2022.

This is the best book I have read in a long time and I absolutely could not stop reading it, while also knowing while I was reading it that I didn't want it to end.  Even during the weird Part IX that doesn't go with the rest of the book's style, I was so drawn in that I was confident it was going to eventually tie back in and be worth it.

A rare story about friendship, I just don't understand how this is shelved in "romance."  While the characters have romantic relationships, this book is about deep, long term, complex relationships amidst the pain of grief and loss, illness and disability, and outgrowing relationships.  The main characters are gamers and then game developers---with their lives are consumed by their shared passion for their work, which is also their play.  We watch them go from the youngest geniuses in the room to the oldest ones.  

Since I was born within an year of the main characters, it was just so much fun to walk through their story, which is so steeped in technology and the evolution of technology, knowing exactly what those limits were at the time.  The worlds was so different before cell phones when you couldn't get in touch with someone and the ways in which those differences are weaved into this story, along with all of the games I grew up playing gave the story rich emotional depth for me.  

I loved how one character compares friendship to a tamagotchi-- you have to pay attention to it every day or it will die.  And so much of this story revolves around how video games are and are not like real life.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, just like a video game.  Shouldn't we be able to do back to the safe point and try again, have a do-over.  This idea that when someone dies, we yearn to have a do-over, but also just anytime we do something that results in a less than ideal outcome.  The characters are so obsessed with Mario Bros at one point in the late 80's, that if they miss even a single coin, they would immediately restart the level.  As I read, I felt so much melancholia for the characters wanting to do that, but also reflecting on the ways in which I wish I could go back to the save point and start over.

Everything in this story relates life to video games.  A theory about child rearing and not wanting or guiding your child to be someone they aren't is to not get attached to the details of a new game project you are working on too early because that will just cut off the flow of ideas and stunt the potential of the game.  You have to just see where it organically goes first.  A theory about grief is that our brains create an AI version of those we love and when they are gone, your mind is tricked into thinking they are still here for a while.  But over time, the coding gets old and the hardware becomes obsolete until the high resolution, 3-D virtual rendition of them fades until it is just a black and white photo, without sound or smell or feel.  

There has been some push back against this book for its depiction of the relationship between a professor and a student that is abusive.  The criticism seems to be that the relationship is "normalized" in the book and, for sure, at the time the relationship is happening, the character in the relationship believes it is consensual and the other characters ignore it in large part, but if you finish the book, it is clear that with maturity, that is not how they situation that relationship in retrospect.  I think the way the author handles this issue is quite realistic and sophisticated.  I appreciated the nuance brought the topic, which clearly depicted not only how it was playing out at the time, but how the various people involved created narratives that allowed them to cope with the situation.

I love a book full of new ways to think about life and this one brought that, along with a wallop of emotion, initially in small moments, but ultimately in big waves.

I didn't realize until after I finished the book and looked up the author, that she is the author of another of my favorite books: The Storied Life of A.K. Fikry, which you can purchase here.
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Highly recommend.  

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