I feel I shouldn’t have loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

I read this book for my local Book Club, and I must say it is the only book I've managed to actually read to the end among the last five books I picked up. I've had a tough year, and most of the times I would be too depressed to get my attention into a book, but with TTT, I was able to finish it — it was a light read.

But when I think back, I can say a lot of negatives about the book.

• The book was painstakingly long. It didn't have to be.
• Sam's mom moving cities because they witnessed a suicide was silly.
• Marx's character was too good to be true, I mean no one can be THAT understanding ALL the time.
• Sadie blaming Sam when it was she who CHOSE to get back into a relationship with Dov is crazy.
• Sam NEVER telling Sadie that he was in pain, and that it was the reason he couldn't come in to work frustrates me and Sadie NEVER even guessing that it could be reason is a bigger disappointment.
• Sam not feeling the least bit guilty about taking Marx for granted, and dissing him in conversations with Sadie, ESPECIALLY not even after Marx died, is puzzling. Sam always introspects so much throughout the book, did he really no remorse about Marx?
• The book touched SO many tropes without fully exploring 90% of them. It was almost insult to introduce some topics without taking it anywhere. Mass shootings. Gay marriage. Gender bias. Sexual abuse. It seemed like they were all included for the sake of it.
• Sadie victimized herself in situations were she could have very easily advocated for herself. If she didn't want Sam to publicize the game so much, she must have joined him. She should have expressed to Sam that he should try harder at making the audience realise that she had put in most of the technical work. I understand that it was not easy, and that story was not set in 2025, so I can't possible know how it was for her… But at the very least, I think she could have done a lot more than she did in this story, when it comes standing up for herself. My book club folks even thought that Sadie was not a good representation of women in tech, and I agree.

And yet, I did not hate this book. I quite enjoyed reading.>! I suppose the writing style grew on me. The going back and forth between past and present was great, but what I liked even more was the "no BS" style. When you're telling a story across decades, you have to speed up and slow down constantly, and pick which parts of the story you want to go in detail, and which ones in brief. I love that the transition in between these parts was dealt with very smoothly. It seldom felt abrupt or out of place.!<

I learnt a great deal about how games work, and how they're made.>! I do hear that gaming industry doesn't exact work this way, but I wouldn't know. This story seems to be a good entry point to me –!< I'm not a gamer, and it's definitely got me intrigued.

And ofcourse, the wordplay was sometimes clever. References between games and real life, especially between Sadie and Sam, were sometimes well-written. Emphasis on the "sometimes" because other times, it seemed like a bit much. There were words that felt out of place – I looked them up and thought WHO USES THIS WORD.

But all in all, I enjoyed reading it,>! and maybe thats what matters? Should we rip a story apart and analyze everything that is wrong with it? Maybe all the flaws I mentioned above, I'm deep down okay with them because it just shows they're troubled characters. Maybe Marx supressed his pain, and never showed it on his friends. Maybe Sadie was battling with some form of depression the whole time, which clouded her judgement. Maybe Sam indeed was narcissistic and didn't even know it himself. Dov was abusive, but no woman stood up to him and explained to him why the things he did were wrong — I don't think Sadie did!!<

Infact, a part of me thinks that>! I did not find it too disturbing that Sadie victimized herself, because it is in my nature to do that. I tend to crib, and draw attention to my problems, when often there is something more constructive I can do about it. !<And this is probably what got me to write this post — I feel like I shouldn't really have liked this book.