Let me start by saying this is not your mother’s Colleen Hoover idyllic fantasy world romance novel.

This book goes much deeper than the genre of romance, and one may classify it as not a romance at all. It is instead a story about love, though, not to be confused with a love story. The difference between a love story and a story about love is, that the love story follows the same predictable formula where boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl get married etcetera etcetera.

Trust me I know, I have read over 10 of Colleen Hoover’s novels, and they all follow the same unseasoned plot line (with the exception of Verity?). So, if you are looking for a novel that is as much heart-gripping as it is lovely and poetic and as it is intelligent and creatively brilliant, you have landed in the right place. 

What is a story of love?

To preface, the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow begins as a delightful boy-meets-girl story that eventually evolves into a passionate and fiery friendship/partnership that spans over three decades. Throughout the book, the main characters’ friendship blooms as much as it writhes, and waxes as much as it wanes. It is a story of love that shows us how painful and sacrificial love can really be.

The premise of the book follows Sam and Sadie, partners, collaborators, and best friends since childhood who have a love for playing video games. As they grow older, they drift apart, but they reunite again in college where they decide to develop their own games. Following from their childhood and well into their late thirties, Gabrielle Zevin intricately hems together her knowledge of the art of video games and their creation, with her incredible talent for storytelling to create a masterful story of love between two people.

Zevin will make you feel the intense sadness, grief, joy, and insecurity of the characters as she leaves all the blood on the page. 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a masterwork. Zevin explores the fragility of relationships, the power of collaboration, and the basic human need for connection. This work will take you on a deeply thought-provoking journey that will make you question the rules and fears by which run your own life, and how to live when tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow inevitably follow.

Albeit it is a slow-to-start read, it is worth the wait.