Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Published 2022 · 417 pages · 133,210 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow to read?

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow scores 45 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 42 out of 100
Literary prose enriched with gaming terminology—NPCs, world-building, rendering—and cultural references spanning the 1980s through 2010s. Zevin writes for readers who appreciate both games and literature.
Sentence structure: 45 out of 100
Varied sentence structure with moments of lyricism distinguishes this from genre fiction. Zevin has literary ambitions; her prose rewards attention.
Abstraction: 50 out of 100
Explores creativity, collaboration, disability, identity, and love through Sam and Sadie's decades-long relationship. The novel is emotionally and intellectually engaging.
Information density: 48 out of 100
Game development details, cultural history, and two intertwined lives across decades create moderate density. The novel rewards readers who engage with its world.
Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
Third-person narration shifts between Sam and Sadie, with neither fully reliable about the other. The central relationship is seen from both incomplete perspectives.
Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
Games become symbols of collaboration, escapism, and art-making. Ichigo's multiple identities mirror the characters' self-creation; disability and embodiment carry thematic weight.
Ironic distance: 38 out of 100
Zevin maintains literary distance while delivering genuine emotional payoffs. The novel is smart about its characters without being cold toward them.
Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
Sam and Sadie's relationship remains unresolved in conventional terms. The ending earns its ambiguity through accumulated understanding.
Structural complexity: 48 out of 100
Decades-spanning narrative with alternating perspectives. The game-inspired chapter titles and structure add literary interest; the novel is more ambitious than genre fiction.

How Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is regarded

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow holds a literary regard score of 43 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (247 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow scores 63 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.3. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
Sam Masur at age twenty-one did not have a build for pushing and shoving
Symbol: Formal
Mapletown General Hospital was based on every hospital he’d ever stayed in
Mythos: Comedy iv (comedy iv)
Every time I run into you for the rest of our lives, I’ll ask you to make a game with me.
Genre: Novel + Anatomy
Dark and Dirty High School Love Tunnels

Where the story of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes place

  • Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard/MIT), 1993-1997 (1993 to 1997), the main setting
  • New York, then Los Angeles and its children's hospital, 1984-1988 (1984 to 1988)
  • Venice and Silver Lake, Los Angeles: Unfair Games, 1999-2007 (1999 to 2007)
  • Cambridge, Los Angeles and New York, 2009-2012 (2009 to 2012)
  • Friendship, the Oregon Trail-style virtual world of Pioneers

5 things that are true of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, with the passage for each

  1. When Sam first meets Sadie he tells her his foot is broken in twenty-seven places.

    My foot is broken in twenty-seven places.

  2. Sadie's hospital community-service project with Sam totalled 609 hours, plus four hours on the first day.

    Their friendship amounted to 609 hours, plus the 4 hours of the first day

  3. Simon and Ant were the 211th couple to be married in San Francisco on the day of their wedding.

    Four hours later, Simon and Ant were the 211th couple to be married that day.

  4. Marx is shot three times in the thigh, chest and shoulder.

    you have surmised that you have been shot three times: in the thigh, in the chest, in the shoulder.

  5. A Donkey Kong cabinet weighs about three hundred pounds, according to the narrator.

    A Donkey Kong cabinet weighs approximately three hundred pounds.

Scenes in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow that Frye would name

42 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Pathos, untitled
“Mom,” he said to the still-warm body next to him, “it hurts.” Anna's death in the Mulholland car crash that cripples Sam's foot.
Sparagmos, untitled
Red Bandanna fires the five bullets in his round. One hits Ant—you don’t know where. Three hit you. The lobby shooting, which tears the body of the company's gentlest member.
Pathos, untitled
“It’s okay, Marx,” Sadie says. “You can let go.” Marx's death scene, surrounded by family and a thousand paper cranes.
Anagnorisis, untitled
emilybmarxx: Cut the crap. Samson, is it you? Be honest, for once in your life. Sadie recognizes that Dr. Daedalus in Pioneers is Sam, the pivot of the final act.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Ichigo is about a boy who has been lost at sea, but it’s also about a mother who has lost her child. Sadie finally reveals the hidden abortion and the true meaning of Ichigo, reorienting the feud.
Cognitio, untitled
“I can see it,” Sam said. “It’s a bird.” Sam finally sees the Magic Eye image, a comic recognition that restores the friendship.

Books that share these scenes with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

About the author

Gabrielle Zevin