Gabrielle Zevin just gave a masterclass in writing literary fiction. Tomorrow is truly one of the best books on my shelf and one that I can’t stop thinking about.

First, I want to talk about creativity. This novel is inextricably linked to the creative pursuit. It is about the relationship we have with our own creativity– however possessive, destructive, or “toxic” that may be. The characters in Tomorrow are video game developers and deeply creative thinkers. The hunt for your next best idea is one that all creatives encounter, and this drives Sam and Sadie’s characters throughout the novel. It feeds them. It brings them immense success and fills them with purpose. But it also damages their relationships and traps them in dangerous cycles of self-destruction. It giveth and it taketh away. Zevin’s depiction of the creative beast warns us never to lose ourselves in the work, and to remember why we love that work in the first place. 

Tomorrow is also about love. It is not a love story we have heard before, as the description assures, and that’s because Zevin reimagines what we know love to be. Sam and Sadie are, in my opinion, soulmates. But so are Sam and Marx, and Marx and Sadie, and so on and so forth. Love, in this book, is not simply romantic versus platonic. It is not a will they or won’t they. It is deep and meaningful and painful and destructive and in that way is profoundly similar to Zevin’s depiction of creativity. 

Lastly, this book is a game. It switches POVs and follows dream sequences. You often find yourself falling into a pipe and ending up in another world entirely. Zevin weaves in the world of gaming with her own writing in a way that makes the act of reading this book joyful and entertaining. Much like when I play video games, I felt myself getting lost in this world and coming out of it with sore eyes and no clue how many hours had passed. 

Tomorrow is the kind of book I want to dive back into. I have a feeling I will discover new shortcuts and passageways that I didn’t notice in the first run. Zevin’s was a novel that I want to play again and again.