Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 

I haven't bought a book on my Kindle for so long that... I can no longer buy books on my Kindle! (But it's okay, I can buy them through my phone and they download to the Kindle -- phew!) But I was driven to it in this instance after another glowing book group recommendation (thanks, Pam); I tried to reserve it at the library but found myself at the back of a queue of 89. Clearly this book is doing something very right.

Well, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is terrific. I have read her early novel Elsewhere, which had a killer premise and was also very successful. T&T&T is more realist but it also took me into a world I know absolutely nothing about -- the world of gaming (a place I know only hazily through watching Silicon Valley and Mythic Quest). But you don't need to know anything about playing or creating online games to appreciate this story of long and complicated friendship and love -- not romantic love -- between Sadie and Sam. It perfectly captures the particular joy of creative collaboration.

I can't remember the last time a book made me cry, but there was one chapter of T&T&T that had me weeping, possibly because it reminded me of my friend Sandra. It was beautiful and so unbearably moving, it was worth buying that book for that chapter alone. But this novel is funny and sad and fascinating, and I predict that all those 89 people in the queue will judge it's worth the wait.

Unexpected links: T&T&T and Silence of the Girls both contain references to the Greek hero Hector; T&T&T and Gravity is the Thing (more later) both contain references to Magic Eye puzzles.