Yes, I Liked: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Plus a look back AND a look forward YWR #104
What’s up, 2023ers, and welcome back to another edition of Your Weekend Reading wherein we Review a book! We Recap the year in reading! We make book Resolutions!
… yes, you’re correct. It may be a new year, but you’ll need more than the Baby New Year to pry the same old alliteration techniques from my clutches. We must embrace our shadow selves, after all.
First off! Let’s blaze into 2023 by talking about … a book that everyone, and I mean everyone, read last year. What can I say? I am not an early adopter.
But perhaps a few of you are like me, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has languished at, like, number #127 on your library holds, a lifetime away, until a kind book benefactor takes pity and sends the actual! entire! book! (you’re the best, Jeff). And perhaps you’re wondering if it’s worth it?
Reader, it is. I enjoyed the heck out of this book.
Power summary: Sam and Sadie are childhood friends who reunite again in college, who go on to create a blockbuster video game. Over the course of 30 years, they grow together and apart as friends, as creators, and as partners, over and over, through successes and devastations.
On it’s surface, it seems like a fairly traditional setup, right? (Boy meets girl! Boy loses girl! Rinse and repeat!) But within that framework, everything about this felt fresh, deeply imaginative and powerfully beautiful, to me. It evokes nostalgia for not just an actual time (90s/00s) but even more so the various stages we go through from childhood to college to young love to grief.
This novel also tackles very well-trodden subjects of man-woman relationships, yes; but also of art, and what it requires; and the body, and how it surprises us. Yet it adds a creative wrist flick to present an entirely new suggestion of, and appreciation for, new ways that these things can exist.
It’s smartly written with luscious sentences and peppery literary references that never feel show-offy nor inaccessible. Plus, most of her characters are not all that likeable and yet you still feel deeply for them! How, Miss Gabrielle? Normal People wishes it was this book.
Across the bookosphere, this is one of those “loved it!” or “ugh, snore” books, but for me - I’m firmly in the former camp. If you read it, let me know what you think in the comments!
2022 By the Numbers
In the calendar year 2022, I read 145 books. Obsessive escapism much?
Broken down, I improved on my diversity of reading, but really only if going from “extremely” to “very very” unbalanced counts as improvement. To wit:
73% of books were fiction (vs last year’s 80%)
59% were written by women (vs last year’s 65%)
25% were written by people of color (vs last year’s 21%)
If you missed it, see my favorite reads from 2022 here and here (plus honorable mentions here). And if you want to know my least favorite book that I actually finished, if you WANT to invite that negativity into your life, well, I’m intrigued by your feistiness. Skip to the end for the reveal!
My 2023 Book Goal(s)
In 2023, I’m intending to read less.
I know, this is a hot and somewhat redonkulous take from someone who writes a newsletter about books.
But upon reflection, I felt like I was binging a lot of books in a manner more insatiable, more escapist, even more obligatory, than it always was enjoyable. When you read as quickly as I do (always have been a speed reader), it’s easy to gloss through books rather than fully appreciate them, and often forget them soon after.
So I’m planning to read more deliberately, perhaps more critically, and definitely more joyfully, which I think might result in fewer books read.
(Or, like all resolutions, maybe by Feb 2nd I’ll be elbows deep in hour 13 of an eight-part fantasy series about half-fairies, who can say. STAY TUNED!)
The First Last Words of 2023
Like all brands, I’m really milking the heck out of this new year theme, aren’t I? Really pouring on the innovation here.
What’s up with those lamb ratings, you say to yourself in a Jerry Seinfeld voice? Glad to tell you - it’s an important part of our book convos in these here parts.
Books link to Bookshop.org, because unlike a certain House of Representatives, I think we can all vote unanimously that supporting indie bookstores is a good thing.
If you’re a Tomorrowx3 detractor, don’t forget that all past books can be found in the archive. Go find you something great.
> > > Carrie Soto is Back. That was my absolute least favorite book that I actually finished this year and I’m not sorry. Someone do a well-person check on TJR to make sure that she hasn’t been abducted and replaced by a typing chimpanzee.
Ok so I finally finished this book and though I loved the ending and agree generally with your review, there was just something missing for me. Maybe it was....stakes? What would happen if Sam and Sadie didn't finish their game? They'd be fine! What happens to them if they never build another game again? They'd be fine! And I never for one second thought Sam and Sadie would ever end up together so romantic suspense was not on the table. Very well plotted and I cared enough about these characters to keep reading...but barely. Not as propulsive of a read I was hoping for.
“Normal People wishes it was this book.” Hahahahaha! I have not read Zevin’s book but I did read Normal People and it’s the book I actually finished and liked least in 2022. I like her writing style, so I may try another of her books but I suspect that I’m just too...old for this sort of relationship drama. Like in my 20s, I probably would have liked reading about two insufferable characters who treat each other badly and spend most of the book either having sex or thinking about it. But 43 year old me just wanted to clunk their heads together.