Sam Masur and Sadie Green meet in the game room of a Los Angeles hospital, where Sam is recovering from a bad car crash and Sadie’s sister is undergoing treatment for leukemia. Sadie and Sam, both 11, bond over Super Mario Bros.; a friendship develops over their shared love of gaming and the fact that neither Sadie nor Sam has a lot of friends.
Nine years later, Sam sees Sadie in Harvard Square’s T Station. Sam is at Harvard University, studying mathematics. Sadie is at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying computers and gaming. Sam must decide if he will call out to her. They had a falling out, in the way only 13-year-olds can, painfully and irrevocably. Sam shouts her name
In the T Station, Sadie gives him a disk with a game that she has created on it. Sam shares it with his roommate, Marx Watanabe, who is Sam’s only friend at Harvard and his guardian angel.
It is Sam’s idea that he and Sadie will build a game together. It is Marx’s father’s idea that Marx will produce and bankroll it. The three friends work, live and bleed for this computer game, Ichigo. And they find love, in all its riches and pain.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is Gabrielle Zevin’s third novel for the adult market. It is an extraordinarily great read.
Contributed by Maureen Millea Smith, a retired librarian and a Minnesota Book Award–winning novelist. You can find her books at maureenmilleasmith.com.
