What's on your nightstand

Which book has moved or engaged you? Please share it with other CCW members. We accept all genres. Tell us what the book is about (without giving away any spoilers), your reaction to it and why. Please send book reviews to Barbara.siebeneick@gmail.com. (Please note that all book reviews are the opinion of the writer and not the Central Coast Writers.) This month’s review is from Matt Tracy

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin

I’m generally wary of bestsellers because I find they don’t live up to the hype (at least in my opinion.) No, truly, often they’re flawed in some major way, (Oh, my god, the whole world could see that twist coming) but nobody cares because the book hits people’s trigger point, or it feeds their gluttonous soul that just wants to stuff the equivalent of another bag of oversalted, one dimensional, potato chips down their maw.

But Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow held my attention throughout. It’s a book about young brilliant students designing a video game. But it’s so much more than that. It’s about friendship and what it means to be a friend even when you’re mad at each other.

It’s about the creative process and the doubts and breakthroughs and hard work and long hours only to have other people hate what you’ve poured your heart into.

It’s about failing and rebuilding and pain and loss and loving and getting into bad situations then with the help of your friends getting out.

There was one plot point where I thought, “Well, they had to get that character out of the way and they came up with that solution just before falling asleep one night,” but damn, I liked the characters. And I liked what they were doing. And I liked the thought and imagination that was put into what they were making.

And, despite the obvious late night plot doctoring in the middle of the book, the ending came through. It came through in a real and emotional way that made me satisfied. So. I learned about gaming, especially gaming in the nineties and early oughts, and came to love Sam and Sadie and Marx, and Zoe, and, not Dov. But I loved the parents and grandparents that kept appearing in the story.

So, I heartily recommend this best seller despite it being, well, you know, a bestseller.