Vinay Prasad’s blog was one of the first to appear in a Google search of the book’s reviews. After a sorely misunderstood recount of the writing style and major plot points, with a few digs at Zevin’s successful career as a screenwriter and novelist, he skews the point even further, 

“The moments of the book that are most gorgeous are the joy of building something that you hope people will love. I am no expert on this, but I do know what it is like to build something, working silently for days on end, hoping that one day it will delight your audience…It is a transcendent and joyous experience... the pleasure and bonds that comes from that creation are unsurpassed…Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow reminds me of those experiences”

Prasad's review highlights the joy of creation, but the heart of Zevin's work lies in its portrayal of life's grittier realities. Zevin features the work of Emily Dickinson several times throughout the novel, nodding to the style and themes of Modernism, centering stream of consciousness writing and a (larger than some people would enjoy) focus on the little nothings of life. The effort here was not to write the kind of fiction where life offers a constant supply of rainbows, or an easily traceable route through the hero's journey.

The plot of the three friends collaborating was not the point, it was a literary device to explore how the themes at hand (sexism, mass shootings, sexism, suicide, racism, gentrification, romantic power dynamics, sexism) play into what it is like to experience life on this planet. If your takeaway was finding joy, you may have missed the novel's deeper focus on resilience and recovery from trauma.

“Dov, of course, is flat and cliche. His only charm is that he once made a gorgeous video game, but this is told to the reader, and we see no element of his charm…Why not make him a richer character? Why not show the reader why she fell for him (rather than merely tells us)?”

It doesn't take much for a man with many credentials to appear like someone you'd want in your corner. The point is that Dov is flat, clichéd, and ultimately just a guy with power. He's a run-of-the-mill type: leather pants, professor who indulges in his students because he can, hyper-critical artisan coffee drinker because he’s reached 'God status' in his field. The only thing he needs for students to fawn over him is his title as a successful game designer. Sadie tolerated uncomfortable situations to continue not because he made up for it in charm, generosity, or emotional camaraderie, but because his résumé held weight for her future career.

“The story that doesn’t exist is what would happen if Sadie came to realize that she loved two men… It’s easy to kill off a love interest— it is much harder to reconcile with what it means to love two people; how love can shift and grow— how you can be pulled in two directions. The book wound up a love triangle, but ended in two parallel lines.”

Yes, that is the story that does not exist, and for that, I am thankful. Super-genius lady trailblazer in a male dominated field has too many men to choose from, who would have seen that coming? Sam and Sadie’s relationship emphasized that romantic love is a choice, love as a verb rather than a thing that occurs and then stops occurring. Of course they both silently floated the “what-if’s” of romantic involvement, but they ultimately chose to preserve the professional creative dynamic they had and decided the two of them would fail as a coupling. Marx and Sadie however, had less to lose, more chemistry, and more room to create a life separate from their professions.

I’m usually hyper-critical of a deus ex-machina sort of intervention, and one could argue that killing off Marx was exactly that, but I do think it served to provide some stakes for their relationship when there previously weren’t any, and as a really meta social commentary, I thought it was an interesting way to portray political radicalism. Regardless, Zevin did reconcile what it means to love two people, just not in the way Prasad wanted. Sadie loved Sam so she put distance between them, shielding him from what would have been a lot of blame and vitriol for Marx's death. Sam loved Sadie so he respected her choice to withdraw. It was hardly a love triangle, but ending in "parallel lines" speaks to how choosing to remove yourself after hurting someone else can also be an act of love.

Reddit also had a few less than complimentary ideas to offer, 

“They are both toxic individuals, are terrible friends, and both had zero character growth.”

- @Rocinovus

To say there was no growth is a highly optimistic and overly simplistic interpretation of healing. Sadie, brought to hell and back on several occasions, experienced progress, regression, deeper regression, plateaus, but ultimately found some stability. Marx, a reputable womanizer, ended up domesticated through the power of Love. Sam, carrying survivors guilt, a physical disability, and an amputation, managed to repair his relationship with Sadie and continue the business. The healing wasn’t perfect or linear, and while it wasn’t the happiest ending, the realism of how trauma affects productivity and relationships resonated with me. Their demanding professional lives left little room for pause or the chance to properly process everything—or, more fittingly, to seek therapy.

“Someone mentioned that it almost seemed like the author hadn’t experienced grief despite it being a huge theme of the book, and another chimed in that they likely weren’t a parent either. The book started off strong and was pretty good through the middle, but by the final third I was completely checked out.”

-@TheUnnecessaryLetter

I think a large theme lost on unhappy readers was that grief and hardship alters people and interrupts life in ways that don't always get ironed out. Another user on the thread commented, “Its a stark and honest book about people, trauma and the limits of empathy,” (@FenderJazzHands). Simply put, things that happen to us change us. Take Sam's bum foot for example, he was fine, and then he wasn't, forever. To wrap the plot up nicely with a bow, it would probably take a few more novels spanning the course of Sam & Sadie's entire lives.

If you enjoy a slow-burn narrative and don't mind throwing expectations out the window, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is well worth the investment. My favorite motif was the quote by Emily Dickinson, “The freight should be proportioned to the groove," because it perfectly highlights how each small moment in this book carries relevancy.