Mañana, y mañana, y mañana

Ein sehr schönes, zart erzähltes, emotionales Buch. Ich wollte die Charaktere öfters mal schütteln damit sie nicht so viel aneinander vorbei reden und leben. Es beschreibt sehr gut, wie sehr wir manchmal in unserer Lebenswelt und Perspektive feststecken und nicht merken, wie wir damit andere Menschen verletzen können oder was diese gerade brauchen, oder auch was wir gerade brauchen. Und es geht um Videospiele, und es ist keine klassische romantische Liebesgeschichte, sondern es geht um tiefe Freundschaft 🥰

A very beautiful, delicate, emotional book. I wanted to shake the characters a few times so that they don't talk and live so much past each other. It describes very well how much we are sometimes stuck in our own world and perspective and do not realise how we hurt other people or what they need at the moment, or even what we ourselves need at the moment. And it's about video games, and it's not a classic romantic love story, it's about deep friendship 🥰

structurally flexible. engaging characters. lightly nostalgic (but not too much!). devoured in 4 days: it was enjoyable!

it was sad, at times. i think i enjoyed all characters? except for probably dov. the rendition of relationships over such a span of time is something i don't recall ever reading. the internal monologues and renditions of conflicts from different points of view were something special, i feel

This is one of those books that attracts you from the very beginning and you can't stop reading (until you realise that you don't want it to end that soon, either!). An interesting and well-written story that follows the successes and failures of its complex characters, driven by their passion for video games and full of lights and shadows. This is a story about gamers, and video games. But it also about life, passion, success and failure but, above all, about human relationships, and lives and worlds that could be but are not. Like a video game with the greatest engine: our imagination. Like a book.

This is the first book in a while that I've had trouble putting down, it kept me reading later than I intended more than once. It's a complex, touching story about friendship and the value of play, which spans several decades. During that time Sam and Sadie meet, have quarrels, make up again, quarrel again, fall in love with other people, and make video games both together and separately.

It's set in the world of video game development so knowing some of those terms probably helps a little but I don't think it's really necessary; it's more about creating art together than the games themselves. (The game making is a little simplified, and as someone who works in the game industry I found it a little unbelievable in places - making an MMO with the staff they appeared to have? No way.) But waving those beside in suspension of disbelief, I doubt they'd bother anyone who doesn't actually make games for a living.

Really the book is about friendship, and flawed, complex characters, and art, and loss, and being human. It's refreshing to read an entire book about a couple that is about friendship rather than romance. It was sweet, and touching, and thought-provoking, and also occasionally annoying when the characters are clearly being idiots, but they're so well written that at least you can understand why they're being idiots. I would highly recommend this book.

Trigger warnings: there are a couple of violent deaths mentioned, and there's non-graphic description of an inappropriate teacher-student relationship with non-consensual bondage elements. These are not dwelled on any more than needed for the story's purposes, but are unavoidable elements of the plot.