I picked this up based on a yearly book round up chat at Go Fug Yourself – Fug Nationals can generally be relied upon for compelling recommendations.
Honestly I’ve started writing this not knowing exactly how to say what I want to say about this one. I’ve had a quick look around and it looks like I’m late to this party, so let’s do this with spoilers, so I can be a bit more specific.
I found it compulsively readable, and knocked it over in a day and a half (I was on leave; a bunch of that time was on a plane). Reading other reviews, I am a bit concerned that I’ve loaned it to Dr Aims (mother of The Best Niece in Australia, ftr)… I might end up in a bit of trouble, here.
About halfway through the book, I started getting A Little Life vibes. Sam, Protagonist 1/2, was involved in a car accident when he was young, which was fatal for his mother and left him with a foot that’s needed ongoing surgery throughout his life. As Sam’s health began to deteriorate, I had that “someone’s walked over my grave” feeling of impending calamitous grief. I’m prepared to accept a lot of ups and downs for characters, as the price of admission. If I’m not emotionally engaged, what am I reading for? If I wanted to read something with a guaranteed happily ever after, I would – and I am 100% sure that I’d get better sex scenes into the bargain.
I think I’ve jumped the gun – let me backtrack a bit.
Sadie (protagonist 2/2) and Sam meet in hospital, where Sam is having one of multiple surgeries on his injured foot. Sadie and Sam are both born gamers. I think that explains a lot about both of their behaviours, even when they seem to be stubborn, selfish or just purely stupid. That tendency to refuse to let go until something has turned out the way you want it to, the drive to keep score and win, the sort of tunnel vision that leaves you utterly blind to what’s happening around you… yes, these are frustrating character traits, but for me, they rang true.
I grew up compulsively playing Mario with my brother and sister. If we ran though this or that level, and didn’t get enough points, or the bonus that we wanted, we’d start over. If we failed, we would try again. We’d stubbornly persist, hour after hour, day after day, trying to get everything to fall into place exactly as it should. Sadie’s persistence in a relationship that was clearly unhealthy reminds me of my own. “It’s not quite right yet, but I can fix it” may be a terrible attitude to take towards one’s love life, and lead one into dangers untold and hardships unnumbered – but it’s one that a lot of us have to grow out of.
Last spoiler warning – we’re off into Great Detail Land now.
Sam and Sadie eventually write their own game, produced by Sam’s roommate, Marx. Marx is the indulgent, moneyed friend every creative needs in their corner. There’s some attempts at rounding him out as a character, and I did like him (of course I liked him – if you were post-it-note planning the novel out, his defining trait would be “likeable”), but he’s never detailed as lovingly or as intricately as Sadie and Sam are. This means that when he’s the surprise character death, it is not as impactful as it could have been, were it Sam.
There was a lot of unhappiness about Marx’s death when I read reviews of T&T&T. My controversial opinion on that is that one of them was going to die, and Marx was the guy I was least invested in. Honestly (I mean, why stop now?), I felt like the bits of backstory and build up for Marx could just as easily have been driven by an editor’s note: “Marx needs work or death won’t land.”
I cared way more about the lifelong, sundered (but possibly resurrected) partnership between Sadie and Sam. I found it completely plausible that Sam would never grow out of his insecurities, and that Sadie’s dual-purpose intent behind visiting him in hospital (racking up the do-gooder points!) would result in a schism between them. I found it equally plausible that both characters would expect that the other would see and prioritise what was obvious in their own minds, without ever learning to actually discuss the details of their emotional responses. I have those friends; I’ve been one of those friends.
At one point in my early twenties, I threw out a (thinly disguised) hypothetical etiquette question, a kind of AITA before that became a thing. To me? Absolutely, 100% clear answer. I was shocked when the response came back, and was essentially “question is meaningless, situation is ludicrous, extract yourself immediately.” Reading about Sadie’s abusive relationship, about Sam’s stubbornness with his foot, their inability to communicate their needs, their inevitable descent into mutual antipathy… I’m well past the point in my life where I was drowning in that kind of emotional whirlpool, but I had a lot of empathy for both characters.