SADIE GREEN, YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY!
Sam Masur and Sadie Green were childhood friends who had a major falling out, and they haven’t spoken to one another in years. But one winter day they bump into each other at a T station, and it is the start of a collaborative partnership that will define the rest of their lives. Sadie is studying video game design, and when she shares one of her class assignments with Sam, he realizes that together they could build something amazing. Over the course of one frantic summer, and then into the fall, Sam and Sadie create Ichigo, a massive success and their ticket to fame and fortune. Along with their production partner (and Sam’s roommate) Marx Watanabe, the college dropouts move back home to Los Angeles and start their own video game company, Unfair Games.
The book weaves back and forth through time, introducing Sam and Sadie as adults, then moving back to their childhoods, dropping hints about their future, and so on. At its surface, its the story of two friends who are deeply in love with one another but are never lovers, but the layers that Gabrielle Zevin weaves in throughout the novel give it such depth. It explores depression, jealousy (both professional and personal), dealing with a disability, grief, uncertainty, and so much more.
This is also a book written by someone with a deep love of video games of all kinds. The thought that Zevin put into each game that Sadie and Sam create is astonishing. Like, I wanted to play Ichigo. I wanted to explore the dual worlds in Both Sides, build a community in Pioneers and fight off zombie vampires in Our Infinite Days. It really was incredible reading the development process of these games that don’t exist in the real world, but felt extremely real to me.
I think I have to (at least somewhat) forgive the NY Times list of Best 100 Books of the Century for the whole Pastoralia debacle. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was also included on the list, and it earned its place and then some. It was compelling, fascinating, funny, and heartbreaking, and once I really got into it I could not put it down.