Paul DeSantis

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow admittedly took me some time to get through. It packs a lot of feelings and ideas into one book, but it does a great job of making you feel connected to the characters. There were times where I hated the main characters, and sometimes that can be off-putting, but they are complex and they are not always acting their best. This is true for people in real life too, and there are points where I don't even like myself, but it can be hard to want to continue when you feel like the characters on the page are only making choices that destroy themselves.

Overall, I think the book is well written. There are points where I found some of the dialogue to be a bit cringey. I initially viewed this as being OK because the main characters are nerdy videogame developers, and of course they are going to make some cringey statements, but ultimately there are some points where I believe the author's cringe makes it through to the page.

I did appreciate that the subject was video game development and many of these aspects felt very accurate and informed. I was definitely immersed in the process of watching a new creative business form and grow with their success. People reading this book that are interested in games that aim to teach the player something new should look into "serious games," a bad name for a great genre where the intent of the game is more than just entertainment.

I do have to complain that there is a section of the book that takes place from the perspective of a player playing a farming simulator-esque game that is very immersion breaking. It's not realistic to how anyone could experience a game, and felt a bit more like a sequence where the main character was trapped inside of a video game, as opposed to just playing one. All of the other descriptions of playing games are very genuine and some of the ideas are great (I would love to play "Solution" and "Ichigo").

I must also say that including the sequence with the gunmen felt very cliche to me. It felt like an attempt to just shoehorn another issue into a book that is already filled to the brim with social commentary. I don't think there is a limit to how many different topics a book can cover, but I did feel emotionally drained after so many depressing sections.

Overall, I would recommend this book to someone who has an interest the video game industry. If someone had no interest I worry they might find the video game discussions completely unrelatable.

John Green has achieved such a monumental level of celebrity that I was initially unsure if people really enjoyed his work, or if his fans just loved that he put out another thing for them to consume. I have definitely caught a "vlogbrothers" video here and there and I loved "Crash Course World History" when I was in school, but I wanted to read this book without the outside context of John Green as much as I could.

As with many other "collection of essays," I think your connection to the author really drives where or not you find the writing interesting, and I don't think I would have picked it up unless someone who was a fan of John and enjoyed reading the book hadn't recommended it to me.

Ultimately, I think the book is extremely well written and is very captivating. John does a great job of taking some smaller ideas and concepts and adding some of his own personal experiences to make the idea just feel so important. There are a lot of aspects of daily life that just go underappreciated, and it's nice to think about sunsets, Halley's comet, and Diet Dr Pepper sometimes when there is so much else going on. I was also surprised to see that some people dislike the "meandering" that happens in each chapter, but ultimately the meandering is the book. Anyone can read the Wikipedia page about the Lascaux Cave Paintings and get the gist of what they are, but John's writing can help us to understand what the cave means.

I would definitely recommend giving this book a read. The audiobook is also particularly good, John is a great narrator. I am also interested in checking out some of his fiction, although I do worry that I am too far from the intended demographic. We will have to see.

Overall, I think this book is worth reading. It helps to demystify the "process" of dying and helps readers to understand that there are some aspects of dying that seem unusual, but are actually very common. I appreciate the messaging that everyone grieves differently, but from a technical aspect I think the book needs some editing.

If I could make a big change to this book, I would have recommended this book to be about Hadley, but not written by Hadley. There are a lot sections that just come across as Hadley patting herself on the back: Oh, Hadley, you're the only nurse that makes me smile and treats me right... and while it all might be true it just doesn't feel that way sometimes. I would have preferred to see Hadley's work approached more from a journalistic standpoint, with someone observing Hadley and talking to her patients. Obviously stories from her previous work deserve to be in the book, but it needs something to anchor it to the truth.

I do think Hadley is doing a great job of talking to the public about hospice. Her writing makes it seem less scary and depressing. Ideally dying is a peaceful process and hospice nurses, doctors, and workers are responsible for ensuring that. Highly recommend for a book club as I think everyone has a story about death they want to talk about, but don't have the appropriate venue.