The novel covers about three decades and takes us inside the video game industry. Sam and Sadie meet when they are both kids. Sam is hospitalized with a bad foot, that will be amputated later in the novel. He is uncommunicative and mostly just plays video games. Sadie likes games, too, and they play together, gradually building a friendship, a rocky friendship as it turns out.
They meet again a few years later, he a student at MIT, she a student at Harvard. They decide to build a game together, which leads to more games and then a thriving video game company.
Can they be more than friends? More than business partners? Both ask these questions but hesitate to bring them up with each other. Why spoil a good arrangement? But then Sadie takes lovers, both of them involved in their video game business. Why these others but not Sam?
Meanwhile there is a lot about video games and how the industry changes through the years. Zevin goes into detail about fictional games you might wish were real so you could play them along with the characters. Eventually Sam and Sadie develop a relationship in a game that they lack in real life. But this proves no more satisfactory.
The novel probably works better for readers younger than me. I haven't gotten much beyond playing Spider and FreeCell. But even I am intrigued by the question: Can you be "just friends"?
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