My honest review of Tavi Taylor Black’s “Where are we tomorrow?”
As a female musician, I couldn’t help but read it: it promised to follow a few girls as they tour with a worldwide-known pop star and to be set in Italy for quite a bit. As you can see, I had no choice.
I usually choose to read as little as I can about a book before I actually read it: the blurb and (at most) the first page have to be enough for me to form an opinion. I’ve stated how much I love a good surprise in pretty much all the reviews I write here, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you (a-ha, did you see what I did?), but I often find myself halfway through the book with all my expectations subverted.
“Where are we tomorrow?” is one of the peak examples of it, as it took a while for me to figure out what I thought it was really about and as soon as I was beginning to be onboard with that it took a turn I didn’t see coming. In some sense I feel like it robbed me of a part of a story I was really invested in.
It introduced some kind of previous trauma or inner motivation for all the four girls involved, and even the point of view of all of them, but it abandoned half of it as two girls went back on tour and the other two stayed behind. From that point on, the girls who re-united with the tour “disappeared” from the story, except for a brief moment at the end which didn’t seem to defeat their ghost.
Still, as I went on, I could see why Tavi Taylor Black did it: with all the delicate themes the story tries to explore, it makes no sense to fumble them all because you’re trying to hold too much in your hands. It’s better to focus on what you really feel is the message you want to convey, and I think it’s a lesson I should apply in my writing as well.
The final part of the story focuses more on Alex and Lily: the former is the actual main character of the book, while Lily is the most fragile of the four women. She’s the closest to the popstar, but that’s not the enjoyable position you’d think it is. Alex, on the other hand, is torn between the life she’s always thought she wanted and one she didn’t know she wanted. A quieter life, one when she’s finally able to settle down.
Even though it felt like she gave up on her dream, kind of surrendering to an environment that from the outside (and from the bits in this book) seems a pretty sexist and closed one, Alex made the right choice in the end. Not because there is an absolute right or wrong choice in this case, but because she took a chance and listened to what she wanted at a deeper level. I went back and re-read the first chapters after I finished the book see if her change was too abrupt, unmotivated, but that wasn’t the case. She likes what she’s doing for a living, but something is missing.
It was very nice to see that piece of Italy represented instead of a more touristic place. Not because of a sense of familiarity, it is quite different from the place I live in even though it’s just about 200 kilometres away, but because the quiet life in rural Tuscany works very well as a contrast to the hectic life of the technical staff touring with musicians. Plus, it was a detailed and realistic representation for the most part, two things that usually don’t mix together so well.
Overall, it was a very solid read that made me smile and get upset and smile again all in slightly more than 200 pages. I definitely recommend it, without a doubt.
And I hope that Brooke and Kat can find their peace too, be it in the Italian countryside or in the backstage of a crowded arena.
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