Shortcomings (Hardcover)

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• This item: Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

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Summer Blonde by Adrian Tomine 3.5 out of 5 stars (11)  $11.53

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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Adrian Tomine draws his mid-twenties slackers with an impeccable, exact line for every slumpy gesture and cultivated rumple. In Shortcomings, this ex-wunderkind tackles a book-length comic for the first time after three collections of stories, and his maturity shows not so much in the ages of his characters, who are still slackly wandering, dropping out of grad school or managing a movie theater, but in his calm and masterful handling of his story, in which vividly individual characters wander through the maze of imposed and self-generated stereotypes of Asian and American identities (the title is a wry allusion to one of the most enduring of those assumptions). Never has that old commonplace that the personal is the political seemed more paralyzing, and more true. --Tom Nissley

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. SignatureReviewed by Junot DíazTomine's lacerating falling-out-of-love story is an irresistible gem of a graphic novel. Shortcomingsis set primarily in an almost otherworldly San Francisco Bay Area; its antihero, Ben Tanaka, is not your average comic book protagonist: he's crabby, negative, self-absorbed, über-critical, slack-a-riffic and for someone who is strenuously race-blind, has a pernicious hankering for whitegirls. His girlfriend Miko (alas and tragically) is an Asian-American community activist of the moderate variety. Ben is the sort of cat who walks into a Korean wedding and says, Man, look at all these Asians, while Miko programs Asian-American independent films and both are equally skilled in the underhanded art of fighting without fighting. As you might imagine, their relationship is in full decay. In Tomine's apt hands, Tanaka's heartbreaking descent into awareness is reading as good as you'll find anywhere. What a relief to find such unprecious intelligent dynamic young people of color wrestling with real issues that they can neither escape nor hope completely to understand.Tomine's no dummy: he keeps the issues secondary to his characters' messy humanity and gains incredible thematic resonance from this subordination. Tomine's dialogue is hilarious (he makes Seth Rogan seem a little forced), his secondary characters knockouts (Ben's Korean-American only friend Alice steals every scene she's in, and the Korean wedding they attend together as pretend-partners is a study in the even blending of tragedy and farce), and his dramatic instincts second-to-none. Besides orchestrating a gripping kick-ass story with people who feel like you've had the pleasure/misfortune of rooming with, Tomine does something far more valuable: almost incidentally and without visible effort (for such is the strength of a true artist) he explodes the tottering myth that love is blind and from its million phony fragments assembles a compelling meditation on the role of race in the romantic economy, dramatizing with evil clarity how we are both utterly blind and cannily hyperaware of the immense invisible power race exerts in shaping what we call desire. And that moment at the end when the whiteboy squares up against Ben, kung-fu style: I couldn't decide whether to fold over in laughter or to hug Ben or both. Tomine accomplishes in one panel of this graphic novel what so many writers have failed to do in entire books. In crisp spare lines, he captures in all its excruciating, disappointing absurdity a single moment and makes from it our world. (Oct.)Junot Díaz's first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, has just been published by Riverhead.
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28 Reviews 5 star:  (12) 4 star:  (7) 3 star:  (6) 2 star:  (3) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   17 of 18 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of Flawed Yet Sympathetic Characters, October 27, 2007 By  M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)       Written in 3 "chapters," which are more like 3 film Acts, Shortcomings tells the tale of cynical, lust-soaked Ben Tanaka, a 30-year-old movie house manager in Berkeley. Even though his girlfriend Miko is a gorgeous Japanese cultural activist with sensitivity and intelligence, Ben's wandering eye for Anglo girls and his surly attitude cause friction in his relationship with disastrous consequences. Ben finds solace in his only friend, Alice, a spunky, sharp lesbian who attends Mills College. In this context, Shortcomings explores with sadness and hilarity sexual and racial stereotypes and the painful search for an authentic identity. The characters are painfully realistic, beset by misguided desires, raging egos, and intense selfishness. But Tomine's brilliance as an artist is to give his characters complexity, believability, and, yes, our sympathy. I was sad after I finished the book in 90 minutes of reading because I loved the characters and wanted to spend more time with them and found myself fantasizing a long-running TV show about them or a series of more graphic novels so I could follow their lives in more depth. Such is the pang this great book left me. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   13 of 15 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, and Dead-on, October 12, 2007 By  A reader (California) - See all my reviews I'm probably not an objective reviewer. I'm a white woman married to an Asian man, and we lived in the Bay Area for many years, so the subject matter was a bit close to the bone for me. At several points in the novel, I felt as though someone had been eavesdropping on my conversations. Tomine also does a great job of conveying subtle emotions through facial expressions. I loved it, and not just for the local references and jokes about Asian identity politics. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars More of the Same, March 15, 2008 By  A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)       I loved Tomine's early collections, 32 Stories and Sleepwalk, but his last one (Summer Blonde) was a bit of a disappointment, feeling like a rehash of earlier material. This latest book collects issues 9-11 of Optic Nerve into a single narrative arc following a single protagonist. Despite this move from short story to novella-length, Tomine largely fails to take advantage of the space afforded to move into new thematic territory. His work has always focused on loneliness, and yet again the main character is a socially awkward semi-hipster who tends to alienate people. Ben Tanaka is a 30-year-old manager of an art house cinema in Berkeley (presumably the UC Theater, which like the one Ben manages, was forced to close to due seismic retrofitting regulations), living with his beautiful Japanese-American girlfriend Miko. The story follows Ben's dying relationship with Miko and subsequent rebound attempts with various cute Anglo girls. But Ben is so plagued by insecurity and bitter snobbishness, and is so grumpy and cynical that it becomes increasingly hard as the book progresses to understand what any woman would see in him. The one new theme Tomine introduces to his work is the struggle to define identity and identity politics among Asian-Americans. Ben, Miko, and even Ben's moxie-laden Korean-American lesbian pal Alice (who tend to steal any scene she's in), all grapple with various stereotypes and self-imposed expectations. However, none of this seems particularly inventive or fresh, and some scenes, such as Alice taking Ben to a family wedding as her beard feel particularly recycled. Then again, I'm not Asian-American, so maybe it has more resonance for that audience. As usual, Tomine's art is amazing -- his attention to framing, line, and composition are second to none. That said, sometimes his faces tend to drift into similarity -- in a story where race is so central, it's not a good thing when an Anglo guy key to the story looks Asian. As with his other work, those familiar with the East Bay will recognize a lot of the backgrounds (Rockridge, the Durant food court, Cody's, etc.). On the whole, the book is a disappointment -- it's just way too similar in tone and subject matter to his previous work. Tomine clearly is comfortable in the Berkeley-to-Brooklyn world of 20-30something hipster creative singletons and their friendships and relationships. But that's a pretty insular world, and I'd love to see him break out of it and turn his sharp observational gaze elsewhere. He got married last year, so maybe that'll lead to new directions in his storytelling. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 28 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Tomine is a master of the comics medium I love Tomine's drawing style, love his sense of timing in his comics, and his writing. In other words, he's good at everything he's doing. What a rare talent he is. Read more Published 21 days ago by Bookenator 4.0 out of 5 stars a love song for generation me. with simple, elegant linework Tomine creates scene with a sort of minimalistic verisimilitude. a modern take on love as seen through the mind of a judgmental anti-hero asian... Read more Published 1 month ago by J. Latour 5.0 out of 5 stars "A day in the life" -- of a rather annoying guy Not many graphic novels become New York Times Notable Books of the Year, but Tomine is a better artist and a much, much better writer than most of his competition. Read more Published 1 month ago by Michael K. Smith 5.0 out of 5 stars Tomine cuts close to the bone, again Nobody cuts closer to the bone than Adrian Tomine. His ability to capture painful truths in slice-of-life moments is always hard hitting, honest, unrestrained and even more... Read more Published 1 month ago by deaner73 4.0 out of 5 stars smart but sort of slight great characters, nice drawings as always, engaging, believable drama about people between their 20s and 30s trying to connect -- from an asian-american perspective. smart. Read more Published 3 months ago by wordtron 5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory reading This is mandatory reading for all human inhabitants of planet Earth. It should be discussed in school, used in therapy sessions for couples, discussed in marriage counseling. Read more Published 5 months ago by Aron Biro 3.0 out of 5 stars Graphic novel with depressing look at singlehood Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine is a new entry in the quickly growing genre of graphic novels for adults. Read more Published 10 months ago by Christina Lockstein 3.0 out of 5 stars More of the same... This book is great and it still has Tomine's signature understated style (both visually and narratively), but he's not treading any new ground here. Published 10 months ago by Greg W. Swartz 5.0 out of 5 stars Tomine in Top Form Tomine has always been a great storyteller. His writing is wry and laugh-out-loud funny at times, but it's his drawings that really shine in this collected volume. Read more Published 12 months ago by Jason Carreiro 3.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it does come up short... A good read, with great art, but not enough to justify the cover price. What's missing in this story is a sense of urgency that non-Asians should be able to connect... Read more Published 13 months ago by Architect of Skin Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 28 customer reviews...

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