Re-visit

In continuation with reading books about stereotypes, I read "Shortcomings " by Adrian Tomine recently. This particular novel follows a man who has a great interest in mainly dating white women even though his actual significant other is Korean like himself. The book explores his own thought process and decision making, leading up to the eventual demise of his own relationship. I feel this book deals with the idea of stereotypes in a different way than some of the other things I had read. More to the point, this story deals with the idea of fetishism based on stereotypes. The characters in this story are very varied, ranging from the seemingly quiet girlfriend who takes off for what she claims to be an internship, to the outrageous best friend who seems to be the most adapted to the main character's personality. Tomine's art style is clean and simple, which works well and leaves the book to be more focused on the actual story than on the artwork. As with some of the other works I've read this semester, I see this as an examination of a relationship. Although this one focuses more on watching a relationship dissolve, it's still interesting to see how these characters get to where they are in the relationship and start to better understand their thought process.