June Books 15) Shortcomings, by Adrian Tomine
A rather good character study by Tomine of Ben Tanaka, a young Japanese-American man who is, frankly, a bit of a dick. His various girlfriends (and his friends who are girls, who tend to be into girls themselves) all try to make him aware of his shortcomings (the title of the book is also of course a double entendre on Ben's nervousness about the size of his own dick, which feeds into his behaving like one). Tomine manages to show us Ben's failure to listen and still make him, if not sympathetic, at least comprehensible, and shows a convincing picture of what it's like to be an Asian-American in California. Definitely worth picking up.
