Review: Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki.
Drawn + Quarterly, September 2023. 439 p. ill. ISBN 9781770464339 (h/c), $34.95.
Reviewed August 2024
by Eugénie Fortier, Storage and Retrieval Lead, Frick Art Research Library, fortier@frick.org
Awash in the hazy periwinkle and pinkish-beige tones of nostalgia, Roaming is a graphic novel that follows a fictional five-day trip of three Canadian friends visiting New York City. In their first year of college, the three main characters in Roaming explore the city amid situations that elucidate the complexity of young adulthood, friendship, and self-discovery.
Readers are introduced to childhood friends Zoe and Dani as they meet in Newark International Airport, joined by Dani’s exuberant new college classmate, Fiona, for spring break. Dani, who has always wanted to visit New York, eagerly leads the group around the city. As travel can, the whirlwind trip reveals aspects of each individual’s personality that may be unfamiliar to their companions and tests the strength of their friendships.
Roaming exquisitely represents the setting of New York in detail that could only come from primary-source photographs–from overflowing trash cans to accurate signage and specific museum displays including identifiable paintings, the resulting array of images captures the aura of the city. While the characters ride the subway, eat dollar-slice pizza, and visit popular
destinations including Times Square, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and Central Park, Jillian Tamaki provides splendid compilations of views that are akin to cinematic montages. Since the story takes place in 2009, adult readers will be charmed by the nods to technology of the past including MapQuest and Sidekick cell phones, as well as reminders of past concerns such as roaming on one’s network.
Roaming encapsulates the tumultuousness of early adulthood and connection while relating the experience of the welcome chaos of New York City. With positive Asian-Canadian and queer representation, this graphic novel is recommended for young adult and adult collections in high school, college, academic, and public libraries.
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