The dialogue... is pitch perfect ... As witty and naturalistic as any I’ve ever read in a comic, every line adds to the sense of the fractured dynamic at play ... Somehow, Tamaki captures the misery and the magic, her strips full of movement and life even as her colours bring to mind those of old Polaroids.
The outcome is a graphic novel that is both universal and highly personal, in which even as we get to know Dani and Zoe—as well as Fiona, a college friend of Dani’s who has come along on the trip—we can’t help but glimpse ourselves ... The art performs another function: to integrate into the narrative all the things the characters cannot say. What more vivid strategy to evoke the depth of their emotions than, literally, to show them? ... It’s no simple task to express that level of love and longing.
The Tamakis have such a talent for capturing the highs and lows of friendship and love ... Messy, tender and teeming with life, Roaming is exactly the kind of story young people today should be reading.
The writing never belabors any one point or lectures the reader. Rather, the three young travelers navigate their society and its underlying issues as they encounter it. Whether confronting issues surrounding race, homosexuality, feminism, socioeconomic status or colonialism, the characters’ conversations ebb and flow as they suss out their sometimes contradictory and complex beliefs ... The most unique storytelling feat of this book, however, lies in the positioning of the reader within the narrative ... Through its carefully crafted and vibrant banter, and its incomparable and inviting line art, Roaming elegantly captures the emotions of youth: confusion, love, lust, friendship, anger, betrayal, pain, and the complex journey of becoming oneself. By encompassing the reader so fully in its storytelling, it reminds us that while we undertake our own journeys we don’t need to travel alone - there is strength in numbers and solace in connection.
Roaming is about young adults, new to being on their own and easy to see as naive. But the magic of the book is that it will speak to the 18-year-old in every reader—whether they’re just out of college or at retirement age. Some things, no matter how much time has passed, never change.
A tender examination ensues of young adults unsure whether to forget the past in order to navigate an uncertain future. Rather than being bogged down in pensive navel-gazing or melodrama, the novel emphasizes the exhilaration of youth; how exhilarating it is to be young, to be in love, to explore new places and aspects of yourself, and to experience each emotion, good or bad, so very intensely.
he Tamakis’ keen understanding of how friendships shift and change is at the heart of many of their books together, but it’s at its heartachingly vivid best here. Absolutely superb.
A shrewd and wistful coming-of-age story ... Playful yet plaintive, this is an elegant study of young women caught between the comforts of the past and the promise of what comes next.
