Love Addict: Confessions of a Serial Dater

Covering a year in the life of dorky animator K, this apparently autobiographical dramedy about the pitfalls of online hook-ups takes the reader through a flurry of sexual encounters and self-deprecation. K traverses the world of online dating through his own cluelessness and the steering of his roommate, who has turned the art of hooking up into a formula. Though it’s initially earnest and mildly amusing, the book descends into shallow territory even as it strives for the opposite. The eventual message is that this experience is empty, but the reader has to endure the journey right alongside K and must do so at the expense of the dignity of women whose only real purpose is to be props for one guy’s emotional epiphany and deliverance. Shadmi’s (The Abbadon) art is accomplished and appealing, but the large-headed, doe-eyed softness of his characters comes off as a weak apology for the narrow emotional perspective that presents women as cartoonish types and not equal participants in the story. (July)