Seconds

Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Format: Original Graphic Novel
Originally Published: 2014
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Length: 336 pages

I’m a huge fan of Scott Pilgrim, so when I saw that Bryan Lee O’Malley had released a new stand-alone graphic novel I had to pick it up. It’s also loosely about food and I love food. I’m what’s referred to as an easy sell.

Katie is in a frightening, exciting, and stressful point in her life. She’s transitioning from being head chef at a popular restaurant that she helped open four years ago to opening and co-owning a new restaurant. Her partner and her had to decide between two locations, and she choose the one in a less popular area because the building had a lot of potential, but now the renovations are running long and costing more than expected. In the midst of the stress, a creepy girl shows up in her bedroom at night with a set of instructions:

1. Write your mistake
2. Ingest one mushroom
3. Go to sleep
4. Wake anew

And with that, she now had a way to correct her mistakes in life, but this is also when things begin to really get out of control. This is a power that’s hard not to abuse.

This has similar humour to the Scott Pilgim series, although it’s focused a bit more on the narrative than the laughs. I would have liked a few more pages like the sample I included here, but overall I thought he did a great job of mixing the humour with the drama and keeping a consistent tone throughout the graphic novel. O’Malley is at his best in the little moments, adding life to simple conversations and mundane events in a way that makes every page interesting.

This is a no-brainer if you enjoyed his other work. It’s not on the same scale as Scott Pilgrim might be, but it’s worth checking out.