This has nothing to do with Bryan Lee O’Malley’s fabulous new standalone graphic novel Seconds. I only mention it because I wanted to refer you to that time when Christa & I went Pilgrim-crazy back in the summer of 2010.

It’s been four long years waiting for O’Malley’s follow-up to Scott. Holding Seconds in your hand, it’s lovely 3/4 book jacket you immediately know this book is going to be worth the wait. It’s a full color, beauty with heft (physical, emotional) and humor.

Seconds introduces us to Katie a successful chef and co-owner of a popular restaurant called Seconds. Katie’s got one foot in her twenties — she’s soon to turn thirty — and one foot out of the door of Seconds and on the threshold of a new restaurant, her very own. She’s not happy at all with her place on the Earth at the moment. This is only exacerbated when she spies The EX-BF in a Seconds’ booth with a hottie.

Katie and a coworker do something fun and careless, and it leaves one of the servers scarred for life. Literally. Katie goes home full of remorse and guilt. After a restless night of sleep she finds a paranormal pal sitting on her dresser. This pal offers Katie an otherworldly chance. Write down your regret, eat a mushroom, go to sleep, and wake to a whole new world with the problem solved.

Easy peasy, right?

Of course not. Like so many of us, Katie finds that what she thinks is her problem and what her actual problem is are not the same thing. She wields this new mystical power carelessly and it is awesome. Nobody wants a responsible magic-mushroom eater, do they?`

When she gets in over her head, she befriends Hazel the scarred coworker who knows a little bit about the mystic. A little bit of knowledge doesn’t exactly help Katie and we follow her through trying to unravel the mess she’s made. Basically this a book about a woman on the verge of 30 dealing with all the asshole things she did in her twenties. Oh, Sister, I’ve been there.

I chewed through this one in a few hours even though I kept telling myself to slow down, I just couldn’t. It probably deserves a re-read as soon as I get it back. Much like Scott Pilgrim, this is one of those books I’m passing around with breathless anticipation because I need someone to talk about it with.

The art is quite similar to the Scott Pilgrim books, but in full color which makes it even more fun to eat up with your eyes. Best of all, there are a few Scott Easter Eggs in the pages which eagle-eyed readers will enjoy. I know they made me cackle with glee.

Boy, I missed Bryan Lee O’Malley much more than I realized. It’s good to have him back.

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Once I chewed through every Scott Pilgrim book currently available, I felt a little bereft. What was I going to do? I couldn’t just jump into another graphic novel. What if it wasn’t funny enough? What if there wasn’t any magical-realismesque video game action? What if, what if it wasn’t any good?

Lucky for me the answer came in the form of a big box of graphic novels from Largehearted boy. In that treasure trove, I unearthed Lost At Sea, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s first book.

It was the perfect balm for my Scott Pilgrim withdrawal.

How so? Because it was the not so bad, not so good way to get over my Scottaholism.

Lost at Sea is a road trip graphic novel about four Canadian teens driving home from California. The star of the book is Raleigh, an intellectually gifted 18-year-old who has no soul. At least she doesn’t think she has a soul, she’s pretty sure a cat stole it when she was younger.

She happened upon this trio of classmates coincidence in California, where Raleigh was supposed to be visiting her estranged father but instead had hooked up with her Internet boyfriend.

What I liked about this one is that you can see glimpses of Scott Pilgrim in it. The friendships where affection is shown through acerbic wit and sarcasm, the floundering hero looking trying to come of age, and the littlest bit of music.

What I didn’t like about this one is that it feels really floaty. A lot of questions are brought up or insinuated but never fully explained or answered. At one point Raleigh vaguely mentions that her mother sold her (and her sisters) to a man in the very same Oregon town the group is stuck in after their car breaks down. Is this true? I can’t tell.

I’m not entirely sure what really happened with the Internet boyfriend either. Like I said it’s kind of floaty.

However, there is a scene towards the end of the book where the group is trying to capture stray cats in the hopes of helping Raleigh get her soul back. It’s beautiful, funny, and poignant. Probably worth the price of reading the book alone. It so perfectly captures the lengths true friends will go to when you’re in need.

This is one of those books I’d probably have adored when I was about twenty-two. There’s just something about the hopeless romanticism, the melodrama, and the what’s it all mean-ness of it that will appeal to young people who are at that point in their lives. Which, I guess, kind of makes sense, since the book is aimed at the late-teen crowd.

Like I said, it’s okay. There are worse ways to spend an hour. However, if you’re looking for a good step down from Scott Pilgrim while you wait the arrival of the last one, it’s absolutely perfect.

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I was so excited to read Scott Pilgirm’s Finest Hour, the sixth and final volume in the series, that even though I had ordered it for ridiculously cheap, the moment I got near Big Brain Comics last Tuesday I caved and bought another copy. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to wait another day to find out what happend to Scott, Ramona, and their gang of wry sidekicks.

Volume 6 takes place roughly four months after Volume 5. Ramona’s MIA, Scott’s vegging in an apartment paid for by his parents, and Sex Bob-Omb has broken up. Things are not going well for our favorite Canadian hipster doofus.

Eventually that gang of wry sidekicks rouses Scott from his funk and forces him to face his pathetic life and the seventh evil-ex Gideon Graves. It is the battle we’ve all been waiting for and it’s well worth the wait. If it seems I’m being intentionally vague, it’s because I am. I don’t want to be a spoiler. Bryan Lee O’Malley reveals a lot about where the characters are going, some of it is shocking, some of it’s not. However, I don’t want to ruin any of the delicious surprises Volume 6 has.

Endings are hard, so it was with a little bit of trepidation that I jumped into Volume 6. Since I was one of the first of my friends to read it, many have asked what I thought.

“He ends it well,” I told each of them. It sounds like damning with faint praise, but that’s not it at all. There were many routes O’Malley could have taken. He could have gone down the schmaltzy sentimental route which would have felt like being manipulated. He could have come at us from out of nowhere with a bunch of left field surprises which would have felt like selling out the characters for the sake of shock. Instead he stays true to his characters and delivers an ending that is full of optimism and epic video-gamesque battles.

What O’Malley has created here is a funny, touching coming of age tale for twentysomethings. It’s about letting go of childish things, dumping that bullshit emotional baggage (literally and figuratively) that we all like to cling to in our 20s (that whole “I’m so broken and flawed and my pain make me unique and mysterious” bullshit) and opening yourself up to possibility. It sounds hokey, but in his hands it’s not at all.

No, in O’Malley’s hands it’s funny and fun and surprisingly touching. Oh, just go buy the books already. Read them now before the movie ruins everything (not that I expect the movie to be bad, but because it will spoil all the surprising things in the books).

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It’s a little known fact that I’ve been keeping a list of every book I’ve read since 2002. For that reason alone this list might be weighted toward the books I’ve read since then.

There are many theories on the art of crafting a Top 10 list. Some people come from the school of contemplative thought. Stewing, thinking, pondering, and rethinking — they want to make sure the list is filled with worthy candidates. They want to make sure they haven’t forgotten anything, and the list properly represents the image and persona they want to maintain. These Top 10s are usually filled with stuff you never heard of and stuff you’d never read.

I’m of from the school of make shit up as you go along and apologize after for any obvious gaffes. Sure it’s not a division one school, but you know it still works. I only had one rule for the list, I wanted to include books published in the past 10 years. It’s too late to turn back, here we go.

Short Story Collections
Throw Like a Girl by Jean Thompson: I read this one three years ago and I can still remember scenes from the stories, and how one of the characters called herself the girl you came to when you wanted to wreck something. It’s a devastating and horribly under-rated collection.

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy: The very last story in this collection features a family, a Christmas tree, and some hitchhikers. It is so suspenseful that you’ll be glad it’s a short story and not a novel, because you can’t hold your breath for an entire novel without losing consciousness. This is only the beginning of its greatness.

How to Breath Underwater by Julie Orringer: I read this book three times in 2005. Need I say more?

Novels
King Dork by Frank Portman: If you’re new here, you probably don’t remember the summer of aught-six where all I did was blog about reading King Dork.

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill: This is a book about the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull from Greek mythology, who works as a short order cook. I haven’t read this since 2002 and it still haunts me.

The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: I’m including this one not just because it’s good but to prove that’s I’m a reader of the people. I wrote about it, allegedly, but now all you get is my kickass 404 page.

Graphic Novels
Blankets by Craig Thompson: I liked it because it was good, is about the best I could come up with.

Stitches by David Small: This might be one of the most emotionally devastating books I’ve ever read (right up there with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye).

Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley: Duh.

Non-Fiction
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken: I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. So this category gets the leftover book. Since I couldn’t include The Giant’s House (which is in my top three all-time favorite novels) because of the date restriction I get to work McCracken onto the list because of her heartbreaking memoir which was the best book I read in 2008.

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The last time we visited our favorite Canadian Hipster doofus, he was getting in deep with Ramona Flowers, she of the seven evil exes. So deep that the couple has shacked up. What? Our favorite slacker has gotten a job and a live-in girlfriend? How can this be.

Alas, it is s. But no need to worry the Scott Pilgrim manages to make becoming a grown up totally awesome.

Volume five opens with Scott’s birthday party where he proclaims he’s going to be the best 24-year-old ever. But being 24 isn’t proving too easy for Scott. Two of Ramona’s evil-exes are back and they brought robots.

ROBOTS!

Did you just nearly faint with glee? Because I did. So there are the robots and Ramona’s head keeps doing this weird-glowy thing whenever she’s upset. It’s been glowing a lot. Especially when good ol’ Knives Chau comes around to kick Ramona’s ass. See, Knives just found out that while Scott was dating her he as also starting to see Ramona. Knives gets the best line in this book:

You stole him with with your advanced American slut technology. You are not nice!

Like Knives, Ramona is none-too-thrilled to learn of the cheating. But after getting shit-faced drunk at a party she seems to have forgiven Scott.

But for poor Scott things get worse. While Ramona showers and contemplates the future of their relationship, Scott’s BFF Kim (the drummer in Sex-Bob-Omb) is kidnapped by the evil-exes. When he returns from saving his life, Ramona tries to make a confession and then disappears. Left in her wake is a letter labeled “Gideon” and a strange cat.

The rest of the book follows Scott as he copes with his loss.

Most of Volume 5 feels a little bit like a ramp up to Volume 6 (out July 20). Kind of like how the movie Spiderman felt like it’s sole purpose was to introduce characters for Spiderman 2 where all the good stuff takes place. That’s what Volume 5 is. . . scene setting. Funny, entertaining scene-setting, but scene-setting nonetheless.

I still can’t wait for Volume 6. I’m obsessed. And terrified. I’m not sure what kind of ending will be satisfying, but I have faith that Bryan Lee O’Malley can pull it off.

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