Name: Seconds
Rating: 4.07 (15 reviews)

Katie is a talented young chef running a successful restaurant. However her dreams are to open her own restaurant, a place where she can have more freedom and creativity. She has found the location for this restaurant has a backer (silent partner) and is working on fulfilling her dream. The problem is, everything is moving so slowly and she is starting to get impatient. What she really needs is a second chance, to fix the mistakes she has made and get her new restaurant on track. For Katie, she has the opportunity; a mysterious girl appeared in the middle of the night with some simple instructions for a second chance.

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

I’ve been a big fan of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series so I’ve been looking forward to see what will happen with Seconds. Luckily, the same humour and whimsical adventure is present within this new graphic novel. What I like about O’Malley is the way he takes a look at everyday situations in a fun and comical way. The added magical realism thread really helps explore the issues present within this book.

Seconds is full of existential angst and it explores the idea of making mistakes and he does it in a new and unique way. Unlike the Sliding Doors style where life is explored in two different situations, Bryan Lee O’Malley plays with the idea of correcting mistakes while Katie sleeps. Of course this has some humorous effects; Katie isn’t aware what has changed and this leads into a madcap scenario.

Bryan Lee O’Malley returns as the artist for his own books again and he has an interesting art style. There is an Asian influence in his art work; the big eyes and hair are not the only thing he takes from this comic book style. This influence can be found throughout his graphic novels in the characteristics, style and storytelling. What I like about Seconds is that he took his art style as seen in the Scott Pilgrim series and added colour to it. There are not a lot of colours used; the shading is often very simple and one shade but it works really well. The colour is just used to make the art pop; Bryan Lee O’Malley does great artwork, almost simplistic but it remains very expressive.

I am glad to have more Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic novels to experience but I am also reminded that he had another book before the Scott Pilgrim series that I need to check out. I do have Lost at Sea on my phone thanks to comixology; I just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I wouldn’t mind checking out The Wonderful World of Kim Pine as well but I know it is short. Bryan Lee O’Malley has become a favourite of mine and I hope he does something new soon.

This review originally appeared on my blog: http://literary-exploration.com/2014/11/05/seconds-by-bryan-lee-omalley/

celinenyx

Written on Feb 8, 2018

Seconds is the story of Katie, a chef whose dream to open a second restaurant keeps being frustrated. It is an interesting twist on a common trope: if you could do one moment over, remove one mistake from your past, what would you do? O'Malley's writing shines on whimsy, and Seconds is a pleasure to read. Not as funny as Scott Pilgrim, but more complex and heftier than his debut, Lost at Sea.

Artemis

Written on May 14, 2016

Recommended by a friend and I absolutely loved it! Great story and illustrations.

Joséphine

Written on Aug 21, 2015

Initial thoughts: This one's a graphic novel that certainly makes you think. It's quirky, has dark moments and yet is in good fun as it plays on the desire of many people to want to change their past. Here Katie has that opportunity — to erase her mistakes and hopefully make better life choices. The premise was well thought out and of course, I loved the restaurant aspects because food! The contrast between between happy hopeful moments and sinister ones made for great conflicts that moved the plot.

Michael @ Knowledge Lost

Written on Oct 2, 2014

Seconds: A Graphic Novel

by Bryan Lee O'Malley