Seconds

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Seconds focuses on Katie, the executive chef and creator of the eponymous restaurant who’s planning to open a new space, named Lucknow, in a different part of her city. While balancing her responsibilities to renovate the new space, saving money by living above her current restaurant, and slowly transitioning out of her role as the head of Seconds, she begins to see a strange elf-like creature. After a terrible accident she blames on her lost focus from balancing too many responsibilities, Katie discovers that the creature is the house spirit, Lis, who grows mushrooms that allow a person to undo a mistake. Despite the house spirit’s warnings, Katie begins to use the mushrooms to undo any mistake, big or show more small. Soon, she learns that meddling with reality has its price and she cannot keep up with all the changes to reality she causes. Worse, her actions put Lis and reality in danger.

O’Malley’s story has the tone of a fable transplanted to the modern day. Despite the presence of cars and cell phones, there’s something about it that feels entirely gothic. His depiction of the new restaurant tucked away under a bridge or Katie’s original restaurant as akin to an inn or public house evokes an earlier time when magic could inhabit an urban space. The story further has a moral about accepting life’s changes rather than brooding on what could have been. O’Malley brings his sense of humor with Katie breaking the fourth wall to react to and engage with the narration, adding a metatextuality to this modern fable. Great for fans of fantasy and an excellent work demonstrating O’Malley’s storytelling talent! show less

Things are a bit up in the air for Katie -- her first restaurant has done so well that she's basically no longer needed, especially as she looks to get a second restaurant up and running; her ex-boyfriend is suddenly and inexplicably popping up at her old restaurant repeatedly after extended time apart; and she and her replacement chef sometimes hate each other and sometimes love each other. Their sexy affair inadvertently leads to a kitchen accident that severely hurts a young server. This last event prompts Katie to remember a weird dream she had in which a house spirit pointed out an empty dresser drawer to Katie. She is drawn to it now, finding a magic mushroom, which once she ingests re-writes the previous day so that the accident show more never occurs. Katie becomes obsessed with hoarding and eating more magic mushrooms to fix many mistakes in her past, despite the warnings from the house spirit not to do so. With each new change, something else goes wrong and Katie gets a growing sense that something terrible is on the horizon...

Wow, was this book good! I was skeptical at first because the premise seemed more than a little odd and the main character isn't exactly super likable. But O'Malley creates a tightly wound story that explores many types of relationships from coworkers to lovers to friends and delves into deep topics, like the elusiveness of perfection, without getting too bogged down in darkness. The main characters are all fairly interesting, each with his or her own problem to tackle. The narration is funny at times, especially when the "fourth wall" is broken down a bit and Katie responds to something stated by the narrator. And, the book manages to end on a happy note without being overly cheesy.

The illustrations are more cartoon-ish than I usually like, but it works quite well with this story containing so many magical and fantastical elements. The book seems a little thicker than your standard graphic novel, but it was so compelling that I devoured it all in an afternoon. I recommend it for when you're looking for something a little bit on the lighter side but that still has some food for thought. show less

Full disclosure - I was promised this book in the Early Reviewer giveaway over a year ago, but it never arrived. Eventually, I bought it myself. This review is the result of that purchase.

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Like many, I came to Seconds as a result of the author's previous work on Scott Pilgrim. What I found was a tight, engaging, self-contained story with all of the wit and humor of Scott Pilgrim, with the same active and attractive art style. And lo and behold, it may just be better.

The strength of Seconds is its single driving narrative, which creates a nice arc for our protagonist, Katie. She is not entirely likeable, but only because it's so easy to see our own flaws reflected in her. She changes, she learns, and manages to come to terms with her show more mistakes even as she attempts to escape from them.

Seconds was a quick read but an engaging one, and a story that I will be certain to return to in the future. show less

This is a graphic novel about Katie, a successful chef, with a strong streak of perfectionism and limited social skills. For the last few years, she has been dedicated to her job at Seconds, the restaurant that she made hugely popular. Now she is planning to open her own restaurant, but is unable to separate herself from Seconds. After a day in which a serious lapse of judgement leads to a nasty accident, she is given the chance to change the past. Of course, we all know that that can never turn out well. As expected, things spiral out of control and Katie learns some valuable lessons. Katie is a complex character, and I sympathized with her and wanted to tell her to "Smarten up!" at the same time. O'Malley's illustrations of house show more spirits and creeping horror perfectly fit the story. I liked the developing friendship between Katie and one of the waitresses—that worked better for me than the romance did. I enjoyed this book. It had a nice balance of humour, magic, and spookiness. show less

Eating a magic mushroom and meditating on a mistake provides restaurateur Katie with the ability to erase this mistake and start anew the next day. Not content to limit herself to erasing one mistake, Katie begins to seriously warp the time/space continuum as she keeps trying to reach her ideal reality.

For example, Katie meditates on the mistake of breaking up with her boyfriend, only to wake to a world where they never broke up and he is a complete tool. This brings me to my beef with this book--Katie keeps envisioning a different realities, but all of them include this boyfriend. If he was a tool in one reality, wouldn't he continue to be a tool in the other realities? Why would she still want him after his true self was revealed?

Seconds is exactly what you're looking for in a self-contained graphic novel. Got some sci-fi/fantasy elements, but isn't page after page of greek gods punching each other and dialoguing about 70 years of obscure canon.

Seconds is about a restaurant owner named Katie who is trying to open a second restaurant, and coping with various decisions she's made in her life. But the wrinkle is that she discovers magic mushrooms (just go with it) that allow her to change any decision she's made inside her home. She eats some and changes various parts of her life, but, as with most time-travel stories, there are unintended consequences that she has to deal with.

Very character-driven, very well-told, and not full of stupid pandering nerd bullshit show more like Bryan Lee O'Malley's previous book Scott Pilgrim. Highly recommended. show less

If you loved Scott Pilgrim (and want that with a dash of Master Chef) this intense, hilarious, fantasy, restaurant industry work of magic will blow your socks off.

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley is a creepy adult fairy tale, where the main character reads like one of your best friends. The dialogue is sharp and the characters seem so real that you expect them to show up at your house when you are done reading.

Brilliant!