When I first began this, the 2nd of Bryan Lee O'Malley's wildly popular graphic novel series, I questioned what the hell I was thinking when I gave the first volume a good review. Granted, this was about 1o hours into a 24 hour read-a-thon, right about the same time I began to question if I had the stamina. My mood wasn't good.
However, O'Malley's bizarre and frenetic comic won me over again. Juvenile, maybe. An unlikeable protagonist? Sure. But it's a normal story of young love until those moments when Scott Pilgrim must literally fight one of his girlfriend's evil exes. Just as a matter of fact. Hilarious.
Again, it's a simple enough, obviously manga-inspired style, and it totally fits the quirky story.
This time around Scott has to battle Lucas Lee, a now famous actor, who briefly dated Scott's girlfriend when Lee wasn't famous. Lee reveals that he is part of the League of Ramona's Evil Ex-Boyfriends, a group unknown to Scott before now. To further complicate the plot, Scott's ex Knives battles with Ramona and it looks like more of his exes might play a role in later volumes. Oh, I know it sounds so silly. And it is. But delightfully entertaining.
7 comments:
A friend of mine is really fond of this series, but I'm not sure it's for me...
Em
Em: Though I'm thoroughly enjoying it, it's not a book I'd recommend to a lot of people actually.
My daughter put v1 and v2 on hold at the library but didn't read them because only the 2nd one came in. Didn't seem to bother my son though, he laughed his way through this one. Kind of annoying really, his laugh is rather loud and I was trying to write a review at the time.
I read several of these and enjoyed them all. My library had a partial set, vol. 2,3, 6 & 9 or something like that. I enjoyed them all. While they are funny and silly, I felt there was some deeper stuff going on in them.
I'd love to read them all, but if I bought them they'd end up costing me a small fortune.
I read the whole series earlier this year and really enjoyed it. John, you're right about the story being juvenile but it works.
Wanda: I didn't laugh out loud, but had I done so, I'm sure it would have been annoying.
CB: I started to wonder if it was O'Malley's metaphor for the way new loves take the place of old ones in our mind, but then I thought I was probably over thinking it.
Vasilly: Yes, it does!
my daughter reads manga out of order and skips books. She says it doesn't matter. would drive me nuts.
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