Saturday, November 24, 2018

Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley


I posted reviews of the first five books in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series. Now I’m finally getting to the last one eight years after it was published. It’s reflective of the way Scott Pilgrim might get things done.

In a way, the arc of this book reflects the arc of the series. In the start, Scott is stuck, not wanting to face the pain of losing his girlfriend, Ramona, just as he was avoiding the pain of entering adulthood at the start of the series. In the middle, he finds something worth fighting for, even if it means coming to grips with his past and facing the pain of changing. In both this book and the series, the thing worth fighting for is his relationship with Ramona. In the end, Scott embraces a new journey with an even more uncertain future.

Along the way, Scott’s longsuffering friends, who are growing up in their own ways, try to help him. Considering that Scott is often a self-centered jerk, it’s amazing he has so many friends who care about him and stick with him. It’s hard to make it in life without good friends.

I like the final words of the book, spoken by Scott before he and Ramona jump hopefully into the future, “We try again.” This is life. We try. We fail. Along the way, we make a life, a story, that we enjoy creating as we go along. If we don’t like it, we try again.

The other books in this series are

This series has also been adapted into a film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. Portland, OR: Oni Press, 2010.

No comments:

Post a Comment