Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

I first heard about Scott Pilgrim in college. My memory says that this is because the movie came out, but it turns out that the movie wasn't released until two years after I'd graduated. So it must have just been that a friend really liked the comics, enough that they stuck in my mind. Regardless, they went on my to-read list, where they've been sitting ever since. For nearly a decade now.

When the movie did come out, I refrained from going to see it, still intending to read the source material first. But there was always something more interesting, and I never got around to it. Until I was finally gifted the first volume this Christmas.

I should have read these back in college. I probably would have enjoyed them a lot more. It's not that the story's bad. There's a cute romance and some fun jokes and some genuine weirdness that elevates this slightly above the standard rom-coms. But there were also elements that made me uncomfortable.

The biggest one of these is that 23 year old Scott Pilgrim is dating a 17 year old high schooler at the beginning of the book. There are story reasons for this; it shows how immature and emotionally stinted Scott is. It was still hard for me to get past. The girl he ultimately falls for is a manic-pixie-dream-girl, something I wouldn't have minded as much, or probably even noticed, in college.

Like I said, the story is fun and cute for the most part. But I'm not looking to pick up the rest of the books. I may seek out the movie, if I can watch it for free, just to see how everything plays out.

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