Scott Pilgrim #1

Let me say this before I say anything else. I struggled to read this book the first time it was presented to me. I was reading it online and I just wasn't getting that pulled into it. However, I stuck with it and finished, eventually working to book 2, which I didn't finish. Then I reread this. Suddenly it was better. Eventually I went out and bought the physical copy of it and my God, it's beautiful. So I'm going to try and approach this with the first time in mind, but the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth as well (I may have read it more than 6 times, but I've lost count). 
 

 
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life opens with no intro, just straight into the everyday life of Scott Pilgrim as he tells his friends and band-mates about his new girlfriend, a 17 year old girl named Knives Chau. The story continues to explain how he met her, then he tells his gay roommate Wallace about her. She meets everybody and hears his band, falls in love with the music and possibly Scott. However, Scott has a very odd dream, where a girl on rollerblades with goggles begins to haunt him. When he sees her in the local library, an obsession develops. 
Later he meets the girl, named Ramona, and eventually they approach the stage of dating. Before this can happen though, Scott is attacked and forced to fight the first of Ramona's evil ex's. (!) He fights, learns of the 7 evil ex's he has to fight and defeat to date Ramona, and the book ends with a sweet kiss and awkwardness. 
 
Bryan Lee O'Malley is a one man wrecking crew on this book, breaking barriers in terms of creative plot devices, great references, and some fantastically animated looking panels. However, despite this, the book is a bit misleading and slow to really hook you in. It starts off very real, and then all of a sudden you have subspace highways (I was lost at this concept originally because I read it online) and people turning into demons for a final fight. I won't say it's perfect, but it is enjoyable, especially with re-reads. The first time is rarely the best in life, and this book shows that re-reads are your friend. You'll especially enjoy it if you're a video game nerd, as every band is a video game reference, the fights are reminiscent of Nintendo's best, and the whole fighting bad guys to get the girl is very Mario and Peach, but awesomer. 
Something you may not realize though is the art's detail though. I mentioned it's cartoony, but it has some of the most intense detail I've ever seen. The settings, the character designs, and the way the book was printed all add up to create a beauty for your eyes to behold, granted you have to enjoy the not-manga style.
This book isn't the best, I can't honestly say that. However, it's a great start to an epic saga of epic epicness, and I will highly recommend this to everybody I have ever met that enjoys video games, comics, or just has that right humor about them. 3.5 out of 5, but in my opinion, this is the worst of the books, it only gets better from here if you stick with it. Which you should do. Now go buy this in time for the movie.