But it does give me the chance to use one of my favorite words - penultimate, which is almost as good as the sublime "antepenultimate," a wonderfully precise word that is useful almost exactly never. But I see I'm digressing already.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe is the fifth of the six books by Bryan Lee O'Malley (which I read in the slightly newer edition colored by Nathan Fairbairn), in which Scott battles the twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, as he comes closer to the end of his not-all-that-new-at-this-point girlfriend Ramona Flowers' trail of evil exes.
(One bit of dialogue in this book reminded me of something I'd forgotten - these are Ramona's evil exes, not all of her exes. She dated other people who were not evil. And, presumably, when starting a new relationship in this world, if your new love dated five or six people before you, but they were all, say, Chaotic Good or True Neutral, you wouldn't have to fight any of them.)
The big parallel here between Ramona and Scott - I won't say there's one central parallel in each book, since I don't want to dig to prove that right now, but I'm thinking it pretty strongly - is the double-timing thing. Scott famously started the series dating the teenager Knives Chau, and, when Ramona finally confronts him on that in this book, he notes that he never cheated on her; he cheated on Knives with her. (Which is about as reassuring and adult as you might expect.) And Ramona, as we learn this time out, was dating Kyle and Ken simultaneously but secretly.
So maybe, to pull the threads together, we're all evil exes in our breakups, since we all did shitty things to our partners. Well, when we're in our early twenties and thoughtless, like Scott. I'd like to hope not everyone is a Scott Pilgrim, and possibly even that Scott himself can and will grow out of this phase of life.
Anyway, Kyle and Ken come to town, they challenge Scott, and they send ever-larger robots to fight him, mostly during parties. Meanwhile, the Scott/Ramona relationship is hitting a particularly bumpy patch, over the two-timing thing, which leads to first Ramona kicking Scott out of their apartment and then her disappearing entirely. In other news, the recording sessions are finally over, and Sex Bob-Omb's record is being mixed or something, and might eventually see the light of day.
Of course Scott eventually defeats Kyle and Ken - if he didn't, we wouldn't get to the sixth book - but that doesn't make everything all right, and it doesn't bring Ramona back. If we know the Hero's Journey, we expect this: the lowest point, when everything is lost and the loved one in the hands of evil, is right before the big final confrontation.
That will be the sixth book, which I'll re-read in another month or so. This one ends on something of a cliffhanger, but that's pretty common for penultimate books. You should expect it by now.
(Oh, and here are links to my posts on the first four books, which I didn't mention above: Precious Little Life, Vs. the World, The Infinite Sadness, and Gets It Together.)
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