Seconds is a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Published on July 15, 2014, by Ballantine Books, the novel tells the story of Katie Clay, head chef at a prospering restaurant named Seconds, who obtains the ability to fix her past mistakes by writing them down in a notebook, eating a mushroom, and falling asleep. Abusing the power to make her life perfect, Katie ends up creating more problems for herself.
Katie is the founding owner of a popular restaurant named Seconds. Katie inhabits a room in Seconds and is woken up one night by a mysterious, white-haired girl named Lis, who gives Katie a notepad, a single mushroom, and instructions for her to follow to cast a "do-over" spell in order to fix her past mistakes. Katie finds more mushrooms under the floorboard in the restaurant and uses them to fix problems arising with the construction of a brand new restaurant, her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and to prevent the injury of a waitress named Hazel. Despite Lis' rule of one mushroom per person, Katie ignores Lis' concerns and seeks to use the mushrooms to make her life perfect, but unintentionally creates more problems as a result and disrupts the balance of time and space.
Seconds received positive reviews. IGN awarded it an 8.8/10, with reviewer Jesse Schedeen calling it a "a great way to follow-up the mega-popular Scott Pilgrim series." The Telegraph's Ben Travis also gave the graphic novel a warm review. "As a standalone novel," Travis writes, "Seconds may not have the scope of the Scott Pilgrim series, but it's a perfectly formed piece. While some pop culture-laden works of art quickly lose relevance, the honesty and humanity in Seconds will keep readers returning again and again."
In April 2022, it was announced that Blake Lively would direct a film adaptation of Seconds for Searchlight Pictures, with Edgar Wright (who directed and co-wrote the feature film adaptation of O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series) writing the screenplay and producing the film alongside Marc Platt.