Death Wins a Goldfish: Reflections from a Grim Reaper’s Yearlong Sabbatical
By: Brian Rea
Genre: Graphic Novel, Humor
Number of Pages: 176
Published: February 5, 2019
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Dates Read: May 5, 2024
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Death has never taken a day off. That is, until he gets a letter from HR insisting he start using them, starting that Friday. As Death takes his mandatory year-long sabbatical, readers get a peek into his diary and the activities he decides to fill his life with – including, winning a goldfish.

I picked this title up at work in the library when I saw it displayed on our shelves of the graphic novels that I pass by every morning on my way to my desk. I thought, “that sounds fun” and grabbed it. It then proceeded to sit on my desk for months as I continued to renew it as I read through a ton of award finalists. Welp, I finally finished reading for my awards, and this was one of the first books I sat down with to read.

The amount of photos I took on my phone of drawings from this little graphic novel are endless – Death doing an ollie over his goldfish in his fishbowl is my phone’s screensaver right now.

As much as this is cute, there’s also the look into not taking life so seriously and to make sure to have fun every once in a while as well. There were even some deep quotes, like this one:

“Saw the redwoods – even bigger than I thought! One of the trees had a giant hole right through the middle of it. The guide said it was “dying slowly” – so when everyone passed, I stepped inside. All the sounds went away. I felt small and warm. It wasn’t dying at all. It was just living slowly.”

Like I said, I borrowed this from my library, but I’m going to be on the hunt for my own copy of this book so I can read it again and again.