Morning Glories, Volume 1: For a Better Future (edition 2011)

Summary: Morning Glory Academy (motto: For a Better Future) is one of the most prestigious - and secretive - prep schools in the country, but all there is not as it seems. Six new students, all from very different backgrounds, but all sharing the same birthday, arrive at the school, unsure of what to expect... but torture, murder, imprisonment, and giant secret laboratories were certainly not part of the brochure. Now they're going to have to work together if they ever have a hope of figuring out what's going on, and of escaping Morning Glory for good.

Review: I finished Volume 1 feeling pretty damn lost... but I can't tell yet whether it's a good kind of lost, or a bad kind of lost. There's a lot going on, with not a lot of explanation for anything, and I finished this volume in a "what the hell just happened here" kind of daze. I liked the characters; the kids are an assortment of high school cliches (snobby rich kid, bumbling nice-guy nerd, etc.), but there's at least a hint that they've all got more going on under the surface. The adults were less well-defined, and I occasionally had a hard time telling if a given adult was someone we'd seen before, or just a random henchman. I also had a hard time piecing together the geography of the place, which seems to have an endless number of sinister sub-basements and dim hallways and hidden rooms, but also brightly-lit dorms and classrooms. I'm definitely interested enough in the story to keep reading, but I just hope that as the series progresses, at least some of the pieces start to fall into place. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Morning Glories is about half dystopia, half action movie, mixed with a healthy dose of boarding school story, so if that sounds appealing, and you don't mind not getting all (or any) of the answers right away, then dive in. ( )