Gotham Academy Second Semester Volume 1: Welcome Back by Becky Cloonan

Summary from Goodreads:

GOTHAM ACADEMY is back for its second semester!

When you're Gotham Academy student Olive Silverlock, winter holidays can be a drag. Luckily, when a new student shows up at Gotham Academy to keep her company while the other students are away, Olive finds what could be a brand new friend...or a whole lot of trouble. And when Maps, Kyle, Colton, Pomeline and the rest of the students of Gotham's #1 prep school return for a new semester, the adventures are twice as mysterious and twice as dangerous!

Collects GOTHAM ACADEMY: SECOND SEMESTER #1-3, 5-8.

Review:

Every time I’m about ready to give up on this story because I think I have it all figured out, something happens and drags me back in. The first half of this installment was kind of slow and not that interesting, plot-wise. There was more Olive being mopy, and more dark, gothic background stuff about the academy –but nothing new or critical. Then finally, stuff got more interesting when the rest of the crew returns.

Students start disappearing and it’s soon discovered that they are being recruited by a Witch club. And it’s not a friendly group of witches –more like a group of brain washed students doing terrible things like burning books and abandoning their friends. And if in case that wasn’t enough to wheel me back into the swing of things, in comes an epic twist that I did not see coming at all.

And finally, a major development for Olive happens, something I’ve been waiting for since probably the first installment of these graphic novels. And I’m so glad, I got to witness this. I can’t wait to see where the story goes from this point on.

I love the side characters in this almost more than the main characters. They are all developed in a way I wish all side characters in all stories to be. I also love the setting. Everything about Gotham Academy is dark, mysterious, and creepy. I would seriously love this to be a TV show. I think this would make for best tv show set.

The one thing that irks me sometimes is the writing. There’s a lot of slow moments –like the author has to build up to being good again. And there seems to be a lot of extra filler that doesn’t need to be there. That being said, the writers are good at getting my attention back after all the filler. All in all, I give this an 8/10.