The premise of this book sounds promising: a bunch of kids sent to an insanely strict and mysterious boarding school that only seems to take in the most clever, the best of the best. (Note that this doesn't mean that they're "good" kids, mind you.) It just doesn't live up to this promise, at least not yet. 
 The book starts off well, with various teens preparing to set off for a prestigious boarding school. Almost all of the typical teen archetypes are here: the good girl, the "party girl", the outcast loser guy, the stalker girl, the silent guy, and the rich jerk. This was par for the course, which I expected and had no problem with. I was especially curious about Jade, as she was one of the characters with the most interesting back story. (Stalking a teacher and making everyone afraid of her? Pretty intriguing.) 
 Where it starts being a little bland is when everyone arrives at the school. The pacing is almost painfully slow when it comes to reveals and I have to admit that I couldn't really immediately place why any of these kids were supposedly here other than being exceptionally smart or talented in one way or another and for sharing the same birthdate. There's enough here that I was intrigued, but for the most part it's a rather slow moving beginning. I'm used to reading comics and books with slow starts, but this one just wasn't catching my interest. (I actually picked this out because it wasn't one of those series that was all "OMG-FLASHY FIGHTS FROM THE START".) 
 I did like the art and there's enough here to where I'm mildly curious, but unless volume 2 has some great plot points I might just shelve this series under "good, but not for me".