Review | Fence vol. 5: Rise – C.S. Pacat & Johanna the Mad

This won’t be a super long review as I’ll be talking about a graphic novel that has 112 pages. But I couldn’t not talk about it! I recently found out there was a volume 5 of Fence, released more than 2 years after volume 4…. Of course I had to get it right away! I tried to pace myself and not read it right away but I have finished it in no time and will tell you about it today! So let’s dive in.

Review | Fence vol. 5: Rise – C.S. Pacat & Johanna the Mad

In the highly anticipated next chapter of Fence, Nicholas will stop at nothing until he becomes Seiji's worthy fencing rival!
USA Today best-selling author C. S. Pacat (Captive Prince) and popular web cartoonist Johanna the Mad along with colorist Joana LaFuente (Transformers) and letterer Jim Campbell (Giant Days) reunite for the highly-anticipated next chapter in this fierce and heartfelt GLAAD Media Award-nominated series. Excitement is in the air as Nicholas and his friends celebrate their prestigious invitation to the Halverton Training Camp. They immediately come face-to-face with the best teams in the country, and Nicholas struggles as he suffers defeat after defeat by an old enemy. Will a new addition to the team bring Nicholas closer to the rest of the team and awaken the resilience within he needs to prevail? But Seiji, in contrast to Nicholas, remains unchallenged and let down by the camp. With Seiji’s goal to learn (instead of win) stuck in his head, will Nicholas step up to pose a real challenge to Seiji, even growing their friendship as a result?. Get ready to say "En Garde" to the next installment of Fence!


Fence, Vol. 5: Rise by C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad
Published by BOOM! Box on 10/08/2022
Pages: 112
Goodreads

I adore the Fence series and started it when the first two volumes were out, so I could read them in basically one go. However, like I said, it’s been two years since I read volume 4 and I actually thought that we were never getting another volume again. Even though the series clearly hadn’t ended there just wasn’t any news! And I’ll admit, I’m scared we’ll have to wait at least another year before we might get another volume. That is right away my biggest complaint about this series.

I really enjoy this slice of life, sports drama series and I can’t get enough. Unfortunately there is only a little bit we get every time. I finish these volumes so fast and then the waiting begins all over. It looks like C.S. Pacat just doesn’t write that fast, there seems to be 2 years between the release of the sequel to her newest series as well. But it wold be great if she could pump these graphic novels out a bit quicker haha.

The story in this one continues where volume 4 ended. As with the other volumes we just get a small part of the story. The team is invited for a trainingscamp at another school and we only get to read about half of the camp. I don’t mind that it’s slow, because I really enjoy this type of story but it is frustrating that we’ll have to wait at least another year to read about the other half of the camp. And since vol 6 isn’t even announced yet, it could be a lot longer as well.

I adore the characters in this story, Nicholas is probably my favorite and I love how he slowly manages to become friends with Seji. But all the others are great as well and I keep being intrigued by Aiden. We get to meet some new characters from the different teams this time. It’s great how they’re all so distinct. The look different but have their own personalities as well. Sometimes I read a graphic novel and I can’t keep the characters straight for the life of me. But that’s never a problem here.

I love the art style in this graphic novel and overall I’m just a big fan. Maybe I’ll start reading the novels that came out by Sarah Rees Brennan. They seem to exist outside of this story but it would be so good to get a little bit more content about these characters haha. Even though the wait is excruciating I would highly recommend this series! Have you read it yet? Come talk to me in the comments!

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