Review: who is monson grey?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 12, 2013
The reluctant new hero, or Horum Vir, of Coren University has no memory of anything much about himself.  He woke up in a hospital after something happened on a bridge where he was the only survivor.  Apparently no one really knows what happened.  And he can't remember anything.  All he knows is that he is Monson Grey and he won a scholarship to this famous school where all of the important and rich people go, the high society.  Monson's face is a mess of scars that make people tend to shy away from him, and him away from other people.  The scars are from whatever happened on that bridge.Monson is now called the Horum Vir, or Hero, because of his win in the competition.  He unseated the guy that held the scholarship and it was a monumental win because it was very unexpected.  Freshmen never win.  His first day at school he meets new friends, Arthur and Casey, and learns that he knows his way around a sword after a little case of mistaken identity.  Settling into this new school has its difficulties for Monson.  His friends help make things easier, but the other students just tend to not like him for one of many reasons.  And no one at this school seems very normal.I was pleasantly surprised at how good these novels are.  The way that they are basically "cut up" to createmore novels makes one wonder if you can still keep it as an amazing story.  But Collin Earl did just that.  Apparently his story was so big that it took creating several volumes so as not to have one massive and scary book that many wouldn't read because of its sheer size.I am now towards the end of the third volume myself and have noticed that the farther you go into the story, the more you uncover what a tortured soul Monson Grey really is.  It seems that the darkness is closing in on his mind.  By the middle of the third volume, he is having trouble discerning what is a dream and what is actually reality or even latent memories.  He feels an evil within himself and strange things are happening.  It seems that the only reason he has made it this far is because of his good friends Arthur and Casey, and strangely enough, the very elusive Cyann Harrison.  She is the one girl no one can beat with a sword, the girl no one has a phone number to (except Monson), and the one that always shows up when Monson needs someone.  She knows things, but she isn't talking.  And it is apparent that she has her own skeletons.This series not only spins a great story, but it is relatively clean as well.  The language is minimal and no explicit situations that I have seen so far.  A book young teens and possibly even tweens would enjoy reading without you having to worry!