Book Review: The Light of Wounds (The Mind Monsters, 3)

Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

A quirky novel of boundless proportions

Alex is an alcoholic. We’ll call it that now. After turning to the bottle (or five of them) to start Fallen Spirits, the second book in this series, she’s lost and drowning and hurt to start The Light of Wounds, book three of this highest-of-stakes fantasy thriller series.

She’s dealt with abuse nearly her whole life, but the most recent abuse by JT, her incredibly rich and repulsive boss, is of a different stature. He went after her. And now he’s going after the world, creating mini black holes throughout Earth for his own gain and causing widespread panic. 

But he’s not the only villain in The Light of Wounds. Tech genius Aaron Minor was thought to have died, but he’s just in the internet. He’s got his sights set on JT, but as these two crazed rich guys try to one-up each other, the whole planet is going to get sucked into oblivion. 

Alex is deep in her trauma, so we can’t even be sure there is a way out of this. She wonders if she can she make it, as we do. What’s the fate of the universe if all you want to do is shut off your world anyway? 

Luckily, Alex has help. Brave, strong friends who lift her up, watch out for her, give her the space she needs, and still propel her toward the only ending they can see possible: the one where they save the world.

“‘Healing your pain from the inside out is the spiritual path. Nothing outside f you can give you answers or make you happy. The light only enters through your wounds.’”

The Light of Wounds is the quiet cousin of Fallen Spirits, despite being on the verge of apocalyptic demise. The stakes are as high as they come, and the powerful can make anything happen. I don’t know what person is out there who hasn’t dreamt of surfing the inside of the internet, but I also don’t know which reader doesn’t want to read about it. 

Aaron Minor’s entrance into this novel is such a cool wrinkle into the Mind Monsters series, especially since there’s complexity there. He wants to take down JT; we do too. He was even wrongfully murdered by JT. As a reader, I kept clawing at the possibility of teaming up with this guy, even though his presence as a villain is darn clear. Oh, what big things are coming in book four!

Despite the super-high stakes, this novel just doesn’t come with the same thrills and intrigue as Fallen Spirits. The dialogue can be unnatural and over-expositional, Alex is stuck still for so long, and the ending pulls up short of the full story. I know that’s due in part because I just want to see this whole thing play out so badly, but it’s also because there’s just not much narrative movement from the last book to the next one.

The Light of Wounds still comes with more of Hatz’s signature flare on the sentence level. The author is funny, creative, and spiritual; there’s much to connect with on the internal level of this book, especially in its ongoing conversation with addiction. This series is set up to have one explosive finale.

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