The Haunted Mask

Plot Summary: Young Carly Beth is always being scared by her dickwad friends. Tired of being the butt of their jokes, she decides that this Halloween she's going to scare them. She basically breaks into a costume shop after it's closed and demands the shopkeeper sell her the really scary mask she finds. He does but when she wears it, the mask makes her behave really aggressively and weirdly. At the end of the night she can't take it off and it turns out the mask is *sigh* a real face the shopkeeper made. For reasons. Through contrived circumstances she manages to get it off, only for her brother to put it on, dooming him to wear it forevermore.

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You know, it wasn't until I was typing out the summary above that I realised how weird this plot it. I mean, I guess that's a point in the book's favour since it didn't feel too bizarre when I was reading it. Except for the ending of course-damn, why didn't they put that in the Goosebumps movie? Hundreds of disembodied mask heads chasing a little girl? That would have been awesome!

I remember reading this book a lot as a kid and yet I remember almost nothing about the plot. Honestly, it's not that great but I'm not sure why? The whole ending is kind of hilarious and the shopkeeper making faces is never really explained. Carly Beth is okay but her friends are really not great people at all. Just an average Goosebumps book for me.

Serial killer in the making: Carly Beth's friend Chuck who feeds her A REAL LIVE WORM. Dude, that's not a practical joke, that's animal cruelty.

Terrible family alert: Carly Beth's mother constantly laments her daughter's straight hair but she does also get her a costume she liked so...

Mrs. Blase: Sabrina calls twice but is otherwise unconcerned by her friend's mask becoming fused to her face.

Most inane activity: Carly Beth goes trick or treating despite not liking candy. That's just wasteful.

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