"Goosebumps: Wanted: The Haunted Mask" is a book in the "Goosebumps" franchise, first published in 2012. It was written by R.L. Stine according to the title page, although it is not clear if R.L. Stine uses ghost writers. Somewhat confusingly, this book relaunched concepts first established in "The Haunted Mask" in 1993. Apparently many concepts in the Goosebumps universe have been rewritten and retooled over the years.
The book follows two friends, Lu-Ann and Devin, who are both disappointed, for different reasons, about the upcoming Halloween festivities. Lu-Ann because she has to go to a dull party of a friend, and Devin because he has to work at his father's pumpkin patch. The book the splits up to follow each character's story. Lu-Ann's story has her finding the titular haunted mask in an upstairs closet fo her friend, with the mask binding to her face and changing her personality. As her personality starts to subsume beneath the mask's violent urging, she desperately tries to find a way to break the curse, while she still can. The book then switches to Devin, who didn't like the idea of working in a pumpkin patch to begin with, but finds it increasingly eerie and frightening as weird things start happening--things that, predictable, his father refuses to admit are happening. The mystery and fright grows, until the final scene ties his story in with the story of Lu-ann. There is a somewhat "happy ending"...with the shadow of a sinister twist.
There is no reason to give a scene-by-scene description of what happened, but the book had its share of twists and turns and action scenes. It was a departure from the the first Goosebumps book, because it had less psychological suspense, and jumped into the supernatural with much more directness. Rather than the protagonists coming to terms with the existence of the supernatural as a slowly dawning threat, it is pretty much presented as just a jumping-off point for adventure. Some of it was more psychologically involving, such as the split consciousness of Lu-Ann and the possessing mask. But after dozens of books, the author and the readers know what to expect, and the book mostly presents that.
But here is the thing: I believed the story. I believed the story even when I shouldn't have, because it was predictable and ludicrous. Masks that bond with the skin and change thinking? Pumpkin vines that move on their own? A mysterious old black cat? Creepy children that come out of the fog? A hunted treasure chest in an attic? All of this is stuff that should just seem cliched, but I believed it. While remaining at a level of appropriatness for its audience, this story managed to make all of these things seem really scary. And I just got into the flow of the story---the descriptions were just deep enough, and the action just fast enough, that I felt invested in it and wanted to find out what happened next. I have a lot of other books to read, but I now want to read more of the Goosebumps series. After thirty years (the series' popularity was after my time), I finally figured out what the hype was all about.