The Mask Wearer by Bryan Perro (Red Cedar Club 2012)

Ok, the truth is that fantasy is not my favorite genre.
So you won’t be surprised when I tell you that this book didn't grab me by the throat and hold me down til I was finished. It took me a while to get into the story and even then, I had no trouble putting it down to do other things. That said, I don't think it is a terrible read.
The idea of the story is intriguing. It is one of those good versus evil tales. I liked the introduction of the humanimals, the integration of mythical creatures, and fairy tale elements.
The main character, Amos, and his parents are forced to leave their cottage (but not before Amos tricks their overlord out of money and horses)
Along the way Amos gets a message from a dying mermaid and a quest to deliver a white stone and become The Mask Wearer.
The family comes across a land filled with statues of people and animals. Amos meets up with Beriot, a humanimal that can transform into a bear. This turns out to be lucky because this leads to the family escaping when the rest of the inhabitants are turned into stone by a wicked sorcerer. 

Eventually Amos makes it to the mysterious land of Tarkasis where the Fairy people live. After he receives his mask from them, Amos has to figure out how to defeat the wicked overlord and his slave medusas before the world is destroyed. 
Perhaps if I had read it in the original French I would have appreciated it more. Perhaps if it didn’t seem so much like a video game I would have been more excited by it. 
I concede that I did eventually want to find out how it would end. However, I will not be holding my breath for the next book in the series to be translated. 
I hope to be completely in the minority with my poor opinion of this one.

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