Review of The Masks: Our Origins

The Masks: Our Origins by Payton Balog

Author: Payton Balog
Title: The Masks: Our Origins
Published On: August 12, 2024
Series: The Masks #1
Genres: Superhero Fantasy, Superhero Science Fiction
Format: eARC

I received this book for free from The Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Mike’s Review of The Masks: Our Origins

What do you get when you cross the teen drama of 90210 with the gritty mob content of The Sopranos? You get The Masks: Our Origins. I kept getting smacked upside the face by the juxtaposition of the two. One minute we’re dealing with classic high school shenanigans and the next someone’s getting their fingernails ripped off with rusty tweezers. (No, I’m not telling you who or why. Go read it!) It’s a weird combo of YA high school and gritty crime stuff, and somehow it works.

If you follow along with my reviews you may already know that I’m a sucker for a good origin story, and with a title like “Our Origins” this one was right up my alley. Height City’s protector is gone, and her daughter Alice is left picking up the pieces, and possibly a whole lot more. Add in Casey, a girl from the other side of the tracks (and the law), and you’ve got a collision course of friendship that neither of their worlds is ready for. And yes, there may or may not be a certain classic trope moment along the way that I was very happy to see. I’ll never tell.

There are a lot of characters going on in this thing, so you may want to take some notes early on to keep everybody straight. Apparently the book knew it too, because no sooner had I grumbled about how many people I was keeping track of than one of the characters commented about having a lot of people in their lives. Get out of my head, book! It also took me longer than I’d like to admit to sort out who the parents were, since everyone runs around on a first name basis. A simple “Mom” or “Dad” here and there would have saved me some head scratching.

You can tell Payton Balog and I would get along just fine, because when your characters drop a Veronica Mars and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference in the same conversation, you’re speaking my language. And every so often the writing serves up a line that stops you in your tracks. “The knife was her trophy and blood was her uniform.” Iconic.

My one real gripe is that the descriptions can get a bit Tolkien at times. It’s the kind of details that paint a vivid picture when it lands, but every now and then I found myself skimming through it to get back to the good stuff.

All in all, it’s a solid, super start to a new series between the high school hallways and the shady underworld dealings, and I spy a link for book two in my email!