Mister magic has an unique and interesting set up. A children's TV show that everyone remembers, yet there is no footage of it. One of the main characters in the show has no memory of ever being on it, when she is found by her castmates to do a reunion. There are so many secrets and so many questions that go unanswered for our main character. I was hooked in and enjoying the ride....but as the book went on, I felt like I may never get answers.
As you read on, there are some heavy feelings/observations dropped like this, where you know that it is all heavily metaphorical...but of what? I wasn't 100% sure until I read the author's note, and then I appreciated it all a bit more. I will leave it up to you if you want to discover that note before or after reading....but I think I would have liked to know beforehand, as I may have gotten a bit more out of it. Either way, this is a unique read that kept me wanting to know more.

We love a creepy children's TV show and former child stars. The book was slow and repetitive in certain parts, I think there could have been about 50 pages cut from the middle of this and it would have been just as effective. The ending was interesting, I definitely called what was happening from the start.

Would read again!

This one didn't totally hang together for me, and I tried reading it in several different moods and times. I found several parts of the book hard to follow and visualize, and the tone wasn't consistent, which made it challenging for the tension to really build. The opening grabbed me, but then I found myself continuing to put it down in the second half of the book, and the ending truly didn't land for me. Great premise and some interesting themes, but ultimately not for me.

Great book! It had all the fears of growing up. Make a choice. Turn the page or close the book. Enter the darkness if you wish!

After several attempts with different moods I’ve found this one didn’t work for me. I’ve enjoyed a lot of this authors work and I’m confident that this one will work for a different audience.

I am a huge sucker for anything with a cult vibe. the premise of this book was super interesting, but the writing was kind of a miss for me. It was hard to follow and visualize what was going on and I found myself rewinding multiple times to see if I was missing pieces or if they just weren’t expressed. However, the character development, creepy house, cult vibes, and relationships were a huge hit. While I like how the book was wrapped up, I’m still confused as to what the heck actually happened… I get that they got from A to C, but step B is quite ✨muddy✨. This might have been better if I read it with my eyeballs rather than earholes, but oh whale. Thank you @prhaudio for my gifted copy!

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was a wild ride, though it left me feeling a bit confused about the author's overarching message in the end. I would have a hard time even describing what this book is about to a friend. I recommend Mister Magic for any reader interested in speculative fiction and ambiguous endings. Reading the author's note included at the end of the book did help clarify a bit, but I think some of the themes of the story could've been tied up a bit more neatly in the end.

This book was a little tough to follow to be honest. I really liked the summary and the themes present in the book, but it felt confusing at times.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this. I kept finding myself not paying attention for the majority of this and finally gave up on it around the half way point. I enjoy more fast paced stories.

While I felt like the ending left something to be desired, the "set design" of the novel is very interesting. Lots of creepy liminal spaces that really made me get invested in what the characters were going through. I also liked it a bit more than Kiersten White's other horror novel, "Hide," which felt a lot more YA than "Mister Magic." Prime analog horror fiction, well worth the read!

This read was a solid three stars for me. The first half of the book grabbed my attention, pulled me and and took me down the strangest rabbit hole in the best ways possible. I loved it! However, the second half felt as if it went is different directions that didn't entirely tie in together. I found my thoughts to be drifting off towards the end and had to push through to finish it. Overall, the creepiness was great, the plot was wonderful, and the writing was excellent. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC opportunity.

I just finished reading Mister Magic by Kiersten White, and I'm so excited to share my thoughts with you!

This book is a wild ride from start to finish. It's a dark supernatural thriller that follows the surviving cast members of a beloved children's TV show called Mister Magic, which ended in tragedy thirty years ago. The story picks up when these former cast members reunite at the remote desert filming compound, and things get seriously eerie from there1.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the way Kiersten White builds tension and suspense. There's this one scene where the characters are doing a podcast interview in the old filming house, and things start to get really creepy. The entity posing as the podcast host starts asking them questions that seem to know more than it should, and the atmosphere is so thick with unease, you can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

The mix of nostalgia and horror is so unique, and it's perfect for anyone who loves a good mind-bending thriller. If you're into stories that blend the supernatural with a touch of childhood memories, Mister Magic is a must-read.

So, grab your copy and get ready for a spooky, thrilling adventure! 🎃📖

I was lured into this book by the colorful cover, the unique setting, and the horrors of what happened on The Magic Man set thirty years ago. It sounded like a scary read, but it was the most boring book I’ve ever read and should’ve DNF’ed it from the beginning like I originally wanted to.

The characters felt immature, the storyline dragged, and the twist wasn’t surprising. I tried reading her book Hide years ago, but ended up DNF’ing it for mostly the same reasons.

Overall, I was really intrigued to see how this ended....and then the ending went right over my head. If it wasn't for the author's note at the end explaining the why behind this book I would have been totally clueless. After reading it I can understand why she wrote the book the way she did but it definitely was not my favorite out of the author's books.

🎧 MISTER MAGIC by Kiersten White
Genre: thriller
3.5 stars

💭: this was slightly underwhelming for me but felt like it had a lot of potential. I feel like I’ve read a lot of these childhood-star-revisits-traumatic-past tropes and this didn’t do a whole lot differently??

Full review and links to social will be posted as soon as possible.

I'd like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thoughts: Heavy on magical realism, but an interesting metaphor for faith and moral code. I struggled a bit with the amount of magical realism because the author got rather "wordy" at times, losing me in some of the redundancy and magic. And I almost wish I had read the acknowledgements first because, while the book mentions Brigham Young and Utah in general, the connection to Mormonism might not necessarily be apparent to readers unfamiliar with the religion unless they read White's background beforehand. Once I read the acknowledgements, though, I had a new appreciation for this book and what it must have taken for her to write it. On its own, it is an interesting story about the magic of childhood, but I definitely thought Mister Magic himself was going to be a more nefarious character. I'm also a big horror fan, though, so my imagination may have gotten away from me, and I had also just watched Mr. Crockett on Hulu, so I was comparing apples to oranges here. Still a good story with a creepy plot that shines a spotlight on who makes the moral code children are taught to follow, and what it means to be "good" or "bad".

**Thank you, Netgalley and publishers, for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

I will not be giving feedback on this title at this time. Unfortunately, I did not finish this book because it was not my taste.

Mister Magic has an inventive premise but the monotonous pacing and fumbled reveals make this much more miss than hit. White’s novel follows the characters of a popular but mysterious children’s show decades after it goes off the air. Unfortunately, the characters are flat and the lingering trauma is blunt and lacks nuance. The show itself is the strongest element of the novel, but if we had to endure one more description of what people thought they remembered, I would have gone crazy. This could have worked if it was tightly paced novella. I do not recommend this book at all.

After thoroughly enjoying this author's other horror books I was so excited to dive into this one. Even though I have a child, children's shows tend to freak me out, so I went into this with high expectations expecting to be scared. And boy was I wrong. I did enjoy the very beginning and honestly thought this could be a 4 or 5 stars. But I very, very quickly lost interest in the story, despite it only taking me a couple of hours to read. I understand the underlying meaning to it all with the kids being brainwashed and all of their messed up lives but I wanted more scary, not fantastical.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Del Rey for the gifted copy for my honest review.