I really enjoyed this book! It was the perfect Halloween book to read! I read it in one day, it had me from the beginning. I would definitely recommend this book!

**3.5 stars**

Mister Magic is about a childrens tv show that seems to induce the Mandela Effect in its viewers. Was it real or did we imagine it? Do you remember what happened on the final episode?

Overall I enjoyed this book. There were a few creepy moments and feelings of unease throughout. I kind of figured it out in advance but not totally.

If you liked the author’s last book, Hide, you will like this one too.

**Thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley fir the e-arc I received in exchange for my honest review.**

4 stars!

"Mister Magic" by Kiersten White is the kind of book that NEEDS TO BE TURNED INTO A TV SHOW OR A MOVIE! There is so much world-building and interesting backstory here that I could absolutely see horror icon Mike Flanagan making this into a multi-episode miniseries for Netflix or HBO, possibly even an A24 horror film. It's abstract and complex enough, that's for sure. What kind of capabilities are there to completely scrub all traces of a children's television show from the internet? It's such a fantastic, wicked premise, that the child actors who once starred in said show reconnect 30 years later to record a podcast episode about the ill-fated and much-speculated-after show. From the very first page, I found myself enthralled with this tale, biting my nails as the story starts as one thing but slowly unfolds into something different, something darker and more sinister. White's writing is genuinely creepy at times, and unnerving at its best. Her descriptions are visceral and unyielding. White makes you feel, see, taste, smell, and hear see every single moment of this book, from the sweltering desert air to the eccentric toad statues with sun-worn eyes, to the sparkling "juice" served at the gala to the humming and haunting sounds each of the characters hear from time to time. I could not put this book down and found myself saying "WHAT THE H3LL" almost every 10 pages or so. I don't know much about Kiersten White's life outside of this book, but I would guess that she's using "Mister Magic" as a cathartic release of some really pent-up, life-changing trauma, and I am here for it. I think some readers will find it heavy-handed in the end, but I didn't. I love books like this. It all comes together in such a wonderful way. A must-read for horror and thriller fans!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Kiersten White, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Del Rey for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for my review.

I think this is one of the creepiest, weirdest stories I have read in years. Even with that, I thought the ending was sort of beautiful. What if your favorite TV show ( think Barney) as a kid was actually a evil entity trying to steal souls?!!!

4.5 stars

Val has no memory of her childhood before age 8. She's lived an isolated and protected existence since then on a ranch in Idaho with her father. Now, she's almost 40, her father has just passed away, and three men have shown up to tell her she used to be on a children's television show.

Should Val go with these vaguely remembered childhood friends to visit the mom she didn't even know existed and to participate in a podcast reunion of their show, <i>Mister Magic</i>?

I mean, it's a horror novel, so of course she does.

I loved the slow revelation of what the show was and the urban legends surrounding it. Reddit is rife with theories of what the show was like and terrible reasons for why it ended so suddenly. Now it's up to the friends to uncover what really happened when <i>Mister Magic</i> ended.

I also appreciated the relationships between the friends, Val, Isaac, Javi, Marcus, and Jenny, and the struggles they faced in their lives since the show.

As more is revealed about Mister Magic, it becomes clear that sometimes the scariest monsters we face are the beliefs we have internalized and those who use those beliefs to control us and others. Quote: "<spoiler>The show was the worst kind of bad. The kind that makes you pretend so hard that everything is okay, you forget yourself in the pretending. Bad that insists you look right at it and call it good until you believe it.</spoiler>"

White does occasionally seem to devolve into too much therapy talk and telling rather than showing, but I still really enjoyed the dread, and the discovery, and the final resolution: <spoiler>From White's end author note: "To those in any religion or community telling you that who you are will never be good/ will never be pure/will never be enough . . . The new Mister Magic believes in you, and so do I"</spoiler>

I think your mileage on this one may vary dependent upon your childhood and current relationship with <spoiler>religion. As someone who was also raised in an evangelical church (although not Mormon like White), I completely identified with the kids here. Some of the things they were told, were word for word what I was told as a child - "be in the world but not of the world." However, I also loved my childhood and my childhood church friends. I loved Sunday School and Awana and sleepovers. Yet, as an adult, I see now how destructive some of those beliefs really are. And I'm trying to do better with my son - nuture, rather than mold - as I deconstruct and reconstruct what I believe. So, yeah, this book almost felt like it was written for me. </spoiler>

*language

Readers shouldn't shy away from this one based on its categorization as horror as it's very, very light on actual horror. It is a frightening story, though, and I enjoyed that it brought in different Reddit threads, etc. as people try to make sense of what Mister Magic was, alongside Val figuring out the secrets of her own life. The author's note contextualizing the story at the end made it connect a lot more.

This one was an odd reading experience for me ... I kept feeling off-kilter as I read this one ... what the heck is happening and where in the world are we going are common things I felt as I read it. Ultimately, it came together for me but it was a bit abstract for me along the way. I do recommend it but I think knowing that going in may help you as you read it. Just go along with the ride, you're in good hands but know that there will be confusion and lots of unknowns during the journey. I really felt the author's note at the end helped tie it all together for me, seeing what the author was doing with this book. I think it helped truly bring it together for me. All in all, I really enjoyed it and am glad I read it but it won't be for everyone!

I don't know how to describe how much I loved this book. It was dark, surreal, surprisingly emotional, SCARY, and so different from any of the thrillers or horror I've read recently. A group of people who used to be on a very strange TV show are reunited and must face the past in order to move forward. This was like a dream - or a nightmare. I loved it and have recommended it to friends.

This one was fast paced and fun but I personally struggled seeing it to the end. I just felt no connection to the characters so didn’t really care the outcome of the book.

Have you heard of Mister Magic? You can remember the feelings and show but can never find an episode. So when a reunion documentary is being done, the Circle of Friends reunites to try and explain what they experienced. Mister Magic had a compelling plot and seemed to be skirting a great thriller but in some areas, it seemed slow and clunky. The ending was anticlimactic and was not wort the whole journey.

Former child stars on Mister Magic, a defunct children’s TV series with a cult-like following reconnect and travel to an eerie outpost somewhere in the Utah desert to record a long-awaited “reunion” podcast. Bonds formed in childhood trauma (not unlike those found in many of Stephen King's gripping stories like The Institute and Stand by Me) are tested, as the now adults are subjected once more to the place where the show was filmed—and where it came to an abrupt and tragic ending. Val, the main character, grapples with her own shifting and emerging memories, leading to more questions than answers as the story progresses. Ever uncertain of her former friends’ motivations and with no options to leave a place that only becomes increasingly surreal and menacing, Val must battle to sort out what and who is real.

Sinister forces of the very human kind (religious trauma and childhood abuse) offer emotional complexity that will resonate with fans of literary horror. Nostalgia, horror, and psychological suspense come together in a triumph of a novel.

If you're a fan of Stephen King's The Institute and AMC's mind-bending series Channel Zero, then you will be happy to plant yourself down somewhere and tune into Kiersten White's Mister Magic.

This book snuck up on me. It was eerie and fantastical. And I loved it. You spend the majority of the book from the POV of Val, the one child from the circle that cannot remember anything concrete from her childhood on the show. Therefore you get to learn along with her. An often frustrating process, but also intercut with other little glimpses into this potential evil and its impact. This book never veered too far into ‘scary’ horror, instead letting the imagination fill in the gaps, making it all feel more unsettling. The overarching analogy in the end, while heavy handed, totally worked for me.
All the thanks to the publisher and NG for the copy. A wonderful edition to my October reads.

Set in a large, creepy house out in the middle of nowhere, Mister Magic follows Val and her former castmates in the present day. Thirty years before, they were part of a children’s show that, once off the air, vanished without a single trace of its existence online. It is rumored that a tragedy ended the show, and Val is determined to get to the bottom of it. However, no one could imagine what Val and the group would uncover at the center of this mystery.

Mister Magic is a fever dream of a romp through a splintered past that Val is desperately trying to piece together. While it is slow-paced for about 75% of the book, the possible horror looming around every corner is engaging and paranoia-inducing. The last section really takes off with a lot of moving parts, adding to the weird atmosphere present throughout the book (and in a lot of our favorite IRL childhood shows, to be honest).

The characters were thoughtfully written with care, an element that can sometimes get lost in thrillers. I really enjoyed the extra pieces of media included in the story, like podcast transcripts, online discussions, emails, and blog posts.

Ultimately, Mister Magic is an odd thriller with complex themes that will leave readers in contemplation long after the book is over. Definitely worth picking up, especially during spooky season.

This is a book where I wish the Acknowledgments had been at the start of the book. When I finished the book, and thought about what I'd rate it, I was thinking a solid 3-3 1/2. But those last few pages reframed the story for me so much and made me appreciate it more. When you are a child, choices are made for you and can lead to many great things, but those choices (particularly around religion) can have negative impact and influence

The story follows 5 adults who had been on a TV show "Mister Magic" when they were kids. After a tragic accident on set, the show stopped and the child actors went about their lives. Now 30 years, later there is no evidence that the show existed, except in memories, and the 5 friends reunite in the town where the show was filmed to participate in a podcast about the show. So many people remember the show, the actors included, but is what the remember real, or imagined?

I liked the format that included interludes of the outside world's musings about the show mixed with Val's narrative and memory recollections. I was also left thinking about the shows I remember loving as a kid (Zoobilee Zoo anyone?).

An extraordinary oddity! Eerie and disturbing, filled to the brim with unnerving aspects both human and unnatural. Not exactly a whodunnit but this read offers the same thriller type excitement, you just can't wait to know more. What is the true cost of the childhood magic we grasp for, reaching into the darkness to pull out just a sliver of the kind of happy that we once were. (Or thought we were.) Nostalgia is tricky and so are memories. Friendship, hardship, and an omnipresent guy in a cape that will keep the children in perfectly, harmonious state of "good." Kiersten White twirls a tale of tragically, magical proportions. One you will be hard pressed to forget. Don't say his name ....

It’s spooky season here for me, so I’m gobbling up all the creepy horror books I can to make sure I’m in the mood – and this book delivers!

On the surface, Mister Magic is about the nostalgia of childhood and the reunion of a children’s television show that went off the air as mysteriously as it was beamed into children’s bedrooms. But at its heart, it’s also a deeply personal story based on the author’s own experiences in a fringe sect of a major religion. I love that White went there, but this element makes rating the novel an intensely difficult prospect. So, I’ll just say that reading it is an emotional experience that also delivers excellent creepy vibes. It reminds me a bit of the feeling you get from watching the little girl in front of the tv in Poltergeist... My thanks to Random House Publishing and the author for providing this e-arc for review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey for the ARC!

“It meets The Stepford Wives in this wildly compelling story that explores whether it’s possible to recapture the magic of childhood.”

I feel like this was reminiscent of something that could’ve happened on an old Nickelodeon or Disney Channel show that I used to watch in middle school, and I lived for it.

Mister Magic is about a nostalgia podcast that brings together the last group of child actors who were on a beloved children's show that ended abruptly, and tragically, but seems to have left no physical trace of itself. Even after 30 years the circle of friends don't really know the truth.

I found the story as a whole to be a bit slow. It is tense, and leaves you questioning what exactly is going on, but it doesn't really ever deliver a true scary, or horror feel. After reading the acknowledgements at the end, I get what the author was going for, pulling from real life experience inside a very strict religious community. Ultimately I don't think it became the story the blurb set us up for. It was interesting, and I wanted to know more about Mister Magic, and what happened, but the book didn't really fully engage me with that world.

Five former child stars once known as the ‘circle of friends’ reunite 30 years after the show they were on ended. The show was called Mister Magic and it ended due to a tragic accident. Fans of the show have vivid memories of the show and the lessons they learned from it but strangely there are no surviving videos of the show, no records of who filmed or worked on it, nothing.

Even though the friends haven't seen each other in decades, they feel as of they understand each other more than anyone they have met since. After all, they are the only ones who hold the secrets of the show and its mysterious host.

The beginning of this book really grabbed my attention with its interesting and complex characters. But unfortunately, I started to feel a bit lost as the story progressed. I wish I had read the author's note prior to reading the book, I read it after I finished and it did help me to understand and appreciate the story much more.

The cover of this book gave me Poltergeist vibes. I thought this was a creepy and interesting read! While I enjoyed it, I was definitely confused for a lot of it. I had to reread sentences a couple times. But I loved the abstract and the cult vibes!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC