In starting “Mister Magic,” I anticipated several potential themes based on her previous books. I thought there may be cults or religious fanatics, a reality TV spin, and maybe a little demonic element. All of these track to things to made “Hide” work so well for me.

White delivers a creepy and haunting atmosphere in spades. Between the characters and the setting, she nails it. I was hooked in the beginning, trying to piece together what on earth is going on with this main character. Through the first 80%, I was in. However, once the conclusion was building, it felt a bit too confusing and complicated. I wanted to love it, but there was just something missing for me.

In particular, I enjoy White’s ability to build interesting characters outside of the protagonist. Learning about the other children from the show rounded out the story for me.

I thought the authors note at the end was particularly helpful and necessary here. There were evident themes throughout the story, but having White shed more light on the inspiration helped clarify for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Del Ray/Random House, and Kiersten White for this ARC in exchange for my review!

Legitimately chilling and intriguing from the first page. A nice companion to the movie Nope in vibes.

What an incredible nostalgic paranormal thriller! I loved the premise, and the cast of characters. It got me thinking a lot about the lessons taught on the childhood shows I watched, like Barney, Arthur, Sesame Street, and Mr Rogers. Thank god none of them had the spookiness that Mister Magic did.

I loved the overall theme of self-acceptance, being enough, and learning to manage your emotions. I also almost full out cried at the ending. It had me super emotional.

This is by far my favorite book by Kiersten White and I hope she continues to write adult novels because they are far superior to her YA.

I really enjoyed Kiersten White’s Hide and was even more excited to pick up Mister Magic once I read its synopsis. Mister Magic was everyone’s favorite childhood show. Yet it’s shrouded in mystery… no recordings or any evidence of the show exist and it was shut down years ago after a tragic accident. Any discussion of it online mysteriously disappears. The last cast members reunite to uncover what happened.

This book hooked me. I found myself desperately curious to see where it was going. Unsettling descriptions set the tone and help create a slowly building sense of dread. Even before things get creepy you sense it will take a dark turn. Two of my favorites:

“No jewelry save a wedding ring, a dated solitaire that doesn’t shine or sparkle so much as sit on her finger like a forgotten weight.”

“Maybe memories have taken root there and she can tug them out of the dirt, see what’s wriggling beneath.”

I mean, come on! Her words convey emotion and atmosphere. These dark early descriptions are juxtaposed with equally gorgeous words conveying vivacious, playful light at the end of the book. Anyone else able to taste spring green?

Val is our protagonist and she has no recollection of her time on the show 30 years ago. We are on the journey with her to understand the mysteries of Mister Magic, which I loved. It made it really easy to relate to her and her frustrations. We feel just as in the dark as she is and are along for her ride. She has a bad gut feeling as things progress but her gnawing need for answers pushes her forward. This created great tension and propelled the story forward.

As with Hide, things get weird. Kind of trippy. The book’s aware of this and uses the word absurd. Even when I wasn’t quite sure what was happening I still found it compelling. It feels at home in the horror genre. There are a lot of deeper messages, which would make it interesting for a book club and helped me appreciate it on another level. It had me thinking about the rules and lessons we teach our children and the addictive qualities of TV.

I read a review that suggested reading the author’s note first but I completely disagree. While it doesn’t exactly provide a spoiler, reading it first did affect how I interpreted the book as I went along and I kept expecting things mentioned there to play a more direct role in the story. I found it out an interesting spin on how I thought of the book, but it’s one I wish I knew after finishing the story.

Ahhhh I loved this book! I wasn’t expecting to because I don’t really do anything in the thriller/horror genre a ton (also recently learned about so many sub genres of horror/suspense while reading and prepping for my review). Saw a few friends reading this and their reviews and was lucky enough to grab an ARC. I do admit that the cover alone was probably 60% why I picked it up.

Loved the prose, I just couldn’t stop reading. Following along at first it can definitely be confusing. I was lost and loving it for 75% of the book. The author’s note explains a lot, if you have never left a cult-cultish religion/deconstructed and I found a lot of people liked reading the author’s note first. I kinda was happy to stay in the dark and when I started figuring out what she was doing that really added to the payoff.

I love how she explores The Mandela Effect and other psychological effects of cults/cultish religions on their followers.

Another aspect of this booked are all the internet snippets in between the story chapters that added to the millennial nostalgia and added to the meta genre effect that this book has.

The setting was so good. The house really is a MC as well. It reminded me of the tiny towns in Idaho (there is actually a town called Bliss in Idaho and I kept reminding myself that they were in Utah 😂).

The one thing I will say is that the characters do feel cookie cutter in some ways and I did feel like they lacked the depth and nuance that would have really made this work better. I would say the same about the folks living in Bliss they are more of an entity and become just a plot device without any attention. Because of this I felt the dialogue especially between characters felt underdeveloped as well and almost juvenile, which could have been part of the point, but they are also in their late 30s/40s with kids and lives of their own so it just felt kinda off.

That said I did love it. I thought it was incredibly smart and I find myself recommending it often especially to other readers who have gone through deconstruction or left religion.

It’s out now! Thank you @netgalley and @delreybooks for the ARC!

#netgalley #MisterMagic

It’s been 30 years since the fun and creative kid’s show, Mister Magic, ended. Not a single episode has survived, and no one knows who ran the show, but everyone remembers the final cast known as the Circle of Friends. Now that the cast is reuniting for a special podcast, long-time fans are excited. Everyone but the Circle of Friends, a group of jaded adults who have been living with the horrors that their time on the show has left them with. Who exactly was Mister Magic, and why are they terrified of saying his name?

We follow Val, a woman with no memory about her life before she started living with her dad on Gloria’s property. She’s extremely sheltered and has spent her life living by her dad’s obscure rules meant to keep her safe. The only problem is that Val is convinced that he’s really keeping the world safe from her, but she can’t remember why. It’s just a feeling she has. After her dad dies, it turns out that her dad hid a lot from her and she’s now furious because they could’ve been living an entirely different life.

Of course, this meant that Val tries to avoid a Mister Magic reunion while also trying to get as much information about her past as she can. We get to meet the rest of the surviving cast members, only we never truly get to know any of them. Their roles in life are the same as their basic purpose on the show. Every time we get a glimpse of who they are beneath the surface, Val jumps back because they are suspicious in some way. However, she knows they were all close friends and that she can trust them. It’s just a feeling.

Honestly, I wasn’t feeling this book. There’s a lack of depth and character growth for the characters, which hinders the story as we get deeper into the story. It was also presented as a mystery, horror, and thriller novel. The mystery was there for sure, but I personally wouldn’t call this a horror or thriller. If anything, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop only for it to never happen. Sure, there were some light horror elements, but not enough to make the story fall under horror for me. Plus, there was a weird almost romance that was just beyond out of place and lacked chemistry of any kind. It was strange and felt predatory, though I’m still on the fence about whether or not this relationship was meant to be taken that way.

It also seemed like there was a huge piece of missing information all book long. I kept feeling like I was missing something while knowing that whatever that may be wasn’t actually shared at any point in time. When I got to the author’s note at the end of the book, I finally knew what that piece of missing information was. It turns out that this was a fictional representation of the author’s childhood religious trauma and lifelong healing journey. The book makes so much more sense once one knows this, which is why I wish there was an introduction that talked about this.

I wish I liked this book more; I really do. However, it was just confusing at times, lacked character depth, and even what little character growth that occurred was framed very strangely. I’m still not entirely sure what this book was trying to be, but it’s ultimately a fantasy mystery that was very disjointed at times. If you plan on reading this book, I highly recommend reading the author’s note at the end before starting so that you don’t also feel like a big chunk of information that’s integral to the story accidentally got left out as you read.

Stunning book about ending the cycle and unpacking your childhood

Love the characters and the creepy parts when it hits a little too close to home

I was unsure about this one at first due to a slow start and not much happening for a while but glad I stuck with it. Very unique plot and great ending. I really ended up caring about the characters and will think about this book for a while now. Thanks to Netgalley for the free ARC!

Probably a bit mature than the classes I'm teaching now, but I am completely enamored of this book. There was a dip towards the end when it started to feel a bit stagnant, but for the most part it was creepy and thought provoking in an amazing way!

Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

I was so looking foward to reading this book because it had good reviews. But I found myself picking it up and putting it down several times. I just couldn't get into it and could not relate to the characters.
I found that I was not interested in it enough to finish this book.

When I saw this title come across I couldn't wait to read it. I had read the author's previous book Hide and loved it! This one had me a little confused throughout the book. The main character lives on a ranch with her father and has no real memories of her past. All her father tells her is that they have to basically lay low for their protection. All is well until her father dies and a couple friends from her past find her.. She doesn't really remember them but something about them is familiar and comforting.

Apparently they were part of a group of six children that were part of a children's show when they were younger but a tragic accident happened and none of them seem to really remember what happened. I was really confused most of the time. I pushed through and finished. Hoping it was just me that was confused.

A creepy genre-bending exploration of trauma and the loss of childhood innocence. I felt like I never knew where this book was going, andI look forward to reading more of White’s book’s in the future.

This was a weird ass book. One thing about weird ass books, though: I love them! 🤣

You grew up watching Mister Magic on the little black box in your living room. Couldn’t sleep? Even at two o’clock in the morning, Mister Magic was on. He sang you silly little rhymes that taught you how to be a good little boy or girl. And then, suddenly… Mister Magic and his circle of six friends were gone. They vanished without a trace. You were all alone.

What happened to Mister Magic? I hated the creepy house in this book!!!! It had six identical floors with no doors and a terrifying basement. 🫠 What a nightmare. The whole story was pretty bonkers! My 3.5 ⭐️ rating is attributable to a whole lot of things going on at one time and also the seemingly rushed ending. I would definitely read White’s next release, however. 🤗

First of all I would like to say thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this book early.

Mister Magic is the story of a 30 something heart old woman named Val and a group of her friends. It is also the story of a lost childhood and learning about the past. It starts off with Val on a ranch and her father passing away. From there you learn that she was on a show called Mister Magic, but had no memory of it at all.

I don't want to spill anything so I'll just leave it there. I enjoyed my time with this story and wanted to know what was going to happen, but I was also able to put it down. All in all I have it 3.5 stars.

One children’s show cut short too soon - and a reunion of the last cast that will change everything. We follow the last cast of the Mister Magic show as they try to tackle what happened in the last episode. Interspersed with what people from the larger society remembers of the show, and what our main character begins to remember our idea of a wholesome children’s show starts to take a drastic turn. 3.5/5

Unfortunately, this book didn't work so well for me. This is a mystery, yes, but usually in mystery you get little parts of the missing pieces as the story goes on. With this, it doesn't give much away until it finally gives everything, and that doesn't happen until the last part of the book at maybe around 80%. So many things just didn't add up for me or make sense.

The characters are also nearly 40 years of age and they do not read like adults at all despite most of them having children. They read like teenagers themself. Honestly, the only reason this isn't getting a 1 star from me is because of how much I was intrigued about this book, at least for the first part. But around 70% I kind of lost hope of anything getting better.

This is a very personal and important work for the author and I'm happy for her that this was such a needed story to be told in her heart. I would say maybe if I read the author's note first I wouldn't have been as confused as I was and would have had something to help guide my understanding.

This book gave Mandela effect vibes but also cultish and more than enough gaslighting to go around. Kiersten put a parents fear of what their children watch on TV into a spooky book. I don’t know if I would call this a horror book even though it is marketed as one. Nor would I classify this as a thriller really. I am basically confused about what I just read lol.

The characters were all pretty average but did grow on me throughout. Each ended up showing signs of personal growth as well which is something I always look for - I don’t like stagnant characters. I do think I caught the twist pretty early on which may be why I don’t consider this a thriller. I think the setting of a desert is perfect for this. With no one around but a town full of people hiding things. Overall, this was an odd book but I will 100% be overly cautious about what my future children watch on TV!

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Mister Magic is one of those books about one of those shows that everyone remembers, but no one has proof it ever existed. It has creepy kids, doing creepy kid things and a host that no one ever sees. This was spooky and strange and more psychological than gory. Very fun

I wanted to love this so much more than I did. While
3.5
I didn’t hate Hide, it wasn’t a favorite of mine, so I was definitely nervous to read this one.
I loved the idea of this one. A spooky kids show that has an eerie past/no one knows much about, now coming back together for a podcast.
My biggest issue is, it’s sooooo confusing. The authors note at the end talking about what this book is actually about is great, but none of that really translates in the book. I wish the author had maybe been a bit more obvious with the undertones to make it a bit more interesting and simpler to follow. I think the ideas are too subtle for most to actually get. So all you get is a confusing story with no concrete concepts.

Overall I really enjoyed this latest horror title from Kiersten White, and I look forward to hopefully more stories in this vein.

I thought the characters were great. They all had distinct personalities so you don't get any of them confused, and you find yourself feeling warmly towards them all, even when you're warned their motives may not be altruistic.

I've seen the concept of an "evil children's television program" before and I like the idea. This was a pretty unique take but I didn't get much of a sense of horror from it. I was more concerned about the main character being kidnapped than in her having to face off against an evil entity or the ghosts of children who were once on the show. This book felt more like a slow-burn thriller than a horror book to me. I think I was hoping for more of a supernatural element, and that felt like it was missing. But it was so original and unpredictable in the way it all played out, that I enjoyed it immensely! The ending was not satisfying for me, personally, but it wasn't devastatingly disappointing, either. I'd give this one 4 stars and recommend it to others who enjoy a creepy story that holds your attention.