Mister Magic is the second book I have read from Kiersten White; the first being Hide, which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, this book was a total let down. The plot centered around several formal child television stars and the reunion that was planned at the old set of the show. As this was labeled horror, I was expecting scares but I didn't receive any. The book was all talk and no action. I cannot recommend this book as it was one of the worst books I have read in 2023.

This rather surreal novel about people on a children's TV show that's been written out of history makes much more sense after you read the author's postscript/endnote about leaving the LDS church and how the whole book is basically a metaphor for that. It's a fine read if you don't know, a decent kind of para-supernatural mystery of the type where the narrator has none of the knowledge everyone else has, and especially knowledge about her.

This book was wonderfully weird and creepy but in a good way. I spent the first half wondering what the hell was really going on and feeling compelled to keep reading until I did. This book is full of grief, love, childhood trauma, enduring friendships and nostalgia.

The book is mostly told through Val’s point of view, with small sections of the other’s interviews. There is also smatterings of social media posts of people who had watched the show as kids and their feelings and remembrances of the show. It was a really interesting way to tell the story and it really seemed to work.

I found all of the characters interesting and their backstories were at times heartbreaking. Marcus and Javi’s especially. Val could be a bit annoying, but I still felt sorry for her as she tried to regain her memories of the show and what went wrong at the end. Isaac was such a sweet soul, but he also had issues in his life that he felt guilty about. Jenny was the hardest to like, as she was a bitch for most of the book, with good reason, but she does redeem herself in the end.

It is very hard to talk about the plot without giving anything away. I did spend much of the first half of the story wondering about a lot of things, like what was really going on with this “kid’s show”, and why did it sound so creepy and scary. The writing was so well done, especially when it came to the overall creepy atmosphere of the house and the nearby town. It isn’t until about halfway through the story that you really begin to understand what was going on and then it all begins to make sense. The ending was a little bit trippy and probably the weirdest part of the story, but it totally made sense within the context of the whole book.

This is being tagged as a horror book, but except for the pervasive creepiness of the house and one scene that gets a bit icky, I wouldn’t call it horror. This is more of a psychological thriller with a bit of science fiction thrown in at the end. It is also a very personal story for the author, as you will see if you read the acknowledgments at the end. Parts of the more confusing aspects of the story will make more sense if you read that afterwards.

If you like books with a creepy weird atmosphere, a story that will keep you wondering what is really going on, and have a bit of nostalgia for old children’s TV shows, this is a book you may want to pick up.

Channel Zero: Candle Cove meets Barney in this unsettling yet nostalgic novel about a mysterious children's television show called Mister Magic. I enjoyed the playfulness of the narrative structure which combines traditional chapters with excerpts from reddit-like threads and other internet correspondence. Overflowing with terrifying twists and turns, this is one book you won't be able to put down.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I couldn't stop. Couldn't put this down. Finished in one setting.

Mister Magic builds off the current trend (ala FNAF, Wally Darling, Poppy's playtime) of subverting the memory of children's programming into something darker, more unsettling.

If you're interested in a strong atmospheric sense of dread, Mister Magic delivers.

As the main character travels with her former co-stars to a reunion and podcast recording, we get snippets of the online community discussing the show and its disappearance from the cultural landscape. Through both perspectives, we slowly piece together that not everything was as it seems with the show that provided so many happy memories to their young audience. You get just enough of the mystery to keep you guessing as each little thread is tugged and they get closer to unraveling all of it.

The ending took my breath away, and I can't wait for others to read this and experience the world of Mister Magic as well.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for allowing me to read and review! The glowing opinions are 100% my own, as is the excited screeching I hope you imagined as the background track.

I really enjoyed this book. It was eerie, unsettling and weird; an excellent combination that makes a good book. Reading the novel to try to figure out what exactly is going on with Mister Magic and learning what really was going on with the TV program was incredibly fascinating.
Part way through the novel as some dots were connected, you could start to make guess about what was going on/the authors inspiration for writing this novel. It was a really interesting way to look at religion/cults, and the trauma associated with that. Coming at that topic from the aspect of an unsettling children's show was really interesting. It really made me think about how religious organizations mistreat children and try to mold them.
I really enjoyed this book and what the author was trying to do.

I really loved the premise of this book. I love television and I find lost media fascinating, so a story about a cast reunion for a show that no one can prove even existed sounded perfect. I also liked how the author included emails, wikipedia articles, forum posts, etc. throughout the text to illustrate the fandom culture surrounding the main characters.

While I did enjoy this book, I think I would have liked it a little better if the mystery was rooted more in reality than the paranormal, but that's just my personal preference. Also I was disappointed that things were never very clearly resolved between Val and Gloria, and I think the epilogue could have done a better job of explaining that. But overall a very interesting read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for the ARC!

I get that this book will not be an ideal fit for every reader, but its eerie weirdness was absolutely perfect for me. This is the story of a group of adults reuniting thirty years after the children's show they starred on left the air. The show has a cult following but zero internet presence - no videos, scripts, or proof that it ever existed can be found. As the adults come back to the site where the show was filmed, the mystery and creepiness build until things get truly insane and horrific. White's Author's Note is a key part of the book to help contextualize what the reader has just read, but do wait until the end to read it. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine / Del Rey for a digital review copy.

Who is Mr. Magic? We spend the entire book trying to figure out if this TV show actually happened or if it is a figment of our imaginations. I think that Kiersten White can write a great horror book. They are tons of underlying themes and if you pay attention, you can figure out what she is really trying to say. I devoured this book in one sitting because I could not stop turning the pages. Is it a new all time favorite? No, but the message that was received will sit with me for a while. The authors note leaves with you no questions asked at the end of the book. I believe that this is a book you should go pretty blind into and just enjoy the ride.

4 stars.

Enchanting, really compulsively readable, and not just a tiny bit creepy. It definitely sticks in your head!

This book made me feel nostalgic for a childhood I didn’t even live! Kiersten did such a good job of putting you in the book that you felt like the characters were your friends! I loved the mystery, the anticipation! I loved this book!

Wow. Somehow I feel overwhelmed, underwhelmed, confused, satisfied, and content all at the same time. This is the first time I’ve read from this author and she certainly left an impression.

Mister Magic is hard to explain. This novel explores the lives of a group of childhood friends who were apart of the TV experience Mister Magic. After tragedy they separate and the show comes to an immediate end. BUT, 30 years later there are no clips and no full memories of their time with Mister Magic…. The only thing left are questions and a lot of them. After a podcast brings them together, all bets are off and this book goes totally off the rails.

Mister Magic is a crazy, wild, confusing, outlandish story that drones on a little too long in my opinion. I spent the first 45% of this book expecting to not finish it, the following 25% starting to enjoy it, and then the last 30% with my head-spinning trying to understand what in the heck was happening. It was a chore to read this because I had to pay intense attention to every word and had to re-read a few passages that confused me.

The epilogue is what saves this book for me. The lesson is there and I think it’s a good one, it just didn’t translate as well in the book because the story was too…. abstract (for my taste).

It’s clear that the author is talented and creative so I will definitely try more of her work, but this one was a little too much for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Wow, loved it! I’m kind of in amazement about how blithely I stumbled across this really phenomenal horror novel. Legit scary, fast-moving plot, fantastic protagonist and great cast of characters… and that ending!! I really didn’t think the book was going to go there! Like, damn!

For me, the thematic elements were really perfectly balanced. I wasn’t surprised at all to read in the Acknowledgements that the author is an ex-Mormon, but the way those themes were integrated in the story were at just the right level of abstractness so that they resonated without distracting.

Yeah, in general I’ll say this book was tonally very strong - just the right level of detail and dimension.

I went into this book hoping for basically the feeling that crazy monkey seen from Nope gave, however that’s not what I got.

Think the biggest issue with Mister Magic is it felt jerky. Often times hard to keep track of. This can cause the issue of having to re-read certain areas over again. Which didn’t work for me.

The plus side of Mister Magic was it does keep you guessing till the end.

I think this book will work for fans of White. Sadly it didn’t fully work for me.

🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC of Mister Magic by Kiersten White. It was creepy and mysterious. You never really know what is going on and what will happen. Even at the end, I'm not sure what the reality was. It leaves you with a sense of unease. I also liked that there is a lot of symbolism and deeper meanings of the way that children are raised with obedience and fear. After 30 years, the child stars of the show Mister Magic are brought together for a reunion. There is mystery behind why the show ended and what happened to the actors. As they piece together what happened, they uncover parts of themselves and their childhood.

Firstly, thank you to Random House, NetGalley and Kiersten White for the opportunity to read this ahead of its pub date. I was so excited to get approved for this ARC, and I was NOT disappointed for even a moment reading its pages. Following the cast of a children's show that reunites after years of being off air. Creepy, twisty, and completely consuming. The story grabbed my attention from the first lines and never let go! Successfully reaching a level of King vibes without encroaching on his story and made it her own!

White has become an author that I monitor for new releases, read immediately and I recommend you do so too!

Mark your calendars, Mister Magic is available on 08 August 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC! I wanted to really love this book. It's a solid book and not bad and not knock my socks off. I really didn't understand the "horror" in the house, because none of it seemed particularly horrifying, just strange.

Like the cold and the lack of doors. Like, yeah strange, but is it just in the book because those are traditionally scary tropes, or because they had something to offer the story?

There was also no follow through with whatever her father told to the lady who owned the ranch. Yes she gets several frantic calls warning her, but the way it made it sound was that this was a matter of life and death rather than a creepy cult wants to use them. Yes, the cult is terrible and their message icky, but looking through all the religious documentaries on Netflix, it's kind of par for the course.

I thought there were positives as well, I liked White's writing style and the sense of unease and weirdness made me want to keep reading. In no way was this a bad book, I wish it would have lived up to the amazing premise.

"Adults are children with both more and less autonomy."

The above quote was early in the book and stuck with me.

We meet our main character, Val, at a ranch owned by her father. It's unclear why she's there. There is a lot of mystery around her childhood and her father. Her father was the controlling type, but we discover something else as we delve deeper into the story.

I grew up where most of the book is set. I was an outsider looking at the LDS(Mormon) faith. I picked up on her innuendos that maybe others may not have seen.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

Val meets her friends Isaac, Marcus, and Javi early in the story. They inform her she was once a part of a TV show.

She leaves the only life she's known to discover what she may have lost. There is a stream throughout the book about losing things and about trauma. It's on how they talk about the show and won't say Mister Magic's name. This thread runs throughout the book.

This book has a lot to say about faith, religion, cults, and trauma. It may have been me reading into it, but I found the descriptions of how religion wants their kids to be a certain way. How they will do anything to make sure their kids behave, don't talk back, and don't use profanity. It felt like the life I watched friends grow up with while I stood outside the LDS faith.

I don't like to give a book report or go chapter by chapter. I've done that. It doesn't feel right to me as a reviewer. I'd rather put my personal touch on reviews, which is why I stated the above.

The author knows her way around the subject without bludgeoning the reader.

Sometimes I read a sentence or paragraph and was like, yep, I remember that. The way people talk about how when a woman isn't married by a certain age, there might be something wrong with her. My wife dealt with that. I watched family members marry early only to divorce later. It's prevalent in Utah culture to marry out of high school, especially for women. If you don't, something is wrong with you, or so they say.

The idea of a secret. Of something being held back from one another, a certain trauma coalesces at the end of the book. We never remember our childhood perfectly. There are bumps.

In the end, we want what's best for our kids. The hope that our kids have better childhoods than our own. That we give them something better than we had, that's the hope of every decent parent.

I hope you enjoyed this review. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I'll be posting this on my substack as well. Happy reading.

The premise of this book is really intriguing. A mystery childhood show that some claim is a product of the Mandela effect. Many children remember it airing but there's no real evidence the show existed. The children that were ON the show barely even remember it. And then the show ended under tragic circumstances, rumors swirling that one of the cast of children died during filming.

The chapters of the book are parts of a nursery rhyme. The theme song of the show is dark and creepy (and probably could have never actually aired).

Unfortunately the way this is written makes it difficult to follow. I think the author was going for an air of mystery for at atmospheric type feeling, but it just left me kind of confused and I never really understood the plot enough to enjoy it.

Thank you netgalley and Random House Ballantine for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

this was wild. let me start by saying - this book will not be for everyone. However, I lovveeeddddd it!

Mister Magic was the longest running children's TV show, but after a tragic accident, the show is shut down for good. Thirty years later, our story follows Val, a former child actor on the show, as she tries to piece together the mystery and reunite with the other children from the show in order to uncover the memories she has repressed....

I am a huge fan of books, movies, etc. with this premise - kids being apart of creepy things and growing up to forget all about it. The further we go into this book, the deeper the mystery gets. This book had me feeling so unsettled and so freaked out while reading it - but in the best way possible. I also really enjoyed the mixed media aspect of it. Not only is there a podcast element, but we also get a bunch of social media postings of people falling down the Mister Magic rabbit hole. I mean, imagine if your whole generation had very clear memories of watching this children's show... yet, there is no proof it ever existed. Wild!

It got strange and weird and magical at the end and that's why I say this book may not be for everyone. However, I am definitely a fan of weirdness and loved the way this book went. I think it truly came down to how fun of a reading experience this was for me and the freaky and unsettling atmosphere & imagery that the author was able to create. There is also a bit of commentary on religious camps/outdoor wilderness camps and how harmful it is to children to push such extremist ideas on them, which I really enjoyed.

I would recommend this to people who enjoyed "Whisper Down the Lane" by Clay McLeod Chapman. Also, if you are a fan of The Nightmare on Elm Street & Silent Hill movies. And anyone who has ever fallen down a creepypasta rabbit hole.