3.5, this is somewhat difficult to rate. Taken at face value, the concept is so unique and intriguing. A creepy cultish kids tv show that vanished from the air, tugs at people’s memories, but can’t be found and is basically erased? The final cast is reuniting to kick start a possible reboot. It’s genuinely creepy in parts and kept me up way to late wondering what was going to happen. It definitely flirts along the edges of horror without ever going there. About half way through its easy to see that the entire story is a metaphor and the author’s note at the end makes that clear. So that said, it’s obvious this was a personal story to the author and probably hard and, hopefully, healing for her to write. This would be a good book for someone trying to process trauma from growing up in a stifling, cultish environment. But if you’re just in it for the story and the great concept, the end kind of loses steam and becomes very intangible. I did find the ending satisfactory and it was overall a fast and interesting read. I will definitely pick up another book by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy and a chance to read this early. All opinions are my own.

I really wanted to like this book because the synopsis is what originally got me intrigued, and I found this book started off slow and then it got confusing and a little to werid for my taste. I do appreciate the cover though.

The premises of Kiersten White’s books always appeal to me. Unfortunately with HIDE, the expectations fell a little flat. Mister Magic was different for me. The entire book was incredible atmospheric and had me filled with dread the entire time.

The only complaint is that I felt just as confused the whole time as Val did. However Val is the one who lost her memories and I am just the reader. Not sure if that’s good since the book is from her perspective but it did make it a little hard to read.

That being said, still loved it. Would recommend to anyone who loves children show nostalgia mixed with conspiracy theories and creepy vibes!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Ray for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

Well written book. Filled with nostalgia but also true to the creepy- horror genre. A little trippy one parts and some portions I had to re-read but overall I enjoyed it

Mister Magic
5 Stars 🌟
Pub day: August 8th, 2023
Thank you so much to @netgalley and @randomhouse for the gifted eARC!

This one is perfect for my Horror, Sci-fi, and thriller people!

Man, this book was a trip! No, literally, it felt like a fever dream reading it. The imagery was so well done that I could perfectly visualize in my mind every scene and I do think much like her other novel Hide, that we will be seeing this adapted, It feels like this was written for film.

The characters weren't always lovable but did find myself rooting for them.

The pacing in Mister Magic is so fast, blink, and you may miss something. I did actually have to read a few parts over just to make sure I caught everything. I truly had no clue where this one was going.

Read if you're interested in:
-Cults
-nostalgia
-backrooms (liminal spaces)
-things that go bump in the night.
-sci-fi

I understood so much more how this concept came to be just by reading the acknowledgments.

This one is tough to explain, but just trust me, buckle up and read it!

Val has been hiding from a past she can’t quite remember since she was a child. After her father’s death she is reunited with cast members of a children's show she doesn't remember ever appearing on called Mister Magic. In exchange for information about her past she decides to travel with them to Utah where a podcast, interviewing the five surviving members, is hoping will generate a reboot of the show. As Val begins to remember her past she realizes that her father might not have been trying to hide her from something terrible she did but rather something terrible trying to find her.

Mister Magic is a new horror novella by author Kiersten White. The story primarily focuses on Val who has fears about a past she can't quite remember. She discovers she was a childhood actress on a show that was so popular it has a cult-like following yet nobody can quite remember specific details. The novel keeps the reader in an eerie suspense throughout but the payoff wasn't quite as high as I had hoped for the amount of time the story took to reveal what was going on. Definitely not my favorite novel by this author but still an interesting read.

I really loved Hide when it first came out, so I was excited to see a new book from the same author.

Cue childhood trauma, eerie televisions, a figurehead named "Mister Magic" that's there but also isn't there...

This story had me gripped from the beginning. I loved the plot and my attention was captured through the very end. It wasn't a perfect story, there were moments that I had to re-read as I got lost in the detail/lack thereof and there were some plot holes. But overall I really loved this book.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Enjoyed the plot! The story picks up quickly and secrets start to be exposed to keep your attention span. Overall I didn’t connect with the FMC but overall I enjoyed the dark theme, and scary element.

Kiersten is an incredible writer. I first fell in love with And I Darken. When she started writing adult thrillers/horror books, I knew I was in good hands. This book is super creepy and has a sense of nostalgia.

Following a tragic accident that halted production of the beloved children's show, Mister Magic, thirty years have passed, and the surviving cast members have struggled to move on from their past. Despite their best efforts, they continue to search for the happiness, camaraderie, and security they felt while filming the show. However, with no surviving footage of the program and no record of the enigmatic host's identity, their memories are all they have left.

Then, by chance, the former cast members reunite at the secluded desert studio where Mister Magic was filmed. Although they haven't seen each other in years, they understand each other better than anyone else ever could. They share a connection rooted in the secret of the show's circle, the enigma of the mysterious host, and the possibility of discovering what really happened on the day of the tragedy. But as they delve deeper into their past, they begin to question if they've willingly returned to the studio or if they've been lured into a dangerous trap.

This novel...

Okay, so spoilers. If you don't want those, I wouldn't read this review.

Continuing. i think it's wild that she leaves her dads' funeral to go with them to see her mom that didn't even care that she was alive. Like her whole world stopped when her sister "died". Val was a boring main character. So much was happening to her and she didn't really do anything until the actual end. I enjoyed some of the side characters, because at least they felt dimensional. The book, the start of it, felt like a Mandela effect in a way? Like everyone's like "I know this existed" and people are like ?? "maybe it didn't." And it had me questioning, too. I loved that.

This book really did a good job of unsettling me to the point where I had to physically stop multiple times (mainly cause I was reading at night and because there's some triggering stuff in here so please go with caution).

I did think that some of the dialogue was juvenile especially for an adult book; felt like it was more like higher YA than adult to me. It might be intentional though. They dive so deep and remember so much about how they "Felt" when they were like 8-12 years old on this show. It's as if they haven't stopped being kids so much as they have started being adults? Like they tried to get the memories of how they felt back so badly because they couldn't remember a time when they had been that happy.

I thought it was so wild that Val "closed doors" to her memories to block out all the bad and that means she blocked out her sister? Maybe it can happen, but that just felt so unrealistic to me.

I also HATED how long it took to get answers. I think everyone was dancing around all of the point for so long. Like the secondary characters know the reason, but no one is giving us too much. Like that went on for way too freaking long and I was getting so angry that I almost started skimming to get a semblance of an answer. I felt like the ending did suck. After all the build up, the ending just didn't scratch the itch I needed it to. I didn't like it at all.

As of now, this novel gets a 3 star for me. It wasn't bad, it was very eerie, but there was a lot that didn't sit well with me.

Brilliantly creepy story of an 80’s kids show that has been scrubbed from existence. Even though everyone remembers the Mister Magic show, there is no videos on YouTube or anywhere else on the internet. Thirty years after the show was shut down, supposedly due to a tragedy, the original cast reunites. When the “circle of friends” reunite on a secluded property in a desert town where they originally filmed, they hope to find the answers they have been looking for, especially what actually happened that shut down the show. Full of nostalgia and mystery, this excellent novel should be on everyone’s reading list.

A completely unique experience! This reminded me of a Jordan Peele movie in the best way. You are unsettled immediately but also can’t look away. I enjoyed the pace of this as we are given new characters and information. I thought some of the central mysteries were parsed out well. I might have wanted a little more horror honestly and perhaps more information on the rationale behind the plan. I don’t want to give spoilers but I appreciated the practical ending. Love when it makes sense and feels consistent with the characters.

Mister Magic was a TV show that many people remember watching as children even though there is no proof it actually existed. No recorded episodes have ever been posted, no photos have been published, and when posts are written on the internet about it, they often disappear. Why?
Val doesn’t remember much of her childhood. When Issac, Javi and Marcus show up at her dad’s funeral, their presence stirs up memories of Mister Magic. They were all on the show as children until an accident happened and the show abruptly ended. Val wasn’t even there at the time of the incident as her dad had taken her away. They have finally found her for the purpose of a reunion podcast. Someone wants to interview them about the show. Val decides to join them to get answers about her past. What the Circle of Friends discovers is way more than just a benign children’s show.
The story was very interesting and suspenseful. I thought the ending could have been explained a bit better but it was still good.

I found this book to be confusing and frustrating and strange. I felt lost in some chapters.

Mister Magic is a television series for a children's show based on teaching children the rules..rules made for and by adults.

But, you cannot take your eyes off the screen. You loved "Mister Magic" in a sort of weird way.

The show was shot in a small desert town in Utah. If you read the acknowledgements it is about growing up in a Mormon community. The rules you had to follow. Cultism like.

This was not a book for me.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy.

This one is a little difficult to rate as there were things I both really enjoyed and things that just... didn't vibe well with me. Similar to the authors' other book 'Hide', I was drawn in from the very beginning, excited for the terror to come. However, the deeper I got into the book the less I found myself enjoying it. It's not a bad book by any means! Honestly, I do think there's going to be quite a few people who love this one, but unfortunately I was not one of them. The ending, like Hide, felt just too rushed to me. All in all, it was just okay for me.

I think this book was just a little too weird for me. The premise was interesting, but it was tough to get through the book. The ending was unexpected and good, but everything before the ending was too slow. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for the ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Mister Magic by Kiersten White in exchange for an honest review. I just finished this book and am left almost speechless. This was my third book by Kiersten White and I just like her more and more, the more I read. I don't get scared very often by books or movies, my doors are closed to that (if you've read the book, you'll get this), but this book spooked me. The sense of the unknown and what could be hiding in it, this can be terrifying. I have already recommended this book to my friends and recommend it to everyone else too.

I loved the beginning and middle but by the end it just seemed so rush that I couldn’t really understand what was happening?? Even then with the ending I had to reread it and final understood the concept by reading the Author’s Acknoledgments.

Not quite horror, but kind of. A tale of using the magical gifts of children to program them for “their own good”. The controlling, righteous adults/parents are the main villain in a plot that speaks to the author’s religious upbringing.