I wasn't sure what to expect with this book when I picked it up. I thought the concept of this book was so interesting and it was definitely a quick read. I found the ending to be extremely confusing and had to go back and reread it because of how vague it was. I only understood the ending after I read the author's note at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

Slow, creepy burn! Enjoyable and didn't know exactly where it was headed. Pick this one up if you're interested in slower paced but undeniable creepy thrillers!

I was so excited to read this because last year, this authors book “Hide” was one of my top reads

This book has a very different feeling/story.

Different from so many paranormal books I’ve read, and in the best way possible.

I finished it a few days ago and I’m still reeling. The religious trauma, childhood trauma, adults learning who they really are and not who the world wants them/made them to be and learning how to parent their own kids through that, it was amazing

The humor in the book is perfect. It had me laughing as much as it had me sobbing at the end.

I only found 1 error, it seems a word was left out when Jenny’s husband Stuart is introduced, the line reads,
“Must not Jenny’s husband after all”

There was one part where it says “fuck it if Val knows” and I don’t think it’s an error but I do think it sounds better as “fuck if val knows”

Overall this was an amazing book and those 2 small details aren’t enough for me to pull points away from my rating

Also, the diversity and inclusion was very nice to see. They hit on racial things a couple of times and I wish there was more to that part of the story especially with minorities living in such a predominantly white area. I’m glad it wasn’t ignored, but there could have been more to that.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy

This was an interesting creepy read that kept you on the edge of your seat.

A twisting, surreal supernatural horror that explores some very human experiences, such as nostalgia, religion, and identity, with a kindness and nuance I didn't expect from a horror novel.!

Kiersten White has done it again with “Mister Magic”. This trippy, nostalgic horror novel will leave you wishing for more because you just never want the story to end.

This was interesting and creepy, and a fun, fast read without too much actual horror. I felt the parallels to the real-life subject were a bit heavy handed and the characters underdeveloped (although maybe that was the point as cults take away your life?) but still a good and enjoyable way to spend an evening.

Thanks to Net Galley for the advanced copy! I was so happy to get this as Kiersten White is a favorite author of mine! I enjoyed this! It was a really quick read! Pretty creepy, it left me with a Freddie Krueger-ish / Wonderama kind of vibe. Also it took a a lot of courage for the author to reveal in her acknowledgements the story’s parallels with her own life growing up. A fun read and I can’t wait to see what this great author comes up with next!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

I wasn't a huge fan of the authors last book but the plot of Mister Magic was incredibly intriguing. Sadly the book completely collapsed. It's the exact same story but a defunct TV show instead of a defunct theme park. I finished the story but it's two hours of my life I'll never get back.

Val has been living on a ranch in Idaho for the last 30 years. She has no memory of her life before. Her dad took her from her former life and has not revealed anything since they arrived except that they are safe here, implying they are not elsewhere. All she knows is that something bad happened. She can feel it. When her dad dies, and 3 men show up at his funeral looking for her from her life before the ranch, she knows she must go with them to open the doors that she shut 30 years ago.

The story is one that kept me excited to keep reading. The hints that are given as to what is actually happening are just enough for you to inch closer to the full story but still need more. The integration of cult-like behavior in Utah/ Idaho is just a subtle enough nod to the author's background without hitting you over the head with it. This was especially interesting to me because I have personally been interested in the life of the majority in those states. The book makes you question what is real and what is a trap.

While I have a few criticisms, I did think the book could benefit from some better markers of moving to a new perspective or a new scene at time. I read this on a Kindle so that could be a contributor to this struggle.

If you have an interest in hope and fighting against the powers that work to oppress this is a wonderful read.

This was a little too weird and confusing for me. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't make heads or tails of it most of the time.

I loved Hide by Kiersten White so I was so excited to get approved for Mr. Magic and it did not disappoint! This isn't an easy book to summarize for me. It's about a group of friends from a former television show reconnecting many, many years later but it's also about so much more. The Acknowledgments section of the book added a great deal of insight for me, into the story as well as into the author.
I highly recommend this title and I'd like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this digital ARC.

Really awesome premise. However I couldn't connect or get into the writing style for this author. I do think some fans will really like this. It just was not for me.

I find this one difficult to rate… not my typical genre, but it has the most intriguingly creepy premise, which is why I requested it (thank you, NetGalley). At times it seemed like a mess of parts of random stories thrown together, while other times I really enjoyed the story??? Overall, I don’t think it’s for me, but I definitely think this will be popular amongst many readers!

I was so excited to get this because I really enjoyed Hide by this same author. Mister Magic was a little disappointing but still a solid mystery/horror/creepy read.

The premise is a reunion for child actors on a beloved children's show called Mister Magic that went off the air decades ago. The show itself is cloaked in mystery - the narrative includes snips of news articles, reddits, interviews, etc. on this topic woven with present day activity and no one can remember anything specific about what "Mister Magic" looked like, nor are there any clips anywhere from the show. There is a lot of disagreement online about the show, and no one can seemingly remember anything precise about the characters or format. All remember they loved it. All know it ended due to some sort of tragedy, but no one remembers what it was.

These pieces of media are interwoven with our MCs, the "Circle of Friends," and their narrative as they come together once more and piece together their own sparse memories of their time on the show and the mysterious tragedy that ended its run.

The book starts out with a great, creepy, and mysterious vibe. As the story unfolds and the plot points become more clear, things get a bit convoluted. Not everything makes sense or lines up. The characters aren't particularly well developed and feel more like caricatures...but I feel that was done on purpose - they are living out their roles on the show even in their adult lives. I see some reviewers didn't like this and noted the characters are all emotionally stunted. I think that's the whole point. They ARE emotionally still children. They have never grown past the roles the show squeezed them into. They are incomplete.

I both liked and disliked the ending - I still have conflicting feelings a week after finishing the book. Initially the creepy vibe turns dark and rather sad, almost. It's odd. It just ended up feeling less fun to read as it went on. Horror can be fun or it can be truly scary. This was just both but also...sad.

The author note after the book was enlightening. Once you realize this book is an allegory, and understand that context, it all is pretty brilliant, even the murky parts. However, while it did enhance my appreciation of the book, the fact remains that the story wasn't quite as enjoyable to read as I had hoped. That all said, I do recommend this and think it is really insightful as an allegory. It's just not as fun as Hide.

Mister Magic is very reminiscent of an older creepypasta titled "Candle Cove" so it instantly had me hooked. I was thrown right into the story within the first two chapters and Kiersten White put the pedal to the metal and got straight into it. Her characters were well developed and made you cheer for them while not being able to trust them at the same time. Throughout the story she dropped pieces of the puzzle like breadcrumbs at exactly the right moment and you never really knew where your favorite characters were gonna end up. I got major "IT" vibes throughout the story. Kiersten White really wrote a book with a wonderfully creepy atmosphere and made me anxious the entire time, My only complaint was that the book read like a YA novel when the characters were meant to be nearing 40 but considering what has happened to the main characters in their younger years there can be an argument that it was written that way entirely for that reason. Thank you for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Read the authors note at the end. This is a deeply personal book for the author and explores a lot of themes and highlights some universal truths not just about religion but societal structure and expectations. Like Val, I am not a parent myself, but that doesn't mean there isn't a whole lot of unpacking of messaging we received as children and how it gets passed down either passively or intentionally.

There's magic, there's hope and if Inside Out was an adult novel with some serious reckoning (not that it didn't also very much deal with these themes) it'd be this.

I was over the moon when I got approved to check out Mister Magic!

The premise is right up my alley. If you ever watch clips of old kids shows on YouTube you know they could be very disturbing. The shows we watched as children also play huge roles in how we grew into adults.

I loved how each character had their own strong personalities. No one was weak or timid. I loved Val and her relationships with the other characters.

The story is creepy without giving you nightmares and the deeper message is something I think a lot of readers can relate to. Make sure to read the acknowledgments after to see what inspired the author to write this.

If you loved the show Channel Zero season one, I highly recommend reading Mister Magic by Kiersten White. Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this. I have written my review voluntarily.

This book is so surreal I don't even know how to describe it in words. White does a great job of twisting reality through childhood memories that make the reader question everything about their younger years. Creepy, macabre, and all around uncomfortable, White has an uncanny ability to put her readers at the heart of their worst nightmares. Built around a childhood TV show called Mister Magic, it takes you to a journey so familiar and yet unlike anything you've ever experienced. I couldn't help but want to continue reading even though I could feel the story nesting underneath my skin. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to be uncomfortable but in the best way.

Yikes, ok…

Fair warning: I read this to be a mashup of the Candle Cove creepypasta and Ronald Malfi’s “Black Mouth”. While I really enjoyed both of those original works, Mister Magic was a “no” for me.

This final product produced an overarching feeling of just “uh, wait what?” I had more than a few issues with the execution of this story: Part of the plot (the interesting part) was heavily borrowed from Candle Cove and was only presented in small snippets at the end of each chapter. The other part was a half-hearted attempt at depicting relationships in a genuine way (which all felt very forced). Something about her writing style can’t get me to shake the overall YA feel of White’s “adult” novels, and that general feeling is omnipresent in this one as well. The delivery was rather ham-handed and too sitcom-y for my tastes, and all the cutesy childhood jingles that a bunch of 40-yr-olds are still obsessed with for some reason were really eyeroll-inducing. These characters were all written through an adolescent gaze, like a tween envisioning how adults interact with each other.

The vagueness and secrecy embedded in the story were necessary to further the plot, but instead of it being mysterious and interest-piquing, it was convoluted and annoying. Every chapter was just more of the same— blocked out memories, things the characters can’t talk about, etc. There is such a thing as not giving your readers enough meat to chew on, or enough substance to sustain us, and that’s regrettably what happened here. There weren’t enough small payoffs for us to swallow along the way, so the story was dead on arrival.. It was asking us to solve a mystery that no one cared about in the first place (and one that was fairly easy to guess). I think that had to do with how the characters were written—all archetype and no real soul behind the eyes.

I had no idea what was happening most of the time. White continually beat us over the head with cryptic allegories, and while I respect the religious trauma this novel was meant to exorcise, the world she built just wasn’t interesting.