Hello everyone! I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to get back to you with a review. Nothing major happened. You all know how it is: life gets in the way sometimes. I must work if I want to afford more books. If I get more books, you all get more reviews and you all seem to enjoy my opinions. I am definitely going to start reading more horror books with October being just around the corner. I always get so excited for this time of year. Early fall just feels wonderful, in my opinion. Now, let’s get to it and talk about Mister Magic.

Content Warning: Some harsh language, Religious Trauma, Child Abuse and Child Death, Some discussions of homophobia

Val Barrett had a nice life carved out for herself as a camp counselor. Everything was idyllic until her father passes away. At the funeral, a group of people show up claiming to be Val’s childhood friends. Not only do they say they were her friends, they also claim that they were all a part of a tv show called Mister Magic. Val, however, has no memory of her childhood or being a part of a mysterious tv show that seems to have never existed. Val and her friends decide to unravel the mystery of who Mister Magic really was and what happened that caused the show to seemingly vanish. The more she investigates, the more Val realizes that some things might be better off forgotten.

I will admit that my initial excitement for this book came from my love of “creepypastas,” which is the blanket term for a specific genre of fictional horror stories published on the internet. There is an entire subgenre dedicated to “corrupted” children’s shows or missing children’s shows that were actually more sinister than everyone remembers. (Candle Cove, anyone?) Kiersten White does seem to tap into this genre as the book is broken up with well-crafted mock internet posts that helped flesh out the world of the novel. It’s refreshing to come across an author who actually understands how the internet works and what it looks like. With all this being said, the novel did underwhelm me a bit. To encroach on spoiler territory (don’t read any farther if you don’t want to be spoiled): the whole book is essentially a giant metaphor for leaving a cult. In this instance, the cult in question was Mormonism. In the notes at the end, White does mention how she is ex-Mormon. While I can appreciate the intention of this novel, I felt that this aspect actually took away some of the horror elements for me. I would even argue that, outside of children being harmed, this book wasn’t even that scary and the initial intrigue fell apart at the end for me. Now, I have never experienced a situation like being involved in a religious cult so maybe I lack the experience to truly appreciate this book. I can safely say I didn’t dislike the book but I didn’t love it either. While it wasn’t my favorite book, I did appreciate what the goal was and I hope that someone out there can appreciate it in a way that I did not.