Review of Mister Magic by Kiersten White

Another “New Books” shelf find at the library. I’d heard of Kiersten White as an author of Buffy tie-in novels (though I had never read any). The description of this book was interesting enough for me to try it. Just under three hundred pages, its pacing is quick enough I finished it in a single day. Mister Magic is a great example of a serviceable urban fantasy thriller that doesn’t wow yet still entertains. That being said, if you pay enough attention, there’s deeper magic at work here.

It has been thirty years since the abrupt end of a children’s TV show called Mister Magic. Though whispers about the show abound online as former viewers share their recollections, no official record of the show exists: no production notes, no official profile online, no recordings. Val is one of the five former cast members who survived—the sixth’s tragic death was why the show ended—though she has no memory of her involvement. When two of her fellow cast members track her down on a farm, she decides to go with them to a reunion podcast recording in the very house where the show was filmed. That’s when things get … weird. There was magic involved in the production of Mister Magic, but it’s nothing like what you would expect.

The first part of this book is standard, perhaps pedestrian, horror-movie-style setup. Val’s memory of childhood has faded away; all she knows is life on Gloria’s farm, an able assistant at the riding camp for rich horse girls. Her life is thrown into upset, first by her father’s death and then by the arrival of Javier and Marcus. Once the three of them make it to the house and meet up with Isaac and Jenny, things kick into a higher gear. It’s still fairly predictable until the climax, but White is very good at hitting the right notes.

Probably the best scenes were the one-on-one interviews between each cast member and the … entity … posing as a podcast host. These were pitch-perfect creepiness. Similarly, I enjoyed how much time White spends unpacking Val’s trauma: her attempt to visit her mother and get answers, her anxiety around reminiscing about a TV show she doesn’t remember being on.

That being said, I kind of wish we had spent more time with the other characters, seen things more from their point of view.

There are additional layers to Mister Magic that are metaphors for White’s own experiences leaving Mormonism. These are probably the most successful at reaching me: I found the book’s theme about letting your kids grow up and make their own mistakes, instead of holding them by the hand and guiding them through everything, very compelling. In this way, the climax of the book, Val’s fateful actions, and the revelations around the nature of the eponymous Mister Magic character are all extremely satisfying.

Alas, there isn’t enough meat on the bones of these broad points to turn this into a truly gripping horror story. I keep thinking about Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey (also a Buffy-adjacent writer), which is probably the most recent horror novel I’ve read that has stuck with me—I don’t actually have a separate shelf for tracking horror, which shows how often I read it. Mister Magic satisfies the creepy vibe I want and hints at the twisted supernatural elements lurking below the surface of our daily life … yet until we got to the climax, I never truly felt like Val or anyone else was in danger. There wasn’t the tension I need from my horror.

In the end, this is not one I would recommend. It has its moments, and like I said, I found it to be a fairly quick read. But I’m not sure there’s enough unique qualities here to make it memorable.