Last year, I heard about Kiersten White's 'Hide' and I became obsessed with the premise. The reviews kept me away from it at the end of the day but hey, that doesn't mean her next book can't be good.

Mister Magic has an excellent premise. Mister Magic used to be a children's show with six kids playing games, exploring their imagination, and chanting rhymes. One day, something happened, and the show stopped abruptly with no explanation. No one remembers the show exactly, no one has heard of the children, and the Internet has formed this cult following trying to figure out what it was and what went wrong - but there's no data, no recordings left, only their memories. Til one day, they are found by a podcaster, and they'll talk about what happened in the last episode.

I am just in love with the premise. There's so much in there that attracts me and yet the book didn't meet any expectations I had. For starters, we mainly follow Val, one of the youngest in the group. She joined the show when she was 6 and the show ended when she was 8. She is now 38. Everyone else is older than her. This is important because 1) she has amnesia and every single other individual starts every two sentences with a "Do you remember when..." No, she does not. She's stated she does not remember since page 1, why are you still asking this on page 115. She. Does. Not. Remember. And, 2) why is everyone so sour about what she did or her personality back then? She was 6. Y'all were 8 or 10. And how are y'all suddenly besties? Why is everyone so petty and acting so irrationally?

The story was interesting, but I found there was a lot of fluff and a lot of things I didn't understand and were blatantly irrational - too many for my taste. Like sure, the horror genre is full of hysterical people acting nonsensically, but this book was just obnoxiously over the top. Every character irritated me big time. The story tried to be very complicated and it just dragged, it was like having a simple puzzle and then having many parts that you didn't care about and didn't fit anywhere (the dad, the mom, the gala, the mothers, the podcaster, the way the house appears, Val's rule, etc.)

In the end, I think what really got me was how corny it was. It's just not what I expected. I couldn't vibe with anything at all and I kept going because I really wanted to see if there'd be a recording of the show or if Mister Magic would show up... and it was just underwhelming for me.