Reading the afterword, it’s clear that Mister Magic comes from a deeply personal place. White’s experiences with Mormonism involved a lot of trauma and soul-searching, a lot of which she brings to this book. Unfortunately, while it gives the story a lot of emotional weight, it doesn’t disguise a weak plot, underdeveloped characters, and a mystery that is simultaneously over-explained (we get it, people on Reddit love the spooky kids show) and under-explained (no-one will tell Val, or the audience, anything). Ironically, it feels like White’s own success in escaping her abusive religion (which, again, is a very good thing and should be taken completely separately from what I think of her book) has made it much harder for her to portray a version of that religion in fiction. It’s an enjoyable enough book, but for a horror it isn’t very scary, and for a fictionalised version of the author’s own life it feels curiously distant and flat.