"Inspired by Lost Boys & The Craft" is fairly accurate.
I would probably have said it more closely resembled Practical Magic, but that's just me.
Either way it was riveting and hella fun to get sucked into.
Not a hug fan of the ending, but still interested in seeking out more by Estelle Laure.
Thanks to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for my DRC.
"I have to admit it's cute, though, like watching a baby birdy fly from the nest and turn into a man-eating pterodactyl."

First and foremost I would like to thank St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and Netgalley for granting me early access to Mayhem by Estelle Laure. This in no way affects my review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was an interesting experience for me. The idea of The Lost Boys mashed with The Craft drew me in from the get go. Once I started reading, I found myself zipping through the pages, unable to stop. I think that the feminist vibes are super strong and I appreciated that. There were a lot of references to The Lost Boys and I did feel a sense of suspense and mystery. I really appreciated the magic system though I did find myself asking a few questions internally as it felt like it was kind of thrown upon us.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I think that some of the references were a bit strong, but if you're younger and haven't read TLB then you wouldn't have that issue whatsoever. The 80's vibes hit the spot after recently watching Stranger Things! I Though some of the similarities are there, I think that it stands well on it's own! I think that 16 year old me would have loved this book!

(TW: Murder, Rape, Domestic Abuse/Violence, Substance Abuse/Addiction, Suicide)
3.5 Stars
From what I've seen from other reviews, this book is very similar to the movie, The Lost Boys, which I haven't seen but just as a heads-up for anyone who has. This was a very interesting story for me to read mainly because I didn't anticipate all of the mystical elements. I love the idea of this magic tying all of the women in a family together, bringing a blessing and a curse all at once. There are diary entries starting in the 1920s and progressing to the other family members until the 1980s where the story takes place. Even though the diary entries are short, they're so full of life and you really feel the depth of the characters within them. However, the same can't be said for some of the other main characters. Mayhem and her mother deal with domestic abuse and the aftereffects of it throughout the story, and it feels painfully authentic. This doesn't have them run away from their abuser and magically get better. The healing process is painful and the evidence of their abuse is shown through all of their actions. Neve, Jason, and Kidd are the adopted children of Mayhem's aunt, but despite playing a central part in the plot, I feel like they're not as fully developed. You see the hints of their past throughout the story, but by the conclusion, they don't really get the resolution or the depth that Mayhem did.
My main problems with the book include the time period and the magic system. Even though it was set in the 1980s, it felt very modern with the only indication of the time being a VHS store and landlines. Sometimes that disparity could be a little offputting while reading, but I eventually got over it. The magic system is very vague and not fully described. It's used multiple times throughout the book but the details about it are never disclosed even in the finale. I didn't expect for everything about it to be explained, but I was left with more questions than answers by the end.

Mayhem is about how a person’s history affects their standing with themselves, about family secrets and past lives. It blends magical elements seamlessly with reality and features a complex mother-daughter relationship and since it takes place over a summer, I lived the lost summer of 2020 vicariously through it. As some early reviews point out, it borrows many elements from the cult film The Lost Boys, this time bringing female characters to the spotlight, hence The Craft comparison.


A huge part of my initial reaction to this book was informed by the fact that I never saw either film. I think if I went into this having seen at least The Lost Boys, I would have a different perspective. In any case, I read a summary and it seems like Mayhem has a lot of themes the film doesn’t have. It engages with feminism, rape culture, consent and power dynamics and I really liked that it had zero patience for abusers. Instead, it prioritizes victims’ stories and doesn’t put all of them in the same box. The slow pace didn’t bother me, and I enjoyed learning about the Brayburn family history through the diary entries of the Brayburn women who came before them, but arguably this was the extent to which the magic was explained.


When Mayhem arrives at her mother’s family home, she begins a whirlwind friendship with her aunt’s adoptive children/proteges. Neve’s near-180 transformation by the second half of the book was a bit jarring, though it’s understandable why she felt the way she did. The aunt, by the way, was by far my favorite and I wanted more of her. Mayhem’s pain is believable and raw. Although she took on a great undertaking, I liked that she wasn’t expected by the narration to act like an adult through all of this, that in the end, she was allowed her teenagerhood.

“Don’t you want to know what’s really going on, Mayhem?”

Mayhem and Roxy, her mother, have recently moved in with Elle, Roxy’s twin sister, and her foster children. Roxy always swore she’d never return to Santa Maria but Mayhem doesn’t know why. It turns out there’s a lot she doesn’t know about being a Brayburn.

This book covers a lot of ground: family legacies, the secrets we keep from ourselves and others, the impacts of trauma and the ways we try to reclaim our power.

“I was only three. Lyle saved us. That’s the story.”

The portrayal of what it’s like for a child living in a home where domestic violence is the norm was painfully authentic. I could feel what it was like for Mayhem as the abuse was happening to both herself and her mother, the impacts of which were evident throughout the story.

I particularly appreciated the fact that once there was some physical distance between the abused and abuser, life didn’t automatically become sunshine and roses. The abuse wasn’t sensationalised but it also wasn’t sugarcoated.

“Roxy doesn’t cry. Neither of us do. We don’t talk about it, even to each other, like if we never say it out loud, it will stop.”

There were some sentences that resonated with me so much that I had to reread them immediately and then pause while I absorbed them. I anticipate these quotes will be staying with me for quite a while:

“Don’t let the idea of people overshadow truth.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to hear things, because then you have to admit other things and the story you’ve been telling yourself unravels so fast you can barely handle it.”

I found the names of several businesses in the story absolutely delightful. I’d stop reading when I came across those as well, but only long enough to say to the nearest person, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’. My favourite was ‘We’ve Got Issues’, a comic book store. Brilliant!

Then there were the parts of the story that hovered over my head, just out of reach. In particular, I wasn’t always entirely sure what was happening during the scenes where magic happens. There often wasn’t enough detail given to allow me to ‘see’ what was going on.

There was one scene involving the serial killer where this was especially evident; I didn’t even know what happened until I was given more information a few pages later. Incidentally, I had hoped the serial killer would have more page time than they did. The resolution of their part of the story was much too quick and easy for my liking.

I began to read some reviews to find out if I was the only one who wasn’t always getting it. Plenty of reviewers have mentioned the similarities between this story and ‘The Lost Boys’. I’ve never seen that movie and I’m still not sure if it was an advantage or disadvantage coming into this book uninitiated.

It has made me wonder if some of the more magical components of this story were written using a kind of shorthand, where if you were familiar with the movie you’d know exactly what the author was talking about without needing the additional descriptions that would have been beneficial for me.

The person I most wanted to get to know was Neve but she remained somewhat of a mystery to me. I wanted to find out more about her life before she lived with Elle but I only caught a couple of glimpses.

““They do not mess with us,” Neve murmurs, almost to herself. “For good reason.””

I’ve never been a fan of insta-love although sometimes it grows on me as a story progresses. It didn’t here. I also became frustrated as the story never really came together for me, even though there were plenty of elements that I should have loved.

Aspects of the story didn’t have the depth I was looking for and neither did some of the characters. I wanted to come away having a detailed understanding of the way the magic worked but I could only explain it to you in vague terms. I don’t even really know how to explain it but it was like I got a taste of many things but never the entire experience.

“People want to keep secrets from you, but it’s not right. You need to know everything.”

Content warnings include addiction (alcohol and other drugs), child abuse, death by suicide, domestic violence, emotional abuse, murder, physical abuse and sexual assault. Further information can be found on the author’s website - https://estellelaure.com/books/mayhem/.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, for the opportunity to read this book.

Mayhem was a very emotional story. This story talks about very strong issues and it is very well written. To be honest these issues are very hard to write but the author crafted this emotional story in a powerful way. We follow our main character Mayhem in this journey. Her mom has an addiction problem and both of them are going back to Sants Maria to get away from mayhem’s abusive step-father. There she meets her family. And she gets to know there is more to her family. And then there is a guy who's kidnapping girls at the beach, so she decides to help catch the predator. The story was a rollercoaster of emotion. It was well written. Also the character development to each character was good. There s part in book were mayhem is questioning if she is a good person or no which just makes the story more readable.*Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for providing with an e-arc. All opinions are mine.
Also check out my blog for the author interview!

I never seen the original movie of The Lost Boys which is an almost exact replica of Mayhem apparently. But whereas I’ve always wanted to get around to watching that movie.. this book on the other hand was a little bit much for me. I could definitely see potential in the author’s writing which makes me curious to check out her other books but whereas this book is concerned, I just didn’t get as into it as I was hoping to based on such an interesting cover.

cw: mention of rape

I have heard a lot of reviewers say that this draws way too much from the Lost Boys, Since, I have not seen that, I cannot comment on the originality but I found the story to be lackluster, in both the worldbuilding and its description of how the magic works. It is not exactly satisfactory with how it deals with its three major climaxes, but it does have a happy ending.

I liked how in the way that it's told, the book focuses on the innermost feelings of Mayhem, the protagonist. I really, really liked the writing, the way it flows and describes how Mayhem sees everything, and the little breadcrumbs that were littered across the text which signified something greater at play. I liked how the relationship between Mayhem and her mother is explored. Would have liked to see more of that with her other relationships as well. It is kind of a character-driven narrative, which I enjoyed.

Full review on my blog.

Note: Even with the author's note, I found it hard to understand why the conception of everything had to start with the rape of a woman. The protagonist's dead Brazilian father and lesbian aunt also seemed like abrasive attempts at diversity to me.

Thanks to St Martin's Press for providing me an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Sadly, this one was a DNF for me. I am only rating it low because while I became bored about 25% of the way through, the first bit was interesting to me. It just didn't mesh with my type of book.

Mayhem is kind of a retelling of The Lost Boys with a witchy side and a feminist touch in the #MeToo era.

Set in 1987, Meyhem Brayburn runs away with her mother Roxy from an abusive stepfather to Santa Maria California, where Roxy lived as a kid. At the Brayburn farm Mayhem meets her aunt and the three kids she kind of adopted. But that place harbors much more than Mayhem could have expected.

If you like The Lost Boys you are probably going to enjoy this, the setting and the pacing is the same, but it has some cool differences that I quite enjoyed.

I really liked May and her new friends (the kids her aunt adopted - Neve, Jason and Kidd), it was interesting to see them together although some friendships were a bit too much - which is where I totally saw The Craft, which I read to be something this was inspired by too.

Neve was wild. She definitely was a bad influence on the others, but I also couldn't necessarily not like her. She was definitely an interesting character and in her own way she did help May... But one of my fav characters has to be Kidd, she is super sweet and she still has a touch of innocence for how young she is and that really balanced their group. I loved their interaction with "magic", I always love reading about new magical ways and this was super interesting! I'm not going to say more about it, but although it's simple, I loved it and it really worked well with the story.

The abuse described in the book was quite heavy and could be triggering. However I did really like how it was approached and it made the end as sweet as can be. It showed that there's help to be given, there's hope and it's possible to get better even if its not easy. No means no and everyone should respect that.

As for what I didn't like so much...

As I said, the pace is pretty much the same as the movie, and being something that already irked me in the movie, in a book is a bit too much. I would have preferred a bit of a faster pace. I think it would have really worked with the story and made it more compelling.

The story could have gotten a bit more changes too. Half of the book was pretty much the same as the movie, which it didn't necessarily need to be just to see the inspo. I would have liked a bit more differences because I loved everything that was different in this book and I would definitely want to check out more by the author.

Overall this book was quite enjoyable, I loved the main character and to see her relationship with her mom and her family evolve and change. It deals with abuse and its hard to read at times, but its definitely important, and the end really gives hope.

Mayhem contained many elements of an intriguing mystery and narrative, but those elements aren't developed fully and leave me as a reader a bit confused and wanting more. I wanted the search for the man abducting girls on the beach to go on longer and be more mysterious, I wanted to reason behind the magical elements to be explained eventually and the purpose to be understood. The characters develop, but we don't witness the development on the page.

This book was WILD!! It took some turns I didn’t expect. Not my normal reading genre but still lovely just the same.

This book seemed really interesting but left me very confused.

Mayhem has always just lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother brings her back to the family house for safety. Mayhem learns more about her heritage than she never knew but it's not her mother or aunt that tell her but the three kids her aunt adopted. Mayhem struggles to place who she is into what she has become now that she is back in her ancestral home.

I am still really unsure about everything that happened in this book.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: RAPE, ABUSE, SUICIDE


I really enjoyed this book! I am all for witchy books, so this was perfect for me. I have only seen The Lost Boys once, (I know, shame on me) so I didn't pick up on any of the references.


I absolutely loved the setting of the book, California is one of my favourite states and I love the whole '80's vibe. It really felt as I was taking a step back in time. I liked how it did not constantly try to tell me that we were in the '80s.


The pacing throughout the book felt steady. I felt that I was really able to get to know Mayhem and Roxy and to try to understand what both of them had been through. Mayhem was a wonderful and interesting character, and I really enjoyed reading her character development and becoming a confident young woman. Naturally, I felt terrible for what her and her mother had been through. Roxy has unquestionably struggled with what has happened to her and her daughter.


I did not like Neve one single bit. I found her to be rude and so far up herself. I couldn't understand why Mayhem would even want to try and befriend her, because half the time it seemed Neve did not even like her.


I wished I had understood the magical system more, as it made about zero sense to me. At times I had to keep going back to read certain parts so I could try to understand. I think the author could have made that a little clearer. Nonetheless, it was still really interesting and very mysterious.


I think this book is perfect for fans of The Graces by Laure Eve! I loved the subtleness of the supernatural within the book and how it wasn't shoved in your face. It was a fun read and I look forward to reading more by this author!

Mayhem has always known something was different about her and her mother, Roxy. When Mayhem’s stepfather goes too far, Mayhem and her mother go home. What Mayhem hasn’t realised is that in the coastal town of Santa Maria, California her family, the Brayburn‘s, are something. They are feared and revered due to a secret mystery – some sort of magic, a power that runs through the female lineage in her family. Mayhem soons gets dragged into a new, addictive, and dangerous life and begins to wonder whether it is worth the cost.

A SECRET LEGACY.
A DARK POWER.
A COMPELLING DUTY.
AN IRREVERSIBLE DESTINY.
content warnings: rape, domestic abuse, murder, violence, drug use, addiction

rep: biracial side characters (black, white), lesbian side character

Mayhem was… a weird one, not necessarily in a bad way as I do really love a weird book but it didn’t always work. There were a lot of things to like about Mayhem – it’s fierce and loving protagonist, the reclamation of power, and a family history full of… magic? It’s a story about grief, love, family, about recovering from addiction and abuse, and about taking back control.

One of my favourite parts of Mayhem was the magical mystery surrounding the Brayburns. I absolutely adored the old journal entries and I really loved the obscurity of the legacy. Where did the magic come from? what does it do? how and why does it effect people differently? why did it choose the Brayburns? In the end, there were still a lot of unanswered questions – in a similar way that Wilder Girls ended – but I do think it worked. There was just something so creepy about the Brayburn legacy:

‘The spring is nature. We are servants of the spring. Mom doesn’t see it that way. She tells me the cave called to her, and to her mother before her. She says we are Brayburns, and Brayburns and the spring are one thing.’

Mayhem is a book that also tackles the abuse of women, about reclaiming control, but also about relinquishing control, and having the support and the power to say enough is enough. It has a really great moral discussion about the power that the legacy gives the Brayburn women and the cost of using that power, and whether it is right for them to use their power in the way the family have been wielding it, and is there a better way – which is something Mayhem herself contends with.

I am a monster.
I killed someone.
My mother is an addict.
My stepfather is coming.
I am an addict, too.

Mayhem, our protagonist, was very complex, as was her relationship to those around her. The mother-daughter relationship in Mayhem was a very nuanced discussion about abuse, guilt, and addiction, which I enjoyed. Mayhem also had a brilliant relationship with Neve, her aunt’s adopted daughter, of sorts, who also knows and is invovled in the Brayburn family activities – she’s volatile and angry where as Mayhem is more calm and collected with a dark side brewing under the surface. The two were almost polar opposites and I enjoyed their dynamic. These characters were wonderfully flawed.

The reason this is getting a lower rating from me is not because it’s a bad book my any means, or that I didn’t enjoy it, it’s just that sometimes the pacing was off, and the atmosphere didn’t give me the eerie and ominous vibe that would have made this book that much better. It’s a book set in 1987 in a fictional beach town with lots of murder and missing girls and yet you never felt the urgency and the danger which was a little bit of a let down, but it didn’t fully stop my enjoyment of the book or its themes.

Mayhem is a wild and brutal book about power, control, and justice.

Me throughout the majority of this novel: I am confusion.
Going into this I knew next to nothing about this book and that theme of not knowing what was happening was a common occurrence throughout the novel which even now I find hard to explain. The closest I can get to giving a description of the plot is that it follows a girl called Mayhem who moves back to the town her mother fled years ago and there she discovers a magic that flows through her bloodline. It also features Magic Water and murder so do with that what you will.

Another day, another disappointing read.

Most of the reviews I've read compare this book to The lost boys, but having never watched that movie, I came into this with no expectations at all. Even so I was still dissapointed.

I think this book suffers from a case of a dish with too many ingredients in which all of them end up being undercooked. The pacing is off from the start with nothing truly happening until at least the 60% mark. The missing girls plotline the synopsis leads you to believe will be the main plot is anecdotal at best and with a massively underwhelming climax, to say that the magical element is underexplained would be the understatement of the year (everything happens just because) and to top it all there's an instalove relationship (with zero chemistry, I might add).

Though the initial premise was interesting, the execution made it a total miss for me.

It’s 1987 and we follow the story of Mayhem and her mother, Roxy as they escape the clutches of May’s abusive step-father. Fleeing to Santa Maria, they go to stay with Roxy’s estranged sister. When they arrive, Mayhem learns of the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family. The lineage that Roxy has been so desperate to ignore. As Mayhem comes to learn about her own history and power, she finally begins to feel at home in herself. But then she gets embroiled in the search for a man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach and she realises that her magic comes at a price. Is it really worth it?
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This book is billed as The Lost Boys meets The Wilder Girls. This has been problematic for some readers, based on other reviews that I’ve seen as some have said it's got a lot of (maybe too many) similarities to The Lost Boys. However, I’m not overly familiar with it so I went into this book with no expectation whatsoever.
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Having grown up obsessed with anything relating to magic – Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Craft, Practical Magic…this was everything my inner teenager wanted, with its running theme of a magical female bloodline. Although it's a YA novel, it's not superficial and definitely not exclusive for a YA audience. The characters all had depth and a complexity which appealed to me at my current age (early 30s if you’re interested 😉)
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The story itself, once I got into it which probably took a good 25% of the book, was fast paced and I was really invested in it. I found the writing really vivid too, so I found it easy to visualise what was going on and to immerse myself in Mayhem's story.
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Mayhem has quite a darkness to it - it's definitely not a light hearted novel, covering themes such as domestic violence and sexual abuse.
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I enjoyed this - I ummed and ahhed over star rating - is it a 3 or a 4? I finally decided it was probably about 3.75 so I've rounded up to 4.

Mty Rating: 🌟🌟🌟.75
🌊👩
TW: Mentions of Rape, Suicide, Violence.
🌊👩
My thoughts:
The beautiful cover was what 1st interested me into this book & after reading the blurb I instantly requested it on netgalley because I love books with MCs who have had a difficult past but overcome it & emerge stronger on the otherside. This book promised that & it came through with it.
✨
The book was a little slow & confusing at the beginning but as the story progressed it picked up speed & things started making sense. The characters were good. The 4 children Mayhem, Neve, Jason & Kidd are the main focus of the story. I liked Mayhem & Neve's characters the most.
✨
Mayhem discovers that she is from a line of magical females when she returns to Santa Maria with her mother. With the help of the magic, the 4 kids set about finding the man who is kidnapping girls from the beach at night. I liked the concept of magical vigilante teenagers but wished the story was more expanded/detailed. Certain scenes were over too fast & were left vague. There was this potential for the story to be great if only the scenes were more fleshed out. I felt like the story went in a single flow from start to end. There were no dull moments but there were no highly exciting ones either.
✨
Overall the story was good & was an enjoyable read.
✨
Disclaimer: Thanking Netgalley & the publishers for providing me with an eARC copy of the book in exchange of an honest review. The thoughts expressed in the review are therefore completely my own.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an enjoyable read for the first half and then I got a bit confused when things were being explained, but toward the 70-80% mark I was understanding the concept more and started to really enjoy the novel again.

This story is about Mayhem and her mother Roxy fleeing an abusive relationship, to a town her mother did not want to bring her daughter back to. The memories Roxy previously experienced in her life made her want to flee and never look back. Now that Mayhem is back in the town she left when she was only three years old, is discovering the secrets of her family and finally beginning to discover herself as well.

I liked the premise of this story, and it was also well written. I would definitely read other works this author produces, as this was a strong novel for Estelle.

This book does contain potentially triggering material for some readers so I would suggest you proceed with caution and read a full list. It deals heavily with physical abuse and drugs as two of the main triggers.

I would recommend Mayhem, to readers who are looking for a bit of magic, a coming of age story, dealing with trauma, but also recovering, discovering and trying to move forward.