I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

I was barely born that decade, but man, do I love the 80s. Videotapes, high-waisted jeans, acid wash, the Brat Pack. Ah, the days.

I do admit that I have not seen The Lost Boys nor The Craft. If so, I might have felt differently about this book. But I just have a love affair with Practical Magic, so give me those witchy women! (Beachy 80s are on an entirely different level!)

"She's mad, but she's magic" feels like a good tagline for this book. I'm still working on getting used to the more heavily represented genres in ya--like fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. I'm definitely glad we're moving past high school "love" stories, but it still seems new-ish (to me) that people are writing these titles for YA. So (again, to me), it seems like some authors are trying to do too much with not enough real estate. I think this book would have been better had the author stretched out the story a bit and filled in more gaps and strengthened the plot. Otherwise, it's a great concept!

In 1987, Mayhem and her mother, Roxy, move back to Roxy’s hometown of Santa Maria. They are escaping Roxy’s abusive husband. Roxy has kept Mayhem away from her family for most of her life. She left her family after Mayhem’s father died tragically. Mayhem learns their family secrets while investigating a string of kidnappings.

There was a layer of magic to this story. Mayhem’s family, the Brayburns, have a mystical history involving the water in a special cave. The magical elements weren’t the main part of the story, but they enhanced the way that the kidnappings were investigated, and they gave the Brayburns a long family history.

There were some tough issues in this book. Mayhem and her mom were abused by her stepfather, causing them to return to Roxy’s family home. There was also a suicide and drug abuse. The addition of magic made these serious problems a little less catastrophic because it wasn’t happening in our reality.

This is a great story!

Thank you Wednesday Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a bit all over the place for me. I felt like the writing style was really good, but it needed focus. The story itself just felt adrift. I had a hard time getting into it because it seemed so random.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I must first thank Wednesday Books for reaching out and providing me with a free e-ARC of Mayhem in exchange for an honest review.

As I excited as I was to read Mayhem because the blurb sounded like something that would be right up my alley for I love The Lost Boys, so how could I not like a book that was inspired by those two movies? What should’ve been an amazing story, complete with a kick butt heroine, sadly did not live up to my hopes and expectations for the book and I was thus left disappointed.

There were two main things that led to my lackluster feelings. One had to do with just how much the author “borrowed” from The Lost Boys. The insertion of the Frog Brothers and their discussion about vampires along with the shirtless playing Sax-man came across more as direct lifting of the characters versus creating new characters inspired by these well known characters from the film. I would’ve rather the author either re-imagine these characters in a new way rather than directly replicate them or leave them out altogether as they didn’t even serve any real purpose to the story that was being told.

The other issue I had with this book, which was in many ways the larger of the issues, was how slow the story moved. The pacing was slow to the point that I found myself nodding off more than once while reading this book. The book didn’t finally start to pick up until it was more than halfway through. Once it did pick up the pendulum shifted to the opposite end of the spectrum where it went from moving at a snail’s pace to lightning speed. I couldn’t help but feel like the author had gotten a point where they themselves were over the story and just wanted to reach the end as quickly as possible. This extreme change in pacing left me feeling as though I had missed something along the way, or even that there was a key part of the book that had been taken out from the story.

There were a couple positive reactions, which kept me from rating it a 1, I had in regards to the book. I found the back story of the Brayburn women and how they came by their powers to quite interesting. I also enjoyed Mayhem’s step-father finally getting his comeuppance, thus allowing Mayhem and her Mom to break away from him once and for all.

Unfortunately, there just weren’t enough positives for me to rate this book any higher than a 2 out of 5. I feel like the book was rushed and that the author should’ve taken more time to fully flesh out the story in order to avoid the exact duplication of characters from a well known 80’s film.

Mysterious and magical! A powerful tale of family, strong women, and the evils they stand up to. Magical realism at its finest.

Mayhem and her mom are on the run from their abusive stepfather/husband. They return to her mom's hometown where everything seems a little different. Mayhem realizes she comes from a family that has powers to serve justice to those who are doing wrong. Very witchy vibes. The town atmosphere set the scene for Mayhem to come into her powers. Everything was not explained which left some imagination to the reader.

Mayhem is an amazing story that will definitely stick with you. Mayhem and her mother, Roxy, flee an abusive relationship to head to her Aunt Elle’s. There, Mayhem finds out that her family comes from a long line of magic that Mayhem will soon inherit. Mayhem also gets involved in the hunt for a man that is kidnapping girls and from there, Mayhem’s life will never be the same.

This book reminded me quite a bit of Lost Boys which is one of my favorite movies. This story had quirky characters, magic and a missing body count. I’m definitely letting people know that there is domestic violence and Mayhem goes through some things that might affect some readers. Great story and looking forward to reading her next book.

This was an interesting reading experience. I loved parts of this book and then other parts I felt indifferent towards. Some things were resolved really quickly and that surprised me. It just felt rushed at some points. I wish there were like 50 more pages just so some things could be fleshed out a bit more. There were three main plot points and I only felt fulfilled by one of them and that makes me sad. I would have loved a greater focus on the serial killer and the whole story around that, but that just may be because I love true crime. Overall I think that the atmosphere was fun and the relationships were nicely developed.

This was probably a case of "it's not me, it's you" and I should have known this book wouldn't be quite to my taste. While I enjoy, theoretically, the ideas of inherited magic, family ties/found family, women overcoming trauma, etc, I found this book just... didn't work for me.

In particular, I struggled with Mayhem and her mother's relationship. Mom characters are near and dear to my heart and even the most imperfect ones tend to be my favorite characters, but I HATED seeing her so disconnected from her daughter's life, when they were supposedly so close/all each other had. Even in books with similar plots involving domestic abuse, such as The Great Alone, I found the mother figure more sympathetic in how she communicated with her daughter and the pains she took to protect her.

I'm not sure why Neve was even a part of this story or what to make of her plotline other than that.... I didn't like it and it seemed really out of the blue.

I think I would have perhaps enjoyed this more as a generational story focusing on each of the Brayburn women chronologically than through diary entries.

2 1/2 stars. I see what the author was trying to do with this book: the 80s-Stranger-Things vibe, the concept of vigilante justice, the storyline about abuse. I only wish these aspects translated.

This book follows Mayhem, a high school junior who has recently escaped an abusive situation with her mother, Roxy. The two are forced to go to Roxy’s hometown, where they meet her sister, Elle, and her adopted cousins, Jason, Kidd, and Neve. But the hometown has its secrets, including... magic.

To compliment a few things here: Mayhem’s storyline around abuse is a good concept. I appreciated Mayhem’s determination to “become someone who hits”. That was cool! It’s solid and interesting character motivation, if done right.

Two problems here: one, that motivation doesn’t actually explicitly appear until halfway through the book, which is a problem, as it makes the first half feel meandering. And two, her arc never connects to the plot, though it’s clearly intended to. The character beats and the plot beats feel as if they’re meant for two separate books, and Mayhem’s internal monologue is barely there.

On a pure story level, and I think partially as a result of lacking character motivation, the story structure is really really off—the book feels like 70% buildup, a plot conclusion, and then an awkward 20% that has to conclude character beats.

More importantly, the book just never really gives you a reason to care about these characters. Possibly I am just bad with first person POV (we’ve established that), but I just... I feel like this story could’ve taken place with entirely different characters, and nothing would’ve changed. The book doesn’t develop relationships enough for their stress points to actually change anything. When Mayhem tells us that Neve is her best friend, it rings false; when she tells us she loves Jason, I felt nothing.

The storyline with Roxy is similarly frustrating. Roxy is an alcoholic who has made her daughter into her pseudo-parent. That is acknowledged in the book... at about 50%, and I felt the buildup to the moment where Mayhem calls her on it really failed. The book establishes that Mayhem is being treated badly, but not that she knows she’s being treated badly, so her argument with her mother feels oddly out of left field. It also... Roxy is really fucking up a lot here, and I kept expecting the story to really challenge her into changing, and it doesn’t, she just kind of... decides to change.

It’s not bad, per se, it’s just vaguely unsatisfying. The book in summary.

Oh, I also wished this book leaned into the setting and the vibe a bit more. What’s there is good and I wanted more.

I was waffling between giving this two and three stars, because I do see the potential here. I don’t think this is a bad book: it’s well-written, and I liked some of the ideas and concepts. But frankly, I was just... not invested in this book as a whole. I hope others will click with this one more than I did.

I love to read a book that is compared to another pop culture favorite. For Mayhem, those comparisons were The Lost Boys and The Craft, and seriously, who doesn't love both? The Lost Boys is a vampire classic, and maybe one of my all-time favorite movies. So of course I added Mayhem high to my list of must-reads.

After growing up with her mother and abusive step-father in a small town in Texas, Mayhem Brayburn and her mother Roxy finally leave Texas and head back to their family home in Santa Maria. Roxy's been running from her past for years and isn't pleased to be back home. Santa Maria is different, and the Brayburn's are special. Magic runs through their veins. And now that Mayhem's found her way home, that magic is in her too. Can she use it for good, or will vigilante justice change Mayhem for the worse?

I liked this book, but I wanted to love it, and I just didn't love it. There was an interesting basis for the plot line, but unfortunately, so much of the story felt shallow and just seemed to lack so much in terms of the story. I liked Mayhem, as well as plenty of the other characters, but the story itself felt incredibly rushed, and so I kept waiting for more.

At the beginning of the book, there was a disclaimer about sexual assault being a basis of the story. The way the book is formatted, there are several chapters from Mayhem's perspective (the majority of the book), and then there were a sprinkling of chapters in the book that were letters from multiple generations of Brayburn women (no worries - these aren't spoilers). The assault was a non-graphic scene in one of these chapters. The author's note discussed using that scene and how she did not go about writing that scene lightly, however, I felt it was unnecessary. I do think that fiction novels based off #metoo can be really powerful (for example, The Whisper Network was absolutely incredible and one really well). I didn't think it was powerful here. Oftentimes, in works of fiction, bad guys are made to be rapists so we know they're bad - they can still be bad guys without raping people. They can be misogynists and sexists. There is still a reason to smash the patriarchy without bringing assault into the picture. This novel also had a lot of basis in abuse.

I can see where the connections were made to The Lost Boys and The Craft, but I would never describe this book as "The Lost Boys meets The Craft." And I would certainly connect Mayhem to The Craft more than The Lost Boys, though that may have been an inspiration.

"You do not deserve to be hit. Any man who hits a woman or child is subhuman and should be crushed like a cockroach, which is what he is." - Mayhem, Estelle Laure

I enjoyed the story itself. I mostly liked the characters. But I wish the historical letters would've been parts of the story in a different way - them being letters seemed odd and honestly didn't make much sense in terms of the story. Like, why were the letters even written anyways. And what was the connection to birds? I don't know - just too much was left unexplained. I really wish it would've been executed better. There was so much potential, but the book just felt too sensational.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, but unfortunately it didn't work well for me. I did like the transformation of the main character (though I wanted more from that too).

OK, before I begin my review, I have to admit that this book was very obviously not written for me. Mayhem is being marketed as a Young Adult novel so please keep that in mind. Thinking back on it -if I were a 12 or 13-year-old girl and got my hands on this book, it would likely be a totally different review.

However, I am more than slightly over those ages, and the experience of reading Mayhem fell a bit short for me. While I liked the emotional development of the main character who goes from meek and abused to powerful and confident, I wanted SO much more about the transformation, the sources of the power and even a strong explanation of how they actually work (sorry for being vague - trying to not spoil your experience).

What Ms Laure does very well, is in the development of the character of Roxy as she tries to detox not only from drugs and alcohol but also from a toxic relationship. The whole situation rings so true in her back and forth behavior as well as the physical issues of withdrawing. In dealing with the abused before, I have witnessed people reaching back toward a failed relationship, sinking into depression, and numbing with pills and alcohol. I've also seen a detox up close and personal and Laure does a great job of showing the gritty parts of these realities.

I think this book would be a strong contender of becoming a series with the same characters which would give the author a chance to really flesh out these really fascinating characters and the very vivid settings. I could totally see it adapted for a Netflix or Hulu special.

If you enjoy stories with supernatural tones, I encourage you to try out Mayhem. It may have not been in my wheelhouse, it is intriguing and you know - the book is always better :)

A big thanks to St Martin's Press, Netgalley and Estelle Laure!

I understand what the author was trying to do with Mayhem, but it was wildly unsuccessful.
I am sorry I really wanted to like this book, but it just didn't do it for me.

It was obvious the story was a loose interpretation of The Lost Boys, but it just didn't work the way I think the author had intended.

The story was not fleshed out and mostly confusing.

This review has been a hard one to write for me. I was excited about this title and enjoyed the premise. Unfortunately, the similarities between this and The Lost Boys were too much. It didn't feel original and therefore didn't impress me. The premise as I understood it was gender bent retelling of The Lost Boys. For that I was on board and pumped. However, I don't think the author allowed herself the opportunity to show her originality. The writing was a bit slow for me but I could see that she is talented. I plan to check out one of her other titles. Maybe because my husband is a huge Lost Boys fan, I have watched it so much it was front & center in my mind and I couldn't see past it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Mayhem has grown up with her mother but away from any other family. When her mother leaves her abusive husband and returns to her hometown, Mayhem finds out the family secrets that make her family the most well-known one in town. I loved watching Mayhem develop relationships with her aunt and cousins, as well as how her relationship with her mother changes as Mayhem grows stronger and more self confident. The plot is interesting and wrapped up well, although I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel!

I received an eARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly... I’m torn. Some of this book I really liked— if you’ve seen The Lost Boys, you’ll immediately recognise this is meant to be a retelling or overlapping event; I love that movie, so right away I was ready for the cheesy and creepy 80s goodness. In this story, wI have a family that has been “taking care of” the town for generations, mysterious powers that sent one sister away several years ago, and now with the return of that same sister and her daughter (Mayhem) we see a new generation being tugged to find their place in all this.

I enjoyed the relationships between the characters— they didn’t jump from one emotion to another, it really felt like they respected times to heal or even just acknowledge things. I thought the youngest character, Kidd, was both the funniest and most well-written. She acts like you’d expect her to act, in a good way.

I felt like some drama was either taken too far or not taken far enough. (I suspect this is because I was prepared for an 80s movie vibe to everything.) I wanted a little more from the ending as well, but as the ending would not keep me from reading the book or suggesting it, I feel this is likely based on personal preference.

I’d hand this to someone looking for a Halloween-in-summer read.

This book wasn’t really what I expected. Actually, I am not sure what i expected. It reminds me a lot about movies in the 90s, especially Practical Magic. A girl and her mom return to the home they left. The girl discovers she comes from a family of witches, kind of.

So basically, this is a hard plot to explain. But it is about family, discovering yourself, and decisions in your life. Mayhem and her mother are running from abuse, but how does that abuse shape their current view upon returning home?

My critique of this book is really that the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I felt like it kind of wrapped up, but there was an uneasiness to it that I can’t describe.


You can see my video review here:
https://youtu.be/w7cLfUkchFs

Loved the humorous homage to the Lost Boys universe. This engrossing read deals with difficult themes of abuse, includes some drug use, murder, and other issues that sensitive readers might want to avoid, but for the rest of us, this is a beautifully written book, full of spicy characters and evocative settings. Highly recommend!

Tw: sexual assault, rape, murder, abuse, sexual abuse, manipulative relationships

Honestly...I didn't like this book.
I want to purge it from my memory.
I know the author tried to do something great with this "mashup" but honestly the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable.
No thanks.