BOOK REVIEW - MAYHEM BY ​ESTELLE LAURE

A teenager discovers hidden power in her family’s strange history

 
I always enjoy authors making changes in direction with their fiction and with her third YA novel Estelle Laure edges away from teen dramas into the world of the supernatural with the excellent Mayhem. However, it is not a complete turnaround as a large proportion of this 1987 set story is a compelling family drama, the twist being that the Brayburn clan are not quite your average family. Teen readers will have to show patience in this slow burner, before figuring out what exactly makes them different. 
 
The novel begins with sixteen-year-old Mayhem Brayburn and her single parent mother, Roxy, returning to the family home in the seaside town of Santa Maria. For the previous thirteen years they have lived in Texas with Roxy’s violent and domineering husband Lyle who recently struck Mayhem, the final straw in a catalogue of domestic abuses incidents which led to them running away. The teenager barely remembers her ancestral family home but is aware that her natural father died there, possibly suicide, not long before her mother moved to Texas thirteen years earlier. Much of the story is built around Mayhem’s return to Santa Maria and the secrets connecting her to her family and their weird history.
 
In the years away from Santa Maria, Roxy has developed a prescription drug habit and the complex relationship between mother and daughter lies at the heart of the plot. Expanding that, Mayhem deals with the family dynamics in the Brayburn family and the vaguely explained hold they exert over the town they live just outside. In the time Roxy has been away her sister Elle has fostered three other children Jason (almost eighteen), Neve and Kidd who is nine. The eldest and youngest are natural brother and sister, whilst Neve is a wild free spirit who is a contrast to the much more reserved and closed-off Mayhem.
 
The convincing developing friendship of the four children were crucial to the success of the book and for most of the time their relationships dominated the plot and the supernatural element lurked in the background. Readers looking for a loud supernatural romp might find this book to be rather frustrating, it is a much quieter coming of age story with Mayhem trying to uncover the mystery of herself and her connection to the local area, which frustratingly, nobody wants to talk about. It is very subtly handled with the teenager being an engaging first-person narrator, moving from outsider to a key member of the group of four. On the other hand, her mother Roxy was frustrating to the point of irritation, with her daughter showing more sense of responsibility than the flaky parent.
 
I felt one of the main taglines which has been used with this book was slightly misleading; “The Lost Boys meets Wilder Girls in this supernatural feminist YA novel.” Firstly, technically there are no traditional vampires, there is only one boy in the story, and it was not ‘feminist’. Just because a book has predominately female characters does not automatically make it a feminist novel. Comments have also been made of its mid-eighties setting, it did not particularly come across as eighties; neither did it rely on the usual pop-culture references from the period, this was not a particular drawback as the story could have been set in any modern time period. The author is obviously a fan of The Lost Boys as Mayhem features several references to the film, including characters called ‘The Frog Brothers’ which viewers of the film will undoubtedly recognise. However, these references may well be completely lost on the teenagers of 2020.
 
The subtle supernatural angle revolves around what makes the Brayburn’s different from everybody else in Santa Maria, with added conflict thrown in because the three other children are not Brayburn by blood. At a certain point the ‘magic’ is explained away because the town is built upon a ‘Psychic Vortex’ where weird stuff can happen, never mind The Lost Boys, this had me thinking of Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s ‘Hell Mouth’, where Sunnydale was located.  
 
Whilst Mayhem is unearthing her family’s unusual history, helped by the discovery of old diaries, there is a second major plotline of a serial killer, the ‘Sand Snatcher’, killing young women, which eventually involves Mayhem and her new siblings. This was not the strongest element of the narrative and lurked in the background before bubbling to the top towards the end of the novel and was resolved far too easily and with little suspense or threat. However, the spooky beach setting was excellent and contributed much to the atmosphere. On the downside, an unconvincing, and unnecessary, romance was also thrown into the plot in the final third. 
 
Mayhem is aimed at girls aged thirteen, or older, and continues the trend in recent horror and dark fiction to turn male characters into background wallpaper and, sadly, this is exactly how Jason was portrayed. Overall, I enjoyed this novel, but its success with real teen readers will depend on how well they connect with Mayhem as a leading character and their interest in the family vibes which dominate the story. Some readers will find it too slow and lament the lack of action, but for those teens who enjoy thoughtful dramas with a supernatural twist there is much to recommend.
 
4/5
 
Tony Jones

a special statement from Estelle Laure

 
Dear Reader,
 
Like Mayhem, I experienced a period of time when my life was extremely unstable. I can still remember what it was like to be shaken so hard I thought my head would come off, to watch the room vibrate, to feel unsafe in my own home, to never know what was coming around the next corner. I wanted to run. I always wanted to run.
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I ran to friends, but also movies and books, and although girls were more passively portrayed in movies like The Lost Boys back then, that feeling of teenagers prowling the night, taking out bad people, being unbeatable . . . that got me through it.

I guess that’s what I tried to do here. I wanted girls who feel powerless to be able to imagine themselves invincible. And yes, I used a rape as the seed for that fierce lineage, not without thought. For me, there is nothing worse, and I like to think great power can rise up as a result of a devastating trespass.

Please know I took none of this lightly. Writing this now, my heart is beating hard and my throat is dry. This is the first time I not only really looked at my own past, the pain of loss, the pain of the loss of trust that comes when someone puts hands on you without permission, the pain of people dying, the shock of suicide, and put all of it to paper in a way that made me feel victorious, strong, and warrior-like. It is also terrifying. I know I’m not the only one who had a scary childhood, and I know I’m not the only one who clings to stories as salve to smooth over burnt skin. I am so sick of girls and women being hurt. This was my way of taking my own vengeance and trying to access forgiveness.

Thank you for reading and for those of you who can relate, I see you and you are not alone.
Estelle Laure
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The Lost Boys meets Wilder Girls in this supernatural feminist YA novel.

It's 1987 and unfortunately it's not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else. 

But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self. There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good. 

But when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost. 

From the acclaimed author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure offers a riveting and complex story with magical elements about a family of women contending with what appears to be an irreversible destiny, taking control and saying when enough is enough.

• Author’s social handles
  • Twitter: @starlaure
  • Instagram: @estellelaurebooks
    
    
• Link to a buy-this-book page:
              https://wednesdaybooks.com/galaxies-and-kingdom/mayhem/

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