Mayhem – Estelle Laure (ARC review)

Title: Mayhem.

Author: Estelle Laure.

Format: E-ARC (Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own!)

Publisher: Wednesday books.

Page count: 228.

Release day: July 14^th 2020.

Genre: YA, fantasy.

Rating: 2 stars.

What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)

A YA feminist mash up inspired by The Lost Boys and The Craft.

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 a family of women contending with what appears to be an irreversible destiny, taking control and saying when enough is enough.

Rating:
Characters: 4/10
Atmosphere: 4/10
Writing: 6/10
Plot: 4/10
Intrigue: 3/10
Logic: 5/10
Enjoyment: 4/10
Average: 4.29 (which means 2 stars!)

My thoughts:

So.. this book felt chaotic..

There were so many things going on, and the book is very short, so it felt as if all the stories were done a bit half.

We had Mayhem and her mom escaping her abusive stepdad, her mom’s drug addiction, some kind of magic, some mystery, some stories surrounding her aunts adopted children, the relation between these adoptive children and Mayhem.. And the book is just over 200 pages long..

I think the author should have chosen between the magical town and the thing surrounding that or the abusive stepdad story. Having both things going on was too much. Both stories were interesting, but they did not feel complete.

I think this already explains most of my ratings.. Since all parts; plot, characters, magic system, felt underdeveloped, I didn’t really like most aspects..

The writing was okay, it read quite easily!

Tbh, I think I would have DNF’ed this book if it would have been longer..

Happy reading!