Mayhem

April 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-Mayhem Brayburn, 16, knows there was a time before Texas, before her mother Roxy's constant pills, before her abusive stepfather, Lyle, took over their lives-but she's only heard about it in passing. After Lyle attacks them, mother and daughter return to Santa Maria, CA, their beachside hometown that is heavy with memories of Mayhem's father's death. They stay with Roxy's sister and her band of foster kids, Neve, Kidd, and Jason, who sleep all day and mysteriously disappear at night. Mayhem discovers a hidden book of intergenerational confessions that reveals the Brayburn women's curse-magical abilities originating in a hidden cavern with water enchanted by unimaginable pain. When Neve helps the girl awaken her own gift in order to hunt a serial killer, Mayhem realizes too late just what her mother has been running from. Laure's writing is imminent and powerful, drawing in readers with resonant prose, while descriptions of 1987 teen life cultivate a heady nostalgia that belies the community's dangerous undercurrent. In the haze of 1980s splendor and wreckage, the pace sometimes lags around ambient scene-setting and chapters that jump between Mayhem's narrative, and the previous Brayburns' journal entries. There's a content warning for domestic and child abuse and violence, which is mildly graphic and typically referenced obliquely in flashback. VERDICT Patient readers will be rewarded with a vivid tale that deftly explores pain and empowerment. A compelling, unrelenting work of magical realism that will enthrall fans of nuanced feminist revenge fantasies.-Ashleigh Williams, School Library Journal

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2020
It's 1987, and everybody in the fictional coastal town of Santa Maria, California, knows the dangerous Brayburn women. When Mayhem Brayburn was 3, she and her mother, Roxy, left Santa Maria trying to escape the burden that generations of Brayburn women have carried. Thirteen years later, May and Roxy flee May's abusive stepfather, returning to the family home to stay with Roxy's twin sister, Elle, and her foster kids: Neve and siblings Jason and Kidd. Now May engages for the first time with all the secrets Roxy kept all these years and the truth behind the Brayburn women's burden--and self-appointed mission--just as a serial kidnapper is on the loose on the beaches of Santa Maria. Paying open homage to the '80s movie The Lost Boys, the novel addresses issues such as domestic abuse, suicide, sexual assault, and addiction, interweaving them with magic, deadly violence, and vigilante justice. May's move from innocence to being an eager vigilante who feels empowered by killing as well as her sudden romance with Jason feel too hurried, but the story's focus on May and Roxy's relationship, its interrogation of revenge, as well as the exploration of destiny versus agency are ultimately rewarding. Journals and letters from Brayburn women through the years add to the story. May's mother is white and her father was Brazilian; Jason and Kidd are biracial (black/white), Neve is white, and Elle is lesbian. An uneven but worthwhile read. (Fantasy. 15-18)

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