Dopo la recensione in italiano, oggi è il turno di quella in inglese per la mia tappa del blogtour - che coincide anche con il giorno di pubblicazione.
First of all, thanks to Sarah from Wednesday Books for sending me via NetGalley an eARC in exchange for a honest review.You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.
Title: Mayhem
Author: Estelle Laure
Publication date: July 14th 2020
Pages: 304 (Kindle Edition)
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3fMyKjG
Plot: 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.
CONTENT WARNING: rape, abusive relationship, domestic violence, homicide, alcohol and drug abuse.
Thirteen years have passed since Roxy took Mayhem away from the home owned by the Brayburn family for generations - because the loss of her husband, her only true love, was too much to bear.
Mayhem was so separated from her grandparents, her aunt and what is in all aspects the family legacy - a magical legacy.
But all the while Mayhem lived in Taylor, Texas, she never knew.
Roxy has always endured in silence the terrible physical pains that have never left her since she left Santa Maria and also the physical violence at the hands of her husband Lyle, but when the man starts to hit Mayhem, it's over: Roxy decides to bring both of them back to Santa Maria, although she knows how much it will cost.
Mayhem knows that in that house there are all the answers to her questions about her family and herself, but it's difficult to get them: her mother has always avoided talking about it, her aunt and the kids she's taking care of clearly hide something from her. But she has Brayburn blood in her veins and it's almost the fate and duty of the family - the thing that is a curse and a blessing at the same time that began with her great-great-grandmother Julianna - protecting Santa Maria from all the evil that the town seems to attract.
Because Santa Maria is beautiful, but it attracts monsters and evil people - and the Brayburn family is what has protected Santa Maria from those monsters for generations. The magic to do this, however, has a price and not everyone is suitable for carrying the weight and the cost of it.
Magic realism is not my usual cup of tea and I think that by now I must resign myself to this fact - and perhaps my little desire to read lately made a dent in it.
It's certainly a book with a very powerful message as not only is the power that underlies the entire community of Santa Maria transmitted in maternal way in Brayburn women, but also because the women here - especially over the 80's when it was not yet so obvious that they could and wanted to be independent - are the ones who learn to protect themselves and to raise their voices, to choose and to say no.
But ... in the first part practically nothing happens and the rhythm of the story is very slow. And it's true that the Brayburn women themselves don't know exactly how everything works, that they learn something new generation after generation, but in the end also the reader is confused with more questions than answers. Why the water? What's so special about that specific water that likes Brayburn blood? Exactly what powers does it give besides being able to see people's soul and what they hide? How do Mayhem and the women in her family do what they do?
Furthermore, the storyline of the Sand Snatcher also doesn't have much insight - from the plot the reader can imagine it to have a fundamental role, to be the pivot around which a part of the story revolves, but in reality it's then resolved very quickly and without the reader developing an urgency or sense of danger for the characters involved.
I've never seen the Lost Boys movie, but after reading the plot, I can say that there are really many similarities between each other - practically the book is a sort of retelling and only a few elements have been changed. For me, since I have never seen the movie, it was something new, but for those who already know the movie, the absence of original elements or particular plot-twists may be annoying.
I didn't even get attached to the characters: Mayhem always calls her mother by name and although their relationship isn't always smooth, they have been the only thing that mattered for each other their whole life - therefore I really didn't understand the "detachment" in hearing Mayhem call her Roxy, thus almost diminishing the maternal figure; Neve, the oldest of the kids taken in by Elle, is hot now and cold the next second towards Mayhem and I just couldn't get in touch with her.
The presence of instalove that underlies the "great and unique true love" for Brayburn women also didn't help.
I'm sorry I didn't like it as much as I wanted - also because it was a rape that started the story of the Brayburn family with Julianna and from a letter the author wrote at the beginning of the novel, it's clear this story was her way of reworking her past ad get through it. So this book, despite a confused magical system and a slow pace that hasn't always kept my attention high, still has aspects that deserve to be explored - it's a story of women who regain power, who become powerful enough to protect the innocent from the monsters that populate their world. It's a story of women who want to feel invincible, safe and it's also a bit of a revenge story.
It didn't work for me, but maybe it could work for you.
Author: Estelle Laure
Publication date: July 14th 2020
Pages: 304 (Kindle Edition)
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3fMyKjG
Plot: 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.
--- ---
CONTENT WARNING: rape, abusive relationship, domestic violence, homicide, alcohol and drug abuse.
Thirteen years have passed since Roxy took Mayhem away from the home owned by the Brayburn family for generations - because the loss of her husband, her only true love, was too much to bear.
Mayhem was so separated from her grandparents, her aunt and what is in all aspects the family legacy - a magical legacy.
But all the while Mayhem lived in Taylor, Texas, she never knew.
Roxy has always endured in silence the terrible physical pains that have never left her since she left Santa Maria and also the physical violence at the hands of her husband Lyle, but when the man starts to hit Mayhem, it's over: Roxy decides to bring both of them back to Santa Maria, although she knows how much it will cost.
Mayhem knows that in that house there are all the answers to her questions about her family and herself, but it's difficult to get them: her mother has always avoided talking about it, her aunt and the kids she's taking care of clearly hide something from her. But she has Brayburn blood in her veins and it's almost the fate and duty of the family - the thing that is a curse and a blessing at the same time that began with her great-great-grandmother Julianna - protecting Santa Maria from all the evil that the town seems to attract.
Because Santa Maria is beautiful, but it attracts monsters and evil people - and the Brayburn family is what has protected Santa Maria from those monsters for generations. The magic to do this, however, has a price and not everyone is suitable for carrying the weight and the cost of it.
Magic realism is not my usual cup of tea and I think that by now I must resign myself to this fact - and perhaps my little desire to read lately made a dent in it.
It's certainly a book with a very powerful message as not only is the power that underlies the entire community of Santa Maria transmitted in maternal way in Brayburn women, but also because the women here - especially over the 80's when it was not yet so obvious that they could and wanted to be independent - are the ones who learn to protect themselves and to raise their voices, to choose and to say no.
But ... in the first part practically nothing happens and the rhythm of the story is very slow. And it's true that the Brayburn women themselves don't know exactly how everything works, that they learn something new generation after generation, but in the end also the reader is confused with more questions than answers. Why the water? What's so special about that specific water that likes Brayburn blood? Exactly what powers does it give besides being able to see people's soul and what they hide? How do Mayhem and the women in her family do what they do?
Furthermore, the storyline of the Sand Snatcher also doesn't have much insight - from the plot the reader can imagine it to have a fundamental role, to be the pivot around which a part of the story revolves, but in reality it's then resolved very quickly and without the reader developing an urgency or sense of danger for the characters involved.
I've never seen the Lost Boys movie, but after reading the plot, I can say that there are really many similarities between each other - practically the book is a sort of retelling and only a few elements have been changed. For me, since I have never seen the movie, it was something new, but for those who already know the movie, the absence of original elements or particular plot-twists may be annoying.
I didn't even get attached to the characters: Mayhem always calls her mother by name and although their relationship isn't always smooth, they have been the only thing that mattered for each other their whole life - therefore I really didn't understand the "detachment" in hearing Mayhem call her Roxy, thus almost diminishing the maternal figure; Neve, the oldest of the kids taken in by Elle, is hot now and cold the next second towards Mayhem and I just couldn't get in touch with her.
The presence of instalove that underlies the "great and unique true love" for Brayburn women also didn't help.
I'm sorry I didn't like it as much as I wanted - also because it was a rape that started the story of the Brayburn family with Julianna and from a letter the author wrote at the beginning of the novel, it's clear this story was her way of reworking her past ad get through it. So this book, despite a confused magical system and a slow pace that hasn't always kept my attention high, still has aspects that deserve to be explored - it's a story of women who regain power, who become powerful enough to protect the innocent from the monsters that populate their world. It's a story of women who want to feel invincible, safe and it's also a bit of a revenge story.
It didn't work for me, but maybe it could work for you.
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