Mayhem by Estelle Laure (review)

It's 1987, and sixteen-year-old Mayhem Brayburn and her mother, Roxy, are escaping from Roxy's abusive second husband back to Santa Maria, California. Girls have been been going missing in town, and Mayhem stumbles upon her family's ancestral legacy of taking supernatural action against crime. Now, with assistance from her aunt's foster kids and some light psychedelics, Mayhem discovers a water source in a cave that can give her powers to capture the man kidnapping and killing girls. Laure vividly crafts her setting that recalls the smells of the beach and depicts 1987 with relevant pop culture references (Mayhem is obsessed with River Phoenix). The effects of trauma are also explored, as Mayhem has developed a complex relationship with her mother where she serves as Roxy's protector, but Roxy is still sympathetic as the victim of a system that blames women for being abused. The three foster children and Mayhem are the invincible teens everyone would want to be as they fight real-world abusers and murderers; as in situations of real abuse, the characters do not get a tidily wrapped happy ending, but they are more realistically set on paths of hope and healing.