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Let's Not Go Overboard Here: A Novel
In this twisty, uproarious debut for fans of The Wedding People and Traitors, a pop culture obsessive uses her reality TV expertise to investigate a suspicious disappearance aboard a yacht — while falling for a hot deckhand and avoiding confronting her best friend's untimely passing.
This is a story about a definitely dead girl, a possibly dead girl and a living dead girl. All aboard.
There are a lot of things that pop-culture aficionado Melanie Hoffman is great rattling off storylines from The Real Housewives, reciting the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen filmography from memory, and quoting Gossip Girl like it’s The Godfather, to name a few. And then there are the things she’s not good maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sleeping (in general), and being a functioning adult who isn’t completely destroyed by the death of her best friend, Ari. Mel has accepted that nothing will ever fill the crater-sized hole that Ari’s absence has left behind, and the cork on her grief is stopped tight. But then her company requires Mel to take a mandatory vacation. Cue the explosion.
Desperate to avoid two weeks alone with her thoughts, Mel joins her friend Vish on a yacht trip in Greece chartered by his tech company. It’s the Below Deck fantasy of Mel's dreams, with built-in quasi-celebrities to fixate on in the form of the posh co-founders of Vish's company. Mel has done enough social media stalking to immediately typecast the fabulous yet fragile Freya, her arrogant boyfriend Seb, and the hardworking and humble Ollie. A luxurious yacht chockful of hot, rich Brits? Mel couldn’t dream up a better distraction from her sorrow. But Mel's dream quickly plunges into nightmarish waters when a sinister conversation overheard in the dead of night convinces Mel that Freya is in danger. And when Freya turns up missing the next morning, Mel immediately clocks what happened with the skill of a rabid true crime Freya was murdered, and Seb is the prime suspect.
But Freya’s disappearance doesn’t rock the boat in the way Mel is expecting. In fact, no one else onboard seems to think anything’s fishy. Mel’s concern for Freya grows into obsession, and she becomes dead set on saving Freya’s life like she couldn’t save Ari’s. Though her pop culture analysis skills uncover obvious cracks in the other passengers' alibis, Mel’s desperation threatens to crack her own sanity first. With her time left on the yacht quickly dwindling, Mel must uncover what happened to Freya before going under herself.
This is a story about a definitely dead girl, a possibly dead girl and a living dead girl. All aboard.
There are a lot of things that pop-culture aficionado Melanie Hoffman is great rattling off storylines from The Real Housewives, reciting the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen filmography from memory, and quoting Gossip Girl like it’s The Godfather, to name a few. And then there are the things she’s not good maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sleeping (in general), and being a functioning adult who isn’t completely destroyed by the death of her best friend, Ari. Mel has accepted that nothing will ever fill the crater-sized hole that Ari’s absence has left behind, and the cork on her grief is stopped tight. But then her company requires Mel to take a mandatory vacation. Cue the explosion.
Desperate to avoid two weeks alone with her thoughts, Mel joins her friend Vish on a yacht trip in Greece chartered by his tech company. It’s the Below Deck fantasy of Mel's dreams, with built-in quasi-celebrities to fixate on in the form of the posh co-founders of Vish's company. Mel has done enough social media stalking to immediately typecast the fabulous yet fragile Freya, her arrogant boyfriend Seb, and the hardworking and humble Ollie. A luxurious yacht chockful of hot, rich Brits? Mel couldn’t dream up a better distraction from her sorrow. But Mel's dream quickly plunges into nightmarish waters when a sinister conversation overheard in the dead of night convinces Mel that Freya is in danger. And when Freya turns up missing the next morning, Mel immediately clocks what happened with the skill of a rabid true crime Freya was murdered, and Seb is the prime suspect.
But Freya’s disappearance doesn’t rock the boat in the way Mel is expecting. In fact, no one else onboard seems to think anything’s fishy. Mel’s concern for Freya grows into obsession, and she becomes dead set on saving Freya’s life like she couldn’t save Ari’s. Though her pop culture analysis skills uncover obvious cracks in the other passengers' alibis, Mel’s desperation threatens to crack her own sanity first. With her time left on the yacht quickly dwindling, Mel must uncover what happened to Freya before going under herself.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2026
About the author
Erica Hendry
2 books50 followersErica Hendry is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a creative director. LET'S NOT GO OVERBOARD HERE is her debut novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
June 10, 2026
as a fan of bravo and pop culture in general, i thought all of the references in here were a fun touch! if you’re not into that, i don’t think you’d enjoy it as much.. basically a murder mystery on a private yacht (think sinister Below Deck lol) but told in a very lighthearted and fun way. the book itself was short which i am thankful for, wasn’t a favorite of mine but like i said if you enjoy Bravo/pop culture, could be a quick & fun read for you!
June 18, 2026
3.5 stars, genre defying—romance, mystery, adventure, and learning how to deal with grief.
Melanie Hoffman is still reeling from the death of her lifelong best friend Ari. She buries herself in her work as an attorney, but her company forces her to take her acquired time off. Melanie reluctantly accepts a trip on a yacht in Greece with another college friend Vish, chartered by his tech company on the verge of going public. Melanie and Ari had a long history of reality television and celeb watching, so Melanie is already very familiar with the company's three founders from their social media. When one of the three disappears under mysterious circumstances, Mel decides to investigate on her own--with mixed results.
It's difficult to capture the essence of this book with only a short paragraph. Mel goes on board thinking this will be like Below Deck, and what she encounters is anything but that. Does she find romance? Yes. Does she get embroiled in a mystery that might end badly for her? Also yes. I found Mel to be equally interesting, sympathetic, and annoying. The annoying parts are what made me not like the book as much.
I was surprised at how touched I was with the parts of this book dealing with grief. There's a surprising amount of depth and poignancy in those sections. But there's also a great deal of humor when Mel is investigating with the help of the people back home. I laughed out loud many times with those sections.
The book does go a bit overboard (pun intended) with the pop culture references, and some readers might glaze over with how prevalent they are. Since I am not familiar with some of the references they seemed overwhelming to me, which is why I rounded the rating down rather than up. If you can get past that to the core of the story, this is a really entertaining and sometimes affecting novel with a wild conclusion. I definitely would not skip it just based on my rating!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.
Melanie Hoffman is still reeling from the death of her lifelong best friend Ari. She buries herself in her work as an attorney, but her company forces her to take her acquired time off. Melanie reluctantly accepts a trip on a yacht in Greece with another college friend Vish, chartered by his tech company on the verge of going public. Melanie and Ari had a long history of reality television and celeb watching, so Melanie is already very familiar with the company's three founders from their social media. When one of the three disappears under mysterious circumstances, Mel decides to investigate on her own--with mixed results.
It's difficult to capture the essence of this book with only a short paragraph. Mel goes on board thinking this will be like Below Deck, and what she encounters is anything but that. Does she find romance? Yes. Does she get embroiled in a mystery that might end badly for her? Also yes. I found Mel to be equally interesting, sympathetic, and annoying. The annoying parts are what made me not like the book as much.
I was surprised at how touched I was with the parts of this book dealing with grief. There's a surprising amount of depth and poignancy in those sections. But there's also a great deal of humor when Mel is investigating with the help of the people back home. I laughed out loud many times with those sections.
The book does go a bit overboard (pun intended) with the pop culture references, and some readers might glaze over with how prevalent they are. Since I am not familiar with some of the references they seemed overwhelming to me, which is why I rounded the rating down rather than up. If you can get past that to the core of the story, this is a really entertaining and sometimes affecting novel with a wild conclusion. I definitely would not skip it just based on my rating!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Unfortunately this did not work for me.
The plot is interesting, it is funny at times, and I liked some of the references, even though the pop culture aspect felt more like than the whole point of the book than a simple part of it.
But the characters were just bad. The secondary ones are flat and one dimensional, and the main character is just so annoying. Her internal dialogue is boring and repetitive, and her interactions with other are insufferable.
I believe it can be can be entertaining but I expected better writing.
Thank you Grand Central Publishing for this ARC.
The plot is interesting, it is funny at times, and I liked some of the references, even though the pop culture aspect felt more like than the whole point of the book than a simple part of it.
But the characters were just bad. The secondary ones are flat and one dimensional, and the main character is just so annoying. Her internal dialogue is boring and repetitive, and her interactions with other are insufferable.
I believe it can be can be entertaining but I expected better writing.
Thank you Grand Central Publishing for this ARC.
January 31, 2026
I LOVED this. This is a really humorous book, full of pop culture references, that could initially seem frivolous on a superficial level — but, “below deck,” it’s also a very moving and deftly wrought novel about grief and loss, millennial style.
Mel is an attorney in her 30s who’s been lost in a Bravo-tinged haze of grieving since Ari, her very best friend since childhood, died of cancer. Mel and Ari shared a very Diana and Anne of Green Gables-esque, Kindred Spirit type of friendship after first bonding through a heartfelt debate over the supremacy of NSYNC vs. Backstreet Boys.** They continued to indulge in this shared passion for all things pop culture throughout their relationship, leaning hard into it in difficult times and especially during Ari’s illness. Now, devastated and bereft, Mel endeavors to stuff her emotions and stifle her thoughts by filling her free time with mundane tasks like repeatedly snaking the shower drain — and, of course, obsessively wandering that shadowy Limbo that constitutes the Bravoverse.
Until, that is, with encouragement of her best law school friend Vish, her work wife Haeyoon, her handsomely nervous (or nervously handsome) HR rep Bobby, and her sort-of sibling-in-law Kellie (Ari’s intimidating older sister), Mel steps in as Vish’s plus-one on his work-related Grecian yachting corporate retreat arranged by the wealthy celebrity socialites of his company's C-Suite. Unfortunately, the tech startup Vish works for — some kind of elite online social forum that defies human understanding — is helmed by a possibly nefarious Adam Neumann type who looks like Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Things on the yacht start out cool, but quickly get all, like, uncool, and Mel soon throws her reality TV-fueled detective skills into unearthing Receipts! Proof! Timeline! Screenshots!
Have I mentioned that I adore this book? It’s very rare to find a novel that really nails the excruciation of mourning, litfic style, while remaining entertaining, thrilling, and a bit romantic, much less extremely funny. The writing itself is great, the characters are excellent and amusing, and there are really heartwarming and realistic friendships and found family elements. Most impressively, the pop culture references woven throughout are not merely schtick: They are relevant to the protagonist’s character development and backstory and to the plot and mystery at hand. They are like Miss Marple’s knitting, Kay Scarpetta’s cooking, Sherlock Holmes’s violin (or cocaine), or Harry Bosch’s jazz. They also serve to address how reality TV and other pop culture outlets can be seductive sources of distraction, escape, and soothing during trying or lonely times — especially for many millennials whose timing allowed them to be born right into the clutches of this emergent comforting brain candy.
In other reviews, I’ve called some books “cilantro” because people are bound to either love or hate them. This may well be the case here: if a reader has managed to evade multiple high pop culture moments over the past three decades, they may well require an annotated companion volume, as one might reference when reading Ulysses. More realistically, I suspect readers already aware of their dislike of or unfamiliarity with this content will simply choose not to order the entree that comes dressed in Aji Verde; the rest of us know who we are, and we’ll eat it up like dessert. If you love this type of material, even if guiltily so, or have turned to it in periods of hardship, this book is really something to be experienced and it will make you feel seen.
All that being said, I do feel it’s important to point out that many beloved novels profusely employ cultural references without becoming inaccessible or unenjoyable. There’s no way everyone who loves The Secret History was a Rory Gilmore Ivy League English major who understood its trillions of references to classical literature and philosophy. American Psycho, Ready Player One, High Fidelity, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow are also respected and appreciated novels that generously and purposefully integrate pop culture references and that are holding up over time.
All that being said, it may behoove you to have a passing familiarity with not only some of Andy Cohen’s stable of major Bravolebrities (oxymoronic as that may be), but also some of the salient pop culture happenings of, say, at least Taylor's ten main Eras to the present day, including but not limited to things like the Real Housewives and Below Deck franchises as well as (classic) Vanderpump Rules, reality competition shows like Survivor along with other contemporary TV series, pop music hits and moments, and celebrity feuds, breakups, and scams. You will likely appreciate this book more if you understand the character implications of someone looking like Jax Taylor, or why Mel was repeatedly triggered by hearing constant media mentions of the name “Ariana” throughout the final two thirds of 2023 in the wake of Ari's death. If you cannot grok the significance of Lindsay Hubbard talking about sandwiches or “being activated” in her T-Mobile commercial, some of this book may be lost on you.
While this book may be an acquired taste, it’s also diamonds and rosé, bananas, Gone With the Wind fabulous. There’s nothing grey about its gardens. I die.
Here’s hoping this could be the first installment in a series — the “Broken Brains” series, maybe? It has all the requisite components. I’d read them all!
**The correct answer is Backstreet, as “I Want It That Way” is one of the best key-changing, lyrically nonsensical bangers of late 90s pop.
Many thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Grand Central Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Let’s Not Go Overboard Here is scheduled for release on June 2, 2026.
Mel is an attorney in her 30s who’s been lost in a Bravo-tinged haze of grieving since Ari, her very best friend since childhood, died of cancer. Mel and Ari shared a very Diana and Anne of Green Gables-esque, Kindred Spirit type of friendship after first bonding through a heartfelt debate over the supremacy of NSYNC vs. Backstreet Boys.** They continued to indulge in this shared passion for all things pop culture throughout their relationship, leaning hard into it in difficult times and especially during Ari’s illness. Now, devastated and bereft, Mel endeavors to stuff her emotions and stifle her thoughts by filling her free time with mundane tasks like repeatedly snaking the shower drain — and, of course, obsessively wandering that shadowy Limbo that constitutes the Bravoverse.
Until, that is, with encouragement of her best law school friend Vish, her work wife Haeyoon, her handsomely nervous (or nervously handsome) HR rep Bobby, and her sort-of sibling-in-law Kellie (Ari’s intimidating older sister), Mel steps in as Vish’s plus-one on his work-related Grecian yachting corporate retreat arranged by the wealthy celebrity socialites of his company's C-Suite. Unfortunately, the tech startup Vish works for — some kind of elite online social forum that defies human understanding — is helmed by a possibly nefarious Adam Neumann type who looks like Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Things on the yacht start out cool, but quickly get all, like, uncool, and Mel soon throws her reality TV-fueled detective skills into unearthing Receipts! Proof! Timeline! Screenshots!
Have I mentioned that I adore this book? It’s very rare to find a novel that really nails the excruciation of mourning, litfic style, while remaining entertaining, thrilling, and a bit romantic, much less extremely funny. The writing itself is great, the characters are excellent and amusing, and there are really heartwarming and realistic friendships and found family elements. Most impressively, the pop culture references woven throughout are not merely schtick: They are relevant to the protagonist’s character development and backstory and to the plot and mystery at hand. They are like Miss Marple’s knitting, Kay Scarpetta’s cooking, Sherlock Holmes’s violin (or cocaine), or Harry Bosch’s jazz. They also serve to address how reality TV and other pop culture outlets can be seductive sources of distraction, escape, and soothing during trying or lonely times — especially for many millennials whose timing allowed them to be born right into the clutches of this emergent comforting brain candy.
In other reviews, I’ve called some books “cilantro” because people are bound to either love or hate them. This may well be the case here: if a reader has managed to evade multiple high pop culture moments over the past three decades, they may well require an annotated companion volume, as one might reference when reading Ulysses. More realistically, I suspect readers already aware of their dislike of or unfamiliarity with this content will simply choose not to order the entree that comes dressed in Aji Verde; the rest of us know who we are, and we’ll eat it up like dessert. If you love this type of material, even if guiltily so, or have turned to it in periods of hardship, this book is really something to be experienced and it will make you feel seen.
All that being said, I do feel it’s important to point out that many beloved novels profusely employ cultural references without becoming inaccessible or unenjoyable. There’s no way everyone who loves The Secret History was a Rory Gilmore Ivy League English major who understood its trillions of references to classical literature and philosophy. American Psycho, Ready Player One, High Fidelity, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow are also respected and appreciated novels that generously and purposefully integrate pop culture references and that are holding up over time.
All that being said, it may behoove you to have a passing familiarity with not only some of Andy Cohen’s stable of major Bravolebrities (oxymoronic as that may be), but also some of the salient pop culture happenings of, say, at least Taylor's ten main Eras to the present day, including but not limited to things like the Real Housewives and Below Deck franchises as well as (classic) Vanderpump Rules, reality competition shows like Survivor along with other contemporary TV series, pop music hits and moments, and celebrity feuds, breakups, and scams. You will likely appreciate this book more if you understand the character implications of someone looking like Jax Taylor, or why Mel was repeatedly triggered by hearing constant media mentions of the name “Ariana” throughout the final two thirds of 2023 in the wake of Ari's death. If you cannot grok the significance of Lindsay Hubbard talking about sandwiches or “being activated” in her T-Mobile commercial, some of this book may be lost on you.
While this book may be an acquired taste, it’s also diamonds and rosé, bananas, Gone With the Wind fabulous. There’s nothing grey about its gardens. I die.
Here’s hoping this could be the first installment in a series — the “Broken Brains” series, maybe? It has all the requisite components. I’d read them all!
**The correct answer is Backstreet, as “I Want It That Way” is one of the best key-changing, lyrically nonsensical bangers of late 90s pop.
Many thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Grand Central Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Let’s Not Go Overboard Here is scheduled for release on June 2, 2026.
December 5, 2025
The wit and the humanity will have you laughing and in the feels. Well researched and better executed. It was such a fun, suspenseful read with a lot to think about when it comes to grief, living, and our private lives.
June 6, 2026
Very much white millennial core with the amount of pop culture references and having Taylor Swift lyrics be the catalyst to solving the mystery. The writing itself wasn't too bad, but it was surprisingly more simple than I was expecting and it made the reading experience a tad underwhelming.
The characters weren't written any better honestly, they were all flat and underdeveloped. I found the exploration of grief in this too to be shockingly shallow. I'm just a bit disappointed because I love to read books about grief and grieving people and I'm mad this didn't live up to expectations.
Thank you Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for the arc in exchange for an honest review
The characters weren't written any better honestly, they were all flat and underdeveloped. I found the exploration of grief in this too to be shockingly shallow. I'm just a bit disappointed because I love to read books about grief and grieving people and I'm mad this didn't live up to expectations.
Thank you Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for the arc in exchange for an honest review
May 22, 2026
As a fellow Below Deck super fan, much like Mel, I immediately loved the sound of this yacht-based mystery and was particularly intrigued when I saw it be compared to The Wedding People.
I loved all the pop culture references, from Survivor to the Real Housewives, and they didn’t feel shoehorned in, either.
The Greek island and yacht setting worked equally well too, especially if you save it as a beach or summer read.
I was completely on board (pardon the pun) with Mel trying to solve the mystery, especially when no one on board believes her, but when we actually discover what had happened to Freya it wasn’t as rewarding a reveal as it could have been.
I get why the perpetrator was out for himself, but at the same time it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
And as I expected, when you realise the kind of people who are on board, they’re that rich and out of touch, that you kind of don’t care what happens to them.
The Sherlock Hoes were great, though, and seeing Mel deal with her grief did add another layer to everything, which worked well.
I’d definitely be keen to read what this author releases next, especially with this being her debut. She certainly has a great voice, that’s for sure.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved all the pop culture references, from Survivor to the Real Housewives, and they didn’t feel shoehorned in, either.
The Greek island and yacht setting worked equally well too, especially if you save it as a beach or summer read.
I was completely on board (pardon the pun) with Mel trying to solve the mystery, especially when no one on board believes her, but when we actually discover what had happened to Freya it wasn’t as rewarding a reveal as it could have been.
I get why the perpetrator was out for himself, but at the same time it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
And as I expected, when you realise the kind of people who are on board, they’re that rich and out of touch, that you kind of don’t care what happens to them.
The Sherlock Hoes were great, though, and seeing Mel deal with her grief did add another layer to everything, which worked well.
I’d definitely be keen to read what this author releases next, especially with this being her debut. She certainly has a great voice, that’s for sure.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.75
setting: Greece
rep: bisexual Jewish protagonist
this is a truly great debut and a fab addition to this genre of messy millennial meets mystery. I really enjoyed Mel's voice and how this wasn't empty-headed. there's a lot of heart in here with her grief and ari and I'll look forward to whatever Erica Hendry writes next!
setting: Greece
rep: bisexual Jewish protagonist
this is a truly great debut and a fab addition to this genre of messy millennial meets mystery. I really enjoyed Mel's voice and how this wasn't empty-headed. there's a lot of heart in here with her grief and ari and I'll look forward to whatever Erica Hendry writes next!
June 2, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing, and Erica Hendry for allowing me an advanced reader copy of “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had THE BEST time reading “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”!
I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately, and this book was original, fun, and unique enough to bring my zest for reading back to life.
This yacht murder mystery was such a perfect book to start the summer with— the summer vibes were immaculate. This book takes place either in L.A. or on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea, and Erica Hendry did a perfect job of helping us feel like we are THERE and truly experiencing both locales. It was such a fun escape, even when it was emotional, haphazard, or stressful as heck.
The main character, Mel, is recovering from extreme grief, and this book does an amazing job of helping us to experience and understand the pain she faces on a daily basis— pain that often makes her uncertain of what she’s experiencing or feeling, which makes for an interesting play on an unreliable narrator. She WANTS to be a reliable narrator, but she’s not even certain of what’s happening in her own head, much less in the external world.
This aspect may not be for everyone, but I found it delightful— “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” is filled with dozens and dozens of pop culture references, spanning from current day to early 2000s.
Mel and her best friend Ariana are beyond obsessed with all aspects of pop culture, and although I am not very up-to-date on current events or all the happenings on social media, I thought it was really fun to get little snippets of the drama of reality television and pop culture. I thought it was a fun time to experience what it was like to be THIS involved in reality television, where it’s all-consuming and literally the Bible by which Mel and Ari live their lives.
It was just a fun part of this book that I really enjoyed!
The mystery/thriller part of this book was unique and fun and kept me on my toes the entire time, without being too scary! I liked the build-up and I appreciated the plot twists, and it was also fun to experience a whacky murder mystery from the perspective of an unreliable narrator that’s uncertain of what she’s seeing, experiencing, thinking.
The characters were so off-the-wall— a mix of ridiculously rich and delusional socialites and dedicated and serious yacht staff— and I loved being a part of these extravagant and completely exceptional lifestyles for a short time.
I truly don’t know that I would’ve changed ANYTHING about “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”!
It had me laughing, actually crying at times, and on the edge of my seat— I LOVED it.
100% recommend to anyone that’s looking for a unique and fun thriller!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had THE BEST time reading “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”!
I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately, and this book was original, fun, and unique enough to bring my zest for reading back to life.
This yacht murder mystery was such a perfect book to start the summer with— the summer vibes were immaculate. This book takes place either in L.A. or on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea, and Erica Hendry did a perfect job of helping us feel like we are THERE and truly experiencing both locales. It was such a fun escape, even when it was emotional, haphazard, or stressful as heck.
The main character, Mel, is recovering from extreme grief, and this book does an amazing job of helping us to experience and understand the pain she faces on a daily basis— pain that often makes her uncertain of what she’s experiencing or feeling, which makes for an interesting play on an unreliable narrator. She WANTS to be a reliable narrator, but she’s not even certain of what’s happening in her own head, much less in the external world.
This aspect may not be for everyone, but I found it delightful— “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” is filled with dozens and dozens of pop culture references, spanning from current day to early 2000s.
Mel and her best friend Ariana are beyond obsessed with all aspects of pop culture, and although I am not very up-to-date on current events or all the happenings on social media, I thought it was really fun to get little snippets of the drama of reality television and pop culture. I thought it was a fun time to experience what it was like to be THIS involved in reality television, where it’s all-consuming and literally the Bible by which Mel and Ari live their lives.
It was just a fun part of this book that I really enjoyed!
The mystery/thriller part of this book was unique and fun and kept me on my toes the entire time, without being too scary! I liked the build-up and I appreciated the plot twists, and it was also fun to experience a whacky murder mystery from the perspective of an unreliable narrator that’s uncertain of what she’s seeing, experiencing, thinking.
The characters were so off-the-wall— a mix of ridiculously rich and delusional socialites and dedicated and serious yacht staff— and I loved being a part of these extravagant and completely exceptional lifestyles for a short time.
I truly don’t know that I would’ve changed ANYTHING about “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”!
It had me laughing, actually crying at times, and on the edge of my seat— I LOVED it.
100% recommend to anyone that’s looking for a unique and fun thriller!
June 10, 2026
I had a good time with this one. If you’re a millennial who speaks fluent Taylor Swift lyrics, Bravo drama, Survivor strategy, and reality TV references, this book was basically written for you. It felt like a fun mashup of a yacht mystery and a reality show binge watch, and honestly, it was exactly the palate cleanser I was looking for.
At first, I thought Mel was a little ridiculous. She becomes convinced something terrible has happened and I kept thinking, “How did you get there?” But as the story unfolds and you learn more about the grief she’s carrying after the loss of her best friend, a lot of her behavior starts to make more sense. The mystery itself was entertaining, and I enjoyed following the clues while watching Mel work through some of those layers of loss.
The whole thing gave me a bit of an Agatha Christie vibe, if Agatha Christie were a millennial obsessed with reality TV and Taylor Swift. No, this isn’t a serious literary masterpiece, but it never tries to be. Sometimes I just want a book that’s fun, entertaining, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and this absolutely delivered.
I listened on audio, and Helen Laser was incredible. The range of voices and accents she pulled off was honestly impressive. Scottish, Australian, male, female, she completely disappeared into every character. I’d give the book 3.5 to 3.75 stars, but the audiobook narration was easily 4.5 stars, maybe even 5.
At first, I thought Mel was a little ridiculous. She becomes convinced something terrible has happened and I kept thinking, “How did you get there?” But as the story unfolds and you learn more about the grief she’s carrying after the loss of her best friend, a lot of her behavior starts to make more sense. The mystery itself was entertaining, and I enjoyed following the clues while watching Mel work through some of those layers of loss.
The whole thing gave me a bit of an Agatha Christie vibe, if Agatha Christie were a millennial obsessed with reality TV and Taylor Swift. No, this isn’t a serious literary masterpiece, but it never tries to be. Sometimes I just want a book that’s fun, entertaining, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and this absolutely delivered.
I listened on audio, and Helen Laser was incredible. The range of voices and accents she pulled off was honestly impressive. Scottish, Australian, male, female, she completely disappeared into every character. I’d give the book 3.5 to 3.75 stars, but the audiobook narration was easily 4.5 stars, maybe even 5.
June 20, 2026
3.5⭐️ Not a bad story but you really need to be willing to fight your way through some serious millennial humor and pop culture references.
June 12, 2026
Brb about to binge below deck!
This gave me Cara bastone’s promise me sunshine vibes with a little mystery and on a boat with more pop culture references.
Although it deals with grief it was a fun read. I loved the references. Our fmc Mel is a big bravo head and I don’t think I would’ve liked this book as much if i hadn’t gotten sucked into real housewives universe
This gave me Cara bastone’s promise me sunshine vibes with a little mystery and on a boat with more pop culture references.
Although it deals with grief it was a fun read. I loved the references. Our fmc Mel is a big bravo head and I don’t think I would’ve liked this book as much if i hadn’t gotten sucked into real housewives universe
June 14, 2026
Cannot imagine how odd or frustrating this book might be to someone who isn't obsessed with Bravo, reality competition shows, or Taylor Swift. Luckily, I'm the center of that Venn diagram, so I loved it.
June 1, 2026
Let’s Not Go Overboard by Erica Hendry is exactly the kind of debut that makes you sit up and go: oh, this is going to be a summer favorite. It’s sharp, gossipy, wildly entertaining, and immediately confident in its voice. At its core, it follows Melanie Hoffman, a pop culture obsessed woman who knows every Housewives storyline, can quote Gossip Girl like scripture, and processes the world through reality TV logic—until a luxury yacht trip in Greece spirals into something far more sinister when a guest goes missing. What starts as a chaotic, sun drenched escape quickly turns into a twisted investigation, blending satire, suspense, and emotional depth in a way that feels fresh and addictive.
What really elevates this book beyond a fun “rich people on a boat” mystery is how thoughtfully it handles grief. Melanie’s obsession with pop culture isn’t just a personality trait, it’s armor. Her unresolved grief over her best friend Ari runs under every observation she makes, every theory she builds, and every suspect she profiles. The book balances that emotional weight with genuinely funny writing and a sharp, almost compulsive awareness of how we consume stories now—through Bravo, through celebrity culture, through internet sleuthing. And if you’re a Swiftie or Bravo fan or just chronically online, the references land like little Easter eggs throughout, making it feel like the book is speaking a shared language of fandom, nostalgia, and parasocial comfort.
The yacht setting adds the perfect pressure cooker backdrop: glamorous, isolated, and just unhinged enough to feel like an extended episode of Below Deck gone wrong. There’s a slow building mystery around Freya’s disappearance, a dash of romance with a hot deckhand, and a constant sense that Melanie might be right, or spiraling completely out of control. It’s funny, propulsive, and emotionally resonant in ways that sneak up on you. As a summer read, it hits all the right notes: beachy atmosphere, mystery, humor, and heart. It’s the kind of debut that feels both escapist and surprisingly grounded, and it absolutely delivers on that “pop culture chaos meets emotional reckoning” promise.
What really elevates this book beyond a fun “rich people on a boat” mystery is how thoughtfully it handles grief. Melanie’s obsession with pop culture isn’t just a personality trait, it’s armor. Her unresolved grief over her best friend Ari runs under every observation she makes, every theory she builds, and every suspect she profiles. The book balances that emotional weight with genuinely funny writing and a sharp, almost compulsive awareness of how we consume stories now—through Bravo, through celebrity culture, through internet sleuthing. And if you’re a Swiftie or Bravo fan or just chronically online, the references land like little Easter eggs throughout, making it feel like the book is speaking a shared language of fandom, nostalgia, and parasocial comfort.
The yacht setting adds the perfect pressure cooker backdrop: glamorous, isolated, and just unhinged enough to feel like an extended episode of Below Deck gone wrong. There’s a slow building mystery around Freya’s disappearance, a dash of romance with a hot deckhand, and a constant sense that Melanie might be right, or spiraling completely out of control. It’s funny, propulsive, and emotionally resonant in ways that sneak up on you. As a summer read, it hits all the right notes: beachy atmosphere, mystery, humor, and heart. It’s the kind of debut that feels both escapist and surprisingly grounded, and it absolutely delivers on that “pop culture chaos meets emotional reckoning” promise.
June 3, 2026
⚓️ Let’s Not Go Overboard Here ⚓️
((Spoiler-Free ARC Review))
𝕋𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖- 𝕃𝕖𝕥'𝕤 ℕ𝕠𝕥 𝔾𝕠 𝕆𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕓𝕠𝕒𝕣𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕖
𝔸𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣- 𝔼𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕒 ℍ𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕣𝕪
𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕣𝕖- 𝕄𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕪/ 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕜 ℍ𝕦𝕞𝕠𝕦𝕣
Trope City-
🍾 Wiity Banter
🍾 Amateur Sleuth
🍾 Vacation Romance
🍾 Yacht Setting
🍾 Missing Person
THE WAY I LAUGHED WHILE READING LET’S NOT GO OVERBOARD HERE. I was cackling. The banter is chef’s kiss. There’s so many nostalgic references to major pop culture moments. Mel (FMC) is a pop culture obsessed lawyer who is deeply grieving after losing her person. She works to numb her pain. After HR forces her to take PTO, Mel (who’s obviously obsessed with Below Deck) agrees to a yacht trip with her friend Vish and his slew of snooty bosses. It becomes apparent to Mel that Freya (one of Vish’s bosses) needs help. When she goes missing, Mel and her group chat “Sherlock Hoes” band together to solve the mystery. So, is Freya dead? Has she been alive this entire time? Has Mel fully lost herself in her state of grief?
ℍ𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕪 ℙ𝕦𝕓 𝔻𝕒𝕪! ♥︎
I’m in love with this one, @ericawroteit Thank you for sharing this with me! @booksparks This is my first book from The BookSparks Reading Challenge 2026 The Book Odyssey! 🍾
There’s and intense debate in the book about whether Backstreet Boys or N*SYNC won out in the battle of the boy bands….
ℚ𝕆𝕋𝔻- So are you team Backstreet Boys or Team N*Sync?!
Books • Book Odyssey • Summer Reading • Summer • Book Release • Bookstagram • Yacht Life • Murder Mystery •
#books #murdermystery #tuesday #summer #summerreading
((Spoiler-Free ARC Review))
𝕋𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖- 𝕃𝕖𝕥'𝕤 ℕ𝕠𝕥 𝔾𝕠 𝕆𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕓𝕠𝕒𝕣𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕖
𝔸𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣- 𝔼𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕒 ℍ𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕣𝕪
𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕣𝕖- 𝕄𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕪/ 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕜 ℍ𝕦𝕞𝕠𝕦𝕣
Trope City-
🍾 Wiity Banter
🍾 Amateur Sleuth
🍾 Vacation Romance
🍾 Yacht Setting
🍾 Missing Person
THE WAY I LAUGHED WHILE READING LET’S NOT GO OVERBOARD HERE. I was cackling. The banter is chef’s kiss. There’s so many nostalgic references to major pop culture moments. Mel (FMC) is a pop culture obsessed lawyer who is deeply grieving after losing her person. She works to numb her pain. After HR forces her to take PTO, Mel (who’s obviously obsessed with Below Deck) agrees to a yacht trip with her friend Vish and his slew of snooty bosses. It becomes apparent to Mel that Freya (one of Vish’s bosses) needs help. When she goes missing, Mel and her group chat “Sherlock Hoes” band together to solve the mystery. So, is Freya dead? Has she been alive this entire time? Has Mel fully lost herself in her state of grief?
ℍ𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕪 ℙ𝕦𝕓 𝔻𝕒𝕪! ♥︎
I’m in love with this one, @ericawroteit Thank you for sharing this with me! @booksparks This is my first book from The BookSparks Reading Challenge 2026 The Book Odyssey! 🍾
There’s and intense debate in the book about whether Backstreet Boys or N*SYNC won out in the battle of the boy bands….
ℚ𝕆𝕋𝔻- So are you team Backstreet Boys or Team N*Sync?!
Books • Book Odyssey • Summer Reading • Summer • Book Release • Bookstagram • Yacht Life • Murder Mystery •
#books #murdermystery #tuesday #summer #summerreading
May 26, 2026
Thank you to #GrandCentralPublishing and #NetGalley for the digital ARC of #LetsNotGoOverboardHere. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Take a reality TV-obsessed woman and stick her on a luxury yacht as the plus 1 on her friend's company celebration and you've got the perfect set-up for an entertaining read.
Mid-30s Melanie is an entertainment lawyer in LA. After her best friend dies, she's struggling to process her grief. So when HR forces her to take time off, Mel agrees to join her friend, Vish, on a chartered yacht in Greece to celebrate his company's impending IPO. Mel expects her reality TV knowledge to help her navigate the dynamics of the rich, tech, quasi-celebrities and the crew who will be serving them. When company co-owner Freya disappears, Mel is certain something sinister has happened and she's going to get to the bottom of it no matter what it takes.
While many will label this as "summer read", it also deals with grief, betrayal and relationships. It gives the story some emotional weight, but doesn't bring it down. I don't watch reality TV, but I like how the author used it as a plot device - tying Melanie to her best friend and giving her "strategies" to investigate and solve the mystery.
Take a reality TV-obsessed woman and stick her on a luxury yacht as the plus 1 on her friend's company celebration and you've got the perfect set-up for an entertaining read.
Mid-30s Melanie is an entertainment lawyer in LA. After her best friend dies, she's struggling to process her grief. So when HR forces her to take time off, Mel agrees to join her friend, Vish, on a chartered yacht in Greece to celebrate his company's impending IPO. Mel expects her reality TV knowledge to help her navigate the dynamics of the rich, tech, quasi-celebrities and the crew who will be serving them. When company co-owner Freya disappears, Mel is certain something sinister has happened and she's going to get to the bottom of it no matter what it takes.
While many will label this as "summer read", it also deals with grief, betrayal and relationships. It gives the story some emotional weight, but doesn't bring it down. I don't watch reality TV, but I like how the author used it as a plot device - tying Melanie to her best friend and giving her "strategies" to investigate and solve the mystery.
June 16, 2026
Whew, Let’s Not Go Overboard Here by Erica Hendry sure packs a punch! Main character, Melanie, has lost her best friend after a sickness. That is truly the root of this book. Melanie is simply not the same without Ari. Her world is turned upside down with grief. After some cajoling, Mel ends up on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a friend and his co-workers. Things go totally off the rails and the reader doesn’t know if Melanie has lost it or if she has found a mystery that needs to be solved. I was along for the ride from start to finish. Most of the time, my heart hurt for the pain Melanie was clearly in every moment of the day. But the setting was pure summer and the mystery made for a great hot weather read.
Thank you BookSparks for sending me the free book as part of the 2026 BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge! #SRC2026 #TheBookOdyssey
4 stars for me. I read a Netgalley e-arc on my kindle before I received a beautiful print copy from BookSparks. Thank you for the approval Grand Central Publishing.
Thank you BookSparks for sending me the free book as part of the 2026 BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge! #SRC2026 #TheBookOdyssey
4 stars for me. I read a Netgalley e-arc on my kindle before I received a beautiful print copy from BookSparks. Thank you for the approval Grand Central Publishing.
June 9, 2026
This book was adorable.
Was it corny? Extremely. Like, so-so-so-so corny. But somehow that just made me love it more.
If you're a Bravo fan, you'll have a field day with this book. The reality TV references were everywhere, and it felt like a little love letter to people who know their Housewives, reunions, and reality TV drama.
What I liked most was that this wasn't really a romance. It's more of a friendship story, and honestly, I think that's what made it work for me. The relationships felt genuine, messy, supportive, and fun in a way that reminded me of real friendships.
This book doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should you. It's light, funny, comforting, and the perfect palate cleanser when you want something entertaining without getting emotionally wrecked.
Cute, corny, full of Bravo references, and a surprisingly sweet story about friendship.
Was it corny? Extremely. Like, so-so-so-so corny. But somehow that just made me love it more.
If you're a Bravo fan, you'll have a field day with this book. The reality TV references were everywhere, and it felt like a little love letter to people who know their Housewives, reunions, and reality TV drama.
What I liked most was that this wasn't really a romance. It's more of a friendship story, and honestly, I think that's what made it work for me. The relationships felt genuine, messy, supportive, and fun in a way that reminded me of real friendships.
This book doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should you. It's light, funny, comforting, and the perfect palate cleanser when you want something entertaining without getting emotionally wrecked.
Cute, corny, full of Bravo references, and a surprisingly sweet story about friendship.
May 25, 2026
When I started this I was a little afraid it was going to be too full of millennial cringe humor and bad stereotypes. And it kind of was, but in a way that utterly charmed me. This was funny and heartfelt and I was legitimately tearing up at the ending. And the mystery was good too! Loved the romance as well. I read this in basically one sitting, only really taking a break when it was time to watch RHORI, which feels appropriate. Overall, a fun, and occasionally heart-wrenching, read.
June 17, 2026
5 stars simply because of how much fun this book was. Between the pop culture references, a savvy Swiftie side character, and the dark, sarcastic humor that made me genuinely laugh out loud, this may be one of my favorite books I’ve listened to this year. It reminded me of slightly lighter-toned The Wedding People with a murder/mystery thrown in and was exactly the book I needed at this moment in my life. Such a breath of fresh air!
June 10, 2026
3.5 ⭐️ - okay I found this SO fun!!! Think Below Deck murder mystery with tons of pop culture references but in a funny/lighthearted way! I listened to the audiobook and it was really good! I was pulled in pretty quickly and I thoroughly enjoyed it, I found myself laughing out loud so many times! Quick & fun read!
June 3, 2026
3.75 stars. Ok I need to begin this review with a disclaimer. If you are not a person who can follow or tolerate the Gen-Z mindset- (that stream of consciousness communication constantly punctuated with pop culture references), then this book is NOT for you. But if you can follow it/tolerate it, then you will love this book! The writer executes an inner monologue of the main character consistently in that Gen-Z mindset, and what results is a hysterical banter and a pretty fast moving plot that makes for a really good fast read. I listened to the audio while reading the kindle so I could keep up and I enjoyed it! (If you are Gen X or older, you will want to do that too!) If you look deeply, there are some great themes about friendship and processing grief all wrapped up in a whodunit with enough of a decent story to make it worthwhile! It falls short of 4 stars for me because the book is not universal enough for all to connect to but I really enjoyed it.
June 8, 2026
This book’s pop culture references are mainly what got it the rating—but it’s everything I adore. Taylor Swift? Love Island? Gilmore Girls? Miss Congeniality? Sold. The plot kept my interest. The protagonist definitely annoyed me at times, but it all felt worth it.
June 10, 2026
3.5⭐️
this was a quick and fun read and I really enjoyed the pop culture references but may not be for everyone!
this was a quick and fun read and I really enjoyed the pop culture references but may not be for everyone!
June 12, 2026
Solid 3.5 stars! Let's Not Go Overboard Here" ... faux reality tv, Below Deck-esque, sleuthy! Like a trainwreck you can't help but look at. Lots of crossing tropes. Annoying characters. Endearing characters. A great book to dive into at the pool or beach this summer.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Below Deck Meets Bereavement, With Fraud in the Minibar
On the cracked emotional intelligence and stealthy depth of Erica Hendry’s “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 2nd, 2026
A woman at the rail, suspended between spectacle and solitude, as the sea opens into the grief the novel refuses to prettify.
Erica Hendry’s “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” understands something polite culture still likes to deny: trivia can be a form of fidelity. Celebrity gossip, Bravo lore, podcast detritus, Taylor Swift lyrics, tabloid sludge, the whole allegedly disposable mess of mass culture – none of it functions here as decoration. It is how this novel stores love. At first that looks like comic energy: gossip as tempo, references as patter, Melanie Hoffman’s brain as a panic archive that never powers down. Hendry’s sharper idea is that this is also the book’s way of thinking. The same overclocked system that makes Mel reach for her phone to text her dead best friend also makes her read an Instagram caption the way a detective reads a footprint. Her grief and her gossip brain are not separate engines. They are the same frantic machine, running hot.
Mel and Ari, the best friend whose death has wrecked her life before the novel even begins, used to call themselves Broken Brains. They were not connoisseurs in the tasteful, gatekept sense. They were completists. They hoarded “Housewives” feuds, celebrity humiliations, podcast in-jokes, movie lines, half-useless headlines, and all the cheap, vivid trash of being alive online. Together they turned supposedly throwaway culture into a private code. That matters because “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” is not merely making the old argument that popular culture deserves respect. It is asking what two women can build inside it: shorthand, ritual, mutual recognition on contact. Ari is dead. Mel is not, though she is living in a way that barely counts as living – working too much, sleeping too little, trying to keep thought so busy it never has time to flood. Mourning here is not lyrical. It is sweaty, administrative, compulsive, and a little humiliating. It happens while Mel is snaking a drain in her overheated Los Angeles apartment. It happens when she yanks a monstrous clot of hair from the pipe, reflexively reaches for her phone to text Ari a picture, and then remembers – too late, too late – that there is no one to send it to.
Then grief gets put on a yacht.
Mel’s friend Vish, newly employed by the London luxury-tech startup SWFT, invites her to Greece as his plus-one on a celebratory yacht trip with the company’s founders. On board are Seb, the company’s public face and a walking emergency in linen; Freya, the head of brand, socialite, and chaos sprite; and Ollie, the rumpled COO whose self-deprecating competence initially reads as safety. Mel boards looking for distraction and finds a scene she cannot stop reading. Freya seems frightened. There are voices in the night. By morning Freya is gone. Soon social media begins manufacturing proof of life: Freya in Chania, Freya posting, Freya drinking, Freya still out there somewhere. Mel, whose whole mental life is built around tone, caption, omission, performance, and pattern, begins worrying at the seams.
Sunlit departure arrives already shadowed, the yacht gleaming as promise and omen at once.
Hendry knows the pleasures of that setup and works them hard. The book is funny about linen-shirt money, startup mysticism, “community” sold as a luxury tier, and the way rich Britons treat self-invention as a birthright. But its smartest move is to let melodramatic overreading and genuine perception live in the same sentence. Mel overreads. She projects. She pins the wrong crime on the wrong man before she finds the right crime and the right structure. But Hendry never treats her pop-cultural saturation as cute debris she must outgrow in order to become serious. Quite the opposite. The people who understand how spectacle works may also be the people best equipped to notice danger when danger starts performing normality. Mel is wrong, often extravagantly wrong, about the mechanism. She is right about coercion, falseness, atmosphere, the ease with which a woman can be written off as unstable, excessive, unserious, unreliable. Her mistakes do not cancel her seriousness. They are part of it.
That is the move that keeps the novel from curdling into mere quirk. Hendry does not simply ask us to stop sneering at low-status culture. She turns mass-cultural nonsense into a grammar of witness. Mel knows what kind of woman usually puts herself in the frame and what it means when she suddenly vanishes from it. She knows when posting cadence changes. She knows how public personality can be used as cover. She knows how confrontation works because she and Ari spent years watching people perform on camera while something uglier leaked through the staging. When Taylor Swift lyrics finally become covert communication, the moment lands not as whimsy but as proof that the novel has known what it was doing all along. The references are not garnish. They are load-bearing.
The prose behaves as if it has been living in Mel’s head for months. It moves like a mind using jokes to stay on its feet. Hendry can stack riff on riff and then, without warning, drop into panic, humiliation, or ache. The jokes are not trim. They are structural. They buy Mel time. They keep panic from getting clean access to the sentence. This matters because it keeps her from becoming the usual lovable disaster whose obsessions merely accessorize the page. Her obsessions are the tools she actually has. Hendry is especially good at the violent little swerves by which comedy becomes pathos and back again: a reality-show reference opening into raw loss, a bit curdling into self-revelation, a sentence clowning right up to the edge of the abyss and then glancing down. The style is baggy on purpose, quick on its feet, and more disciplined than it first appears. It mimics Mel’s overlinked consciousness without losing the reader to noise.
The Ari scenes do work the mystery cannot do alone. They explain why a joke, a lyric, or a tabloid scrap can carry the force of a vow. In those flashbacks, Hendry establishes the emotional logic of Mel’s attention: how a shared joke becomes shelter, how knowing the same nonsense by heart becomes a way of saying I know you, I’m still here. Ari and Mel do not consume culture to signal taste. They use it to build a durable, ridiculous, loving world between them. That is why Ari’s death leaves so much static in Mel’s system. The habit of noticing survives. The person it was built for does not. The book’s emotional intelligence lies in seeing that this can make the world look at once overfull and unusably empty: packed with references, stripped of destination.
The novel’s tonal hinge: the instant comic trespass turns airless, interior, and genuinely dangerous.
Hendry’s formal nerve is easy to underestimate because the novel arrives dressed as a glossy holiday caper. Seb is so visibly awful that both Mel and the reader are encouraged to read him as the whole story. Ollie, by contrast, arrives wrapped in modesty, competence, and rumpled decency. Hendry rigs that imbalance carefully. Seb performs obvious menace. Ollie performs managerial mildness. The reveal is doing social work, not merely suspense work. The book knows how quickly blatant swagger gets read as threat while soft-spoken competence slides by under the heading of seriousness. It also knows that class privilege can wear more than one face: not just Seb’s gleaming idiocy, but Ollie’s cultivated harmlessness, his practiced self-effacement, his ability to pass as the only grown-up in the room while building the most ruinous scheme in it.
Then there is SWFT, one of the novel’s nastiest ideas. A luxury-membership startup selling access, prestige, taste, and the fantasy of curated intimacy, it turns out to be hollow at the center: dead chat rooms, padded subscriber counts, a “community” with no communal life in it. Hendry is smart enough not to pound the parallel into paste, but she does not need to. SWFT sells counterfeit belonging to people desperate to feel admitted somewhere. Mel, in the wake of Ari’s death, is trying to preserve one real form of belonging that mattered. The satire bites hardest where it stays close to texture – the members-only mystique, the investor fog, the ridiculous assurance that access itself is a meaningful product. Hendry knows the exact sound of fake prestige trying to impersonate human warmth. She also knows how easily emotional need can be monetized, how quickly “connection” becomes a premium service, how naturally the language of lifestyle slides into the language of fraud.
What finally feels most impressive is how thoroughly the novel locks together grief novel, scam narrative, screwball thriller, queer romance, and social satire without flattening any of them into mere genre service. Mel’s investigation is not a detachable plot stapled onto mourning. It is mourning given a task. For much of the book she half believes that if she can save Freya, she can preserve something about Ari, about loyalty, about not moving on. Hendry knows that bargain is rigged, but she also knows why a grieving person would make it. That is the novel’s real ethical pressure. It asks us to take seriously a woman whose intelligence arrives in forms the culture likes to call unserious. It also asks us to watch her damage people she loves while trying, in horribly distorted fashion, to remain faithful to the dead. That tension gives the book more bite than its effervescent packaging initially promises.
Where the novel shows its stitches is in its appetite for apparatus. It occasionally mistakes more moving parts for more pressure. Once Ollie has to explain himself, the machinery becomes a shade too fully legible, and the book’s desire to snap every wire into place makes the wires show. Ollie is more unnerving when he remains half-shadow, less so when he starts sounding like a man auditioning for the role of his own mastermind. The final explanation is entertaining, but it also nudges the novel toward an over-engineered neatness that some readers will feel the book has not quite earned. There are also moments when the writing leans a little too heavily on the exuberance of Mel’s mind, as if velocity alone could cover every seam. Still, I would take this greedy, overlinked, slightly too much book over the tasteful restraint of a debut too well behaved to embarrass itself. A tidier version might have looked more elegant from ten feet away. It would also have been less true to the way this novel’s mind actually works.
On Gramvousa, luxury is stripped to stone, sea, and the brute labor of getting one body safely down the hill.
The ending redraws the line between remembering someone and sentencing yourself on their behalf. The mystery matters. The fraud matters. The girl in danger matters. But the final movement wants something harder than solution. It wants to know whether memory can stop functioning only as a weapon pointed inward. The novel does not reward Mel by offering healing, closure, or some tasteful lesson about moving on. What it gives her is smaller, harder, and more believable: a way to keep faith with the dead that does not require wrecking the living. The shift is subtle but decisive. Mel does not abandon Ari. She relinquishes the idea that survival is betrayal.
For me, “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” settles at 86/100, or 4 stars – over-engineered in spots, occasionally too enamored of its own contraption, but funny, bruised, socially exact, and much smarter than its glossy premise first lets on. The book begins with Mel trying to text a dead friend the photograph of something disgusting she has pulled from a drain. It ends not by curing that impulse but by discovering a harder use for it. Attention, Hendry suggests, can be more than fixation. It can be witness. It can be loyalty. It can be a way of carrying the dead forward without handing them the rest of your life as payment.
When the sea stops functioning as threat alone and becomes, at last, a medium of release, the book earns its quietest image of survival.
By the time Mel stops treating survival as treason and lets herself float, the gesture lands because Hendry has made all that water count.
Early compositional thinking: the image searching for its balance between figure, horizon, rail, and the pressure of open water.
The underdrawing lays down only the necessary architecture – woman, rail, distance, horizon – so atmosphere can do the rest.
First washes begin to test how glamour and undertow can coexist on the same page without cancelling each other out.
The palette study turns the cover’s bright Mediterranean seduction into a usable emotional grammar of drift, dread, and false shine.
Border studies work out how rope, wave, bead, and fray can hover at the edge of the image without hardening into decoration.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
On the cracked emotional intelligence and stealthy depth of Erica Hendry’s “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here”
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 2nd, 2026
A woman at the rail, suspended between spectacle and solitude, as the sea opens into the grief the novel refuses to prettify.
Erica Hendry’s “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” understands something polite culture still likes to deny: trivia can be a form of fidelity. Celebrity gossip, Bravo lore, podcast detritus, Taylor Swift lyrics, tabloid sludge, the whole allegedly disposable mess of mass culture – none of it functions here as decoration. It is how this novel stores love. At first that looks like comic energy: gossip as tempo, references as patter, Melanie Hoffman’s brain as a panic archive that never powers down. Hendry’s sharper idea is that this is also the book’s way of thinking. The same overclocked system that makes Mel reach for her phone to text her dead best friend also makes her read an Instagram caption the way a detective reads a footprint. Her grief and her gossip brain are not separate engines. They are the same frantic machine, running hot.
Mel and Ari, the best friend whose death has wrecked her life before the novel even begins, used to call themselves Broken Brains. They were not connoisseurs in the tasteful, gatekept sense. They were completists. They hoarded “Housewives” feuds, celebrity humiliations, podcast in-jokes, movie lines, half-useless headlines, and all the cheap, vivid trash of being alive online. Together they turned supposedly throwaway culture into a private code. That matters because “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” is not merely making the old argument that popular culture deserves respect. It is asking what two women can build inside it: shorthand, ritual, mutual recognition on contact. Ari is dead. Mel is not, though she is living in a way that barely counts as living – working too much, sleeping too little, trying to keep thought so busy it never has time to flood. Mourning here is not lyrical. It is sweaty, administrative, compulsive, and a little humiliating. It happens while Mel is snaking a drain in her overheated Los Angeles apartment. It happens when she yanks a monstrous clot of hair from the pipe, reflexively reaches for her phone to text Ari a picture, and then remembers – too late, too late – that there is no one to send it to.
Then grief gets put on a yacht.
Mel’s friend Vish, newly employed by the London luxury-tech startup SWFT, invites her to Greece as his plus-one on a celebratory yacht trip with the company’s founders. On board are Seb, the company’s public face and a walking emergency in linen; Freya, the head of brand, socialite, and chaos sprite; and Ollie, the rumpled COO whose self-deprecating competence initially reads as safety. Mel boards looking for distraction and finds a scene she cannot stop reading. Freya seems frightened. There are voices in the night. By morning Freya is gone. Soon social media begins manufacturing proof of life: Freya in Chania, Freya posting, Freya drinking, Freya still out there somewhere. Mel, whose whole mental life is built around tone, caption, omission, performance, and pattern, begins worrying at the seams.
Sunlit departure arrives already shadowed, the yacht gleaming as promise and omen at once.
Hendry knows the pleasures of that setup and works them hard. The book is funny about linen-shirt money, startup mysticism, “community” sold as a luxury tier, and the way rich Britons treat self-invention as a birthright. But its smartest move is to let melodramatic overreading and genuine perception live in the same sentence. Mel overreads. She projects. She pins the wrong crime on the wrong man before she finds the right crime and the right structure. But Hendry never treats her pop-cultural saturation as cute debris she must outgrow in order to become serious. Quite the opposite. The people who understand how spectacle works may also be the people best equipped to notice danger when danger starts performing normality. Mel is wrong, often extravagantly wrong, about the mechanism. She is right about coercion, falseness, atmosphere, the ease with which a woman can be written off as unstable, excessive, unserious, unreliable. Her mistakes do not cancel her seriousness. They are part of it.
That is the move that keeps the novel from curdling into mere quirk. Hendry does not simply ask us to stop sneering at low-status culture. She turns mass-cultural nonsense into a grammar of witness. Mel knows what kind of woman usually puts herself in the frame and what it means when she suddenly vanishes from it. She knows when posting cadence changes. She knows how public personality can be used as cover. She knows how confrontation works because she and Ari spent years watching people perform on camera while something uglier leaked through the staging. When Taylor Swift lyrics finally become covert communication, the moment lands not as whimsy but as proof that the novel has known what it was doing all along. The references are not garnish. They are load-bearing.
The prose behaves as if it has been living in Mel’s head for months. It moves like a mind using jokes to stay on its feet. Hendry can stack riff on riff and then, without warning, drop into panic, humiliation, or ache. The jokes are not trim. They are structural. They buy Mel time. They keep panic from getting clean access to the sentence. This matters because it keeps her from becoming the usual lovable disaster whose obsessions merely accessorize the page. Her obsessions are the tools she actually has. Hendry is especially good at the violent little swerves by which comedy becomes pathos and back again: a reality-show reference opening into raw loss, a bit curdling into self-revelation, a sentence clowning right up to the edge of the abyss and then glancing down. The style is baggy on purpose, quick on its feet, and more disciplined than it first appears. It mimics Mel’s overlinked consciousness without losing the reader to noise.
The Ari scenes do work the mystery cannot do alone. They explain why a joke, a lyric, or a tabloid scrap can carry the force of a vow. In those flashbacks, Hendry establishes the emotional logic of Mel’s attention: how a shared joke becomes shelter, how knowing the same nonsense by heart becomes a way of saying I know you, I’m still here. Ari and Mel do not consume culture to signal taste. They use it to build a durable, ridiculous, loving world between them. That is why Ari’s death leaves so much static in Mel’s system. The habit of noticing survives. The person it was built for does not. The book’s emotional intelligence lies in seeing that this can make the world look at once overfull and unusably empty: packed with references, stripped of destination.
The novel’s tonal hinge: the instant comic trespass turns airless, interior, and genuinely dangerous.
Hendry’s formal nerve is easy to underestimate because the novel arrives dressed as a glossy holiday caper. Seb is so visibly awful that both Mel and the reader are encouraged to read him as the whole story. Ollie, by contrast, arrives wrapped in modesty, competence, and rumpled decency. Hendry rigs that imbalance carefully. Seb performs obvious menace. Ollie performs managerial mildness. The reveal is doing social work, not merely suspense work. The book knows how quickly blatant swagger gets read as threat while soft-spoken competence slides by under the heading of seriousness. It also knows that class privilege can wear more than one face: not just Seb’s gleaming idiocy, but Ollie’s cultivated harmlessness, his practiced self-effacement, his ability to pass as the only grown-up in the room while building the most ruinous scheme in it.
Then there is SWFT, one of the novel’s nastiest ideas. A luxury-membership startup selling access, prestige, taste, and the fantasy of curated intimacy, it turns out to be hollow at the center: dead chat rooms, padded subscriber counts, a “community” with no communal life in it. Hendry is smart enough not to pound the parallel into paste, but she does not need to. SWFT sells counterfeit belonging to people desperate to feel admitted somewhere. Mel, in the wake of Ari’s death, is trying to preserve one real form of belonging that mattered. The satire bites hardest where it stays close to texture – the members-only mystique, the investor fog, the ridiculous assurance that access itself is a meaningful product. Hendry knows the exact sound of fake prestige trying to impersonate human warmth. She also knows how easily emotional need can be monetized, how quickly “connection” becomes a premium service, how naturally the language of lifestyle slides into the language of fraud.
What finally feels most impressive is how thoroughly the novel locks together grief novel, scam narrative, screwball thriller, queer romance, and social satire without flattening any of them into mere genre service. Mel’s investigation is not a detachable plot stapled onto mourning. It is mourning given a task. For much of the book she half believes that if she can save Freya, she can preserve something about Ari, about loyalty, about not moving on. Hendry knows that bargain is rigged, but she also knows why a grieving person would make it. That is the novel’s real ethical pressure. It asks us to take seriously a woman whose intelligence arrives in forms the culture likes to call unserious. It also asks us to watch her damage people she loves while trying, in horribly distorted fashion, to remain faithful to the dead. That tension gives the book more bite than its effervescent packaging initially promises.
Where the novel shows its stitches is in its appetite for apparatus. It occasionally mistakes more moving parts for more pressure. Once Ollie has to explain himself, the machinery becomes a shade too fully legible, and the book’s desire to snap every wire into place makes the wires show. Ollie is more unnerving when he remains half-shadow, less so when he starts sounding like a man auditioning for the role of his own mastermind. The final explanation is entertaining, but it also nudges the novel toward an over-engineered neatness that some readers will feel the book has not quite earned. There are also moments when the writing leans a little too heavily on the exuberance of Mel’s mind, as if velocity alone could cover every seam. Still, I would take this greedy, overlinked, slightly too much book over the tasteful restraint of a debut too well behaved to embarrass itself. A tidier version might have looked more elegant from ten feet away. It would also have been less true to the way this novel’s mind actually works.
On Gramvousa, luxury is stripped to stone, sea, and the brute labor of getting one body safely down the hill.
The ending redraws the line between remembering someone and sentencing yourself on their behalf. The mystery matters. The fraud matters. The girl in danger matters. But the final movement wants something harder than solution. It wants to know whether memory can stop functioning only as a weapon pointed inward. The novel does not reward Mel by offering healing, closure, or some tasteful lesson about moving on. What it gives her is smaller, harder, and more believable: a way to keep faith with the dead that does not require wrecking the living. The shift is subtle but decisive. Mel does not abandon Ari. She relinquishes the idea that survival is betrayal.
For me, “Let’s Not Go Overboard Here” settles at 86/100, or 4 stars – over-engineered in spots, occasionally too enamored of its own contraption, but funny, bruised, socially exact, and much smarter than its glossy premise first lets on. The book begins with Mel trying to text a dead friend the photograph of something disgusting she has pulled from a drain. It ends not by curing that impulse but by discovering a harder use for it. Attention, Hendry suggests, can be more than fixation. It can be witness. It can be loyalty. It can be a way of carrying the dead forward without handing them the rest of your life as payment.
When the sea stops functioning as threat alone and becomes, at last, a medium of release, the book earns its quietest image of survival.
By the time Mel stops treating survival as treason and lets herself float, the gesture lands because Hendry has made all that water count.
Early compositional thinking: the image searching for its balance between figure, horizon, rail, and the pressure of open water.
The underdrawing lays down only the necessary architecture – woman, rail, distance, horizon – so atmosphere can do the rest.
First washes begin to test how glamour and undertow can coexist on the same page without cancelling each other out.
The palette study turns the cover’s bright Mediterranean seduction into a usable emotional grammar of drift, dread, and false shine.
Border studies work out how rope, wave, bead, and fray can hover at the edge of the image without hardening into decoration.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
January 9, 2026
I love a debut novel! Mel’s internal dialogue and banter with her friends was hilarious and her actions were unhinged. Her constant terrible choices were both frustrating and entertaining. The story seems to use her grief over losing her best friend as a justification for her increasingly chaotic behavior but honestly everything went off the rails and just got very unbelievable the whole second half of the book. Was it realistic? No. Was it a good time and laugh out loud funny? Yes.
I received an ARC of this ebook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
I received an ARC of this ebook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
June 6, 2026
Lawyer Melanie Hoffman works hard. She works harder than anyone in the office. She does work for the others in her office. But it’s not because her life is empty. Her life is full. She has the Real Housewives and Below Deck, Love Island, Gossip Girl, and The Gilmore Girls. But she lost her lifelong best friend Ari a year before, and she’s been struggling. She’s been working too hard and not doing much more, so her boss tells her to take a vacation.
Her friend Vish is about to head out on a Below Deck-type yacht trip himself, to Greece. The company he works for, SWFT, a tech startup, is about to go public, and so they chartered the yacht to celebrate. And he invites Mel along, and her Bravolebrity heart can’t resist. And that’s how she finds herself on a yacht on the Aegean Sea, drinking with the CEO Seb, his girlfriend and Head of Brand for SWFT Freya, and COO Ollie. They had met at Oxford, and formed a digital members-only club that offers subscriptions to an elite list of the wealthy, celebrities, and influencers based on Ollie’s tech skills and Seb’s charm.
Mel knew all this from their social media accounts, which she had been watching fanatically since Vish joined the company. She knew they loved to party. And after dinner, complete with champagne before and wine with each course, Seb announces that they’re not going to take the company public in weeks. They’re going to do it from the boat in two days. More celebrating ensues, until Mel’s head is spinning. But she’s not the only one feeling off. Freya grabs her arm at one point and says she’s worried something is going to happen to her. Mel shrugs it off as her being drunk and goes below deck to check on something for her friend back home Kellie. But she falls asleep in a crew’s bed and has to be escorted back to her cabin.
The next day, Mel is still a little off from all the alcohol, but she does notice that Freya isn’t around. And she remembers what Freya had said the night before and gets worried. Everyone else shrugs it off as Freya being Freya. She’s been known to disappear to go shopping or to a local animal shelter. Her Instagram feed is filled with pictures of her with animals of all kinds. But Mel waits, and Freya still doesn’t show.
With the help of good wifi and friends back home, Mel starts to put a case together against Seb. She is certain that he is behind Freya’s disappearance, and she starts asking questions of the crew and the SWFT employees. But they all shrug it off. Meanwhile, she is haunted by memories of Ari and all the hours they spent talking and laughing and watching reality television. Vish thinks it’s Mel’s grief that is driving her investigation, but he’s too busy with the new IPO deadline to do much to stop her.
On the day of the stock offering, SWFT has brought in all the board members, and Seb stands over the official celebration with Freya by his side. She seems okay, but Mel still thinks that something is off. But are her instincts right about that? Or is she just delusional and making up stories to distract her from her grief?
Let’s Not Go Overboard Here is a debut novel that brings all the pop culture satire to a slow-burn thriller. It kept me guessing until the end as to what was real and what was someone’s delusions or misunderstandings. I really enjoyed this story. The one thing that surprised me is how much grief there was. I was expecting a lighter read, like a summer read, that was a campy take on Below Deck. There were some fun scenes, but there was no campiness, and by the end I was happy to have read it. It’s a lovely story of friendship and pop culture.
Egalleys for Let’s Not Go Overboard Here were provided by Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
Her friend Vish is about to head out on a Below Deck-type yacht trip himself, to Greece. The company he works for, SWFT, a tech startup, is about to go public, and so they chartered the yacht to celebrate. And he invites Mel along, and her Bravolebrity heart can’t resist. And that’s how she finds herself on a yacht on the Aegean Sea, drinking with the CEO Seb, his girlfriend and Head of Brand for SWFT Freya, and COO Ollie. They had met at Oxford, and formed a digital members-only club that offers subscriptions to an elite list of the wealthy, celebrities, and influencers based on Ollie’s tech skills and Seb’s charm.
Mel knew all this from their social media accounts, which she had been watching fanatically since Vish joined the company. She knew they loved to party. And after dinner, complete with champagne before and wine with each course, Seb announces that they’re not going to take the company public in weeks. They’re going to do it from the boat in two days. More celebrating ensues, until Mel’s head is spinning. But she’s not the only one feeling off. Freya grabs her arm at one point and says she’s worried something is going to happen to her. Mel shrugs it off as her being drunk and goes below deck to check on something for her friend back home Kellie. But she falls asleep in a crew’s bed and has to be escorted back to her cabin.
The next day, Mel is still a little off from all the alcohol, but she does notice that Freya isn’t around. And she remembers what Freya had said the night before and gets worried. Everyone else shrugs it off as Freya being Freya. She’s been known to disappear to go shopping or to a local animal shelter. Her Instagram feed is filled with pictures of her with animals of all kinds. But Mel waits, and Freya still doesn’t show.
With the help of good wifi and friends back home, Mel starts to put a case together against Seb. She is certain that he is behind Freya’s disappearance, and she starts asking questions of the crew and the SWFT employees. But they all shrug it off. Meanwhile, she is haunted by memories of Ari and all the hours they spent talking and laughing and watching reality television. Vish thinks it’s Mel’s grief that is driving her investigation, but he’s too busy with the new IPO deadline to do much to stop her.
On the day of the stock offering, SWFT has brought in all the board members, and Seb stands over the official celebration with Freya by his side. She seems okay, but Mel still thinks that something is off. But are her instincts right about that? Or is she just delusional and making up stories to distract her from her grief?
Let’s Not Go Overboard Here is a debut novel that brings all the pop culture satire to a slow-burn thriller. It kept me guessing until the end as to what was real and what was someone’s delusions or misunderstandings. I really enjoyed this story. The one thing that surprised me is how much grief there was. I was expecting a lighter read, like a summer read, that was a campy take on Below Deck. There were some fun scenes, but there was no campiness, and by the end I was happy to have read it. It’s a lovely story of friendship and pop culture.
Egalleys for Let’s Not Go Overboard Here were provided by Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
February 8, 2026
Mel is a reality TV–loving lawyer who has lost herself since her best friend passed away. After going three years without taking PTO, the head of her HR department forces her to take time off, which coincides with an invitation from her law school best friend Vish to join his company on a luxurious yacht trip to Greece. Reluctant and still deep in her grief, Mel would rather stay home, but she goes anyway. On the first night of the trip, one of the heads of Vish’s tech startup goes missing, and Mel quickly puts together that she’s been murdered. While everyone else brushes it off, insisting the woman is always disappearing and is probably fine, Mel decides to investigate—using her extensive Bravo reality TV knowledge and, presumably, her law school education. Alongside the “Sherlock Hoes” (a group chat that includes her deceased best friend’s older sister, her HR director, and her work best friend), Mel starts digging into what’s really going on with this very fishy company aboard the yacht.
The references throughout the book were pretty well done, especially as someone who has watched seasons 2–4 of The Traitors. They were lighthearted and, while I would normally hate that many pop culture references, they felt fitting for Mel’s personality and helped establish her voice. The story was also very easy to visualize—I could easily see this being adapted into a mystery-comedy movie with Knives Out–style vibes, where the audience understands how ridiculous the situation is, but the characters take everything seriously and remain oddly obtuse.
That said, this wasn’t really my cup of tea. I didn’t bond with many of the characters, and I found Mel herself pretty annoying, which made it harder for me to fully enjoy the story. Still, I can absolutely see the appeal. This would be a great pick for readers who love reality TV, exaggerated drama, and over-the-top characters. If you enjoyed the movie Murder Mystery, this book would likely be a perfect match. It’s clearly well written, and the “cast” of the novel is a fun, extravagant group!
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.
The references throughout the book were pretty well done, especially as someone who has watched seasons 2–4 of The Traitors. They were lighthearted and, while I would normally hate that many pop culture references, they felt fitting for Mel’s personality and helped establish her voice. The story was also very easy to visualize—I could easily see this being adapted into a mystery-comedy movie with Knives Out–style vibes, where the audience understands how ridiculous the situation is, but the characters take everything seriously and remain oddly obtuse.
That said, this wasn’t really my cup of tea. I didn’t bond with many of the characters, and I found Mel herself pretty annoying, which made it harder for me to fully enjoy the story. Still, I can absolutely see the appeal. This would be a great pick for readers who love reality TV, exaggerated drama, and over-the-top characters. If you enjoyed the movie Murder Mystery, this book would likely be a perfect match. It’s clearly well written, and the “cast” of the novel is a fun, extravagant group!
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
"The Woman in Cabin 10" meets "Below Deck". "Let's Not Go Overboard Here" by Erica Hendry is an intriguing mystery centering on a pop culture aficionado protagonist who finds herself in a real-time mystery, Agatha Christie style.
This is a story of grief, friendships, found family, and healing. I had a hard time getting into it at first—the slow pace and constant self-reflection made it feel dragging. The plot also gets bogged down at times with the many pop culture references. However, once I got past that, it really picked up, and I ended up enjoying it. I didn’t recognize some of the references, but enough landed for me to enjoy the story. I liked the flashbacks, which helped highlight the bond between Mel and her late friend.
Some of the secondary characters weren’t likable, and a few fell flat. Mel could be really annoying—her over-the-top behavior and relentless internal dialogue, combined with her disregard for others, made her exhausting to follow. She went overboard with her investigation, even hurting her best friend in the process. So consumed by grief, she didn’t notice the impact of her actions on those around her. I also couldn’t understand why her “Sherlock Hoes” group encouraged her to invade privacy and break legal lines—and she’s a lawyer, for God’s sake!
I did enjoy the humor, wit, and banter with her friends. The depiction of grief was well done, and I could relate to her. She grew on me, and I ended up rooting for her. The plot, twists, and ending made me rate this 4 out of 5 stars. By the end of the third part, my jaw literally dropped—I had no clue that twist was coming! What starts as a seemingly simple mystery turns into something much bigger than I expected. It is a unique tale, and once you get used to the writing, you’ll likely enjoy it.
* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.
* Review on my blog: https://galibookish.blogspot.com/2026...
This is a story of grief, friendships, found family, and healing. I had a hard time getting into it at first—the slow pace and constant self-reflection made it feel dragging. The plot also gets bogged down at times with the many pop culture references. However, once I got past that, it really picked up, and I ended up enjoying it. I didn’t recognize some of the references, but enough landed for me to enjoy the story. I liked the flashbacks, which helped highlight the bond between Mel and her late friend.
Some of the secondary characters weren’t likable, and a few fell flat. Mel could be really annoying—her over-the-top behavior and relentless internal dialogue, combined with her disregard for others, made her exhausting to follow. She went overboard with her investigation, even hurting her best friend in the process. So consumed by grief, she didn’t notice the impact of her actions on those around her. I also couldn’t understand why her “Sherlock Hoes” group encouraged her to invade privacy and break legal lines—and she’s a lawyer, for God’s sake!
I did enjoy the humor, wit, and banter with her friends. The depiction of grief was well done, and I could relate to her. She grew on me, and I ended up rooting for her. The plot, twists, and ending made me rate this 4 out of 5 stars. By the end of the third part, my jaw literally dropped—I had no clue that twist was coming! What starts as a seemingly simple mystery turns into something much bigger than I expected. It is a unique tale, and once you get used to the writing, you’ll likely enjoy it.
* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.
* Review on my blog: https://galibookish.blogspot.com/2026...
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