what happens next

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.