Review: Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney

Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney

Blurb from Goodreads:

Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle.

Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping? He can’t remember as the all-inclusive drinks on the cruise he was taking with his extended family were, well, inclusive) Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea.

As the waves crash over him, so too do the thoughts and memories of just how he got there. A Thanksgiving cruise with an obnoxious brother-in-law he has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at. A father who gives the Great Santini a run for his money. And a mother, who already left the family boat, so to speak, a long time ago. His family may be complicated, and the pains of life may seem unbearable—infuriating enough to leap from the deck—but maybe the will to survive is stronger.

Man Overboard! is an inventive, slyly hilarious, and inspiring novel about what it means to be alive, stay alive, and what keeps us going no matter how choppy the waves of our journey become. Hold on for dear life!

 I expected so much from this blurb but it was so sad and melancholy.  I did not laugh out loud.  If you want a book that is all interior monologue and off the charts cerebral, this will be the book for you.  While I liked the idea and the attempt, it did not make me feel good.  Hope you have better luck!

Man Overboard! comes out next week on July 7, 2026, and you can purchase HERE.  

The sea is, if anything, famously huge.

My entire life I've feared and hated it. People who claim to love the ocean underestimate its vastness. With a few exceptions, despite being the Nebraska state champion in the five-hundred-meter freestyle in 2009, I've declined to go deeper than where my feet can touch sand.

I appear to be in the midst of a major exception, a gooey soup that I am stunned to be immersed in, freaking out, eyes open, burning in the saline, turning my body toward what I hope is up.

Breath held, legs and arms pumping, panic pushes me to inhale but I refuse and everything hurts.