After reading That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally, she became one of my auto-buy authors. I deeply loved that book and have enjoyed everything she’s put out since.
So it should be no surprise that when young adult novel What We Did to Survive showed up on Netgalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Here’s a little more about it.
About What We Did To Survive
A vacation in paradise turns deadly when four teens’ sailing charter hits stormy seas in this propulsive new thriller from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Megan Lally!
Hannah is having an incredible spring break. A week at a resort in Mexico with her best friend Emmy and her family is perfect for de-stressing from senior year, even if it’s awkward being around Emmy’s older brother, Jackson, who she’s had a crush on for as long as she can remember.
Still, the beach is gorgeous. So is the guy they meet in the surf. Except Hannah is now the third wheel in Emmy’s vacation romance.
Eager to impress Emmy, her wealthy new boyfriend charters a private sailboat to make the most of their last day in paradise, and Hannah and Jackson are invited along. As the clouds roll in and the skies darken, their boat is the only one leaving the marina. And the further they get into open water, the more unsettled Hannah becomes. A storm is brewing onboard that’s as deadly as the one racing toward them. Forget surviving graduation. Who will make it back to land alive?
About the Author Megan Lally
Megan Lally is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of That’s Not My Name.
When she’s not writing dark and twisty young adult novels you might find her barefoot at the ocean, drinking one too many lavender lattes, or arguing about the validity of glitter as a favorite color. (It’s absolutely a color, and it’s the best one.)
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family and four chaotic animals.
A Review of What We Did to Survive
What We Did to Survive proves that Megan Lally can take risks and absolutely stick the landing.
This novel marks a sharp departure from Lally’s signature moody, Pacific Northwest–set thrillers, instead unfolding in a sun-drenched vacation setting aboard a cruise ship. Think Final Destination (minus the supernatural) meets Adrift with a touch of Gilligan’s Island—a survival thriller where dread accumulates not through spectacle, but through escalating consequence.
This is not a book you casually set down. The pacing is propulsive, driven by a tightening spiral of bad luck, worsening conditions, and impossible choices. Each chapter raises the stakes just enough to make you wonder how the characters could possibly endure what comes next—let alone escape it. Lally excels at placing her characters in moral and logistical no-win scenarios, and when they make decisions that frustrate you, it only deepens the realism. Crisis does not produce perfect logic, and this novel understands that truth at a cellular level.
What truly anchors the story, though, is character. From page one, I was Team Hannah and rooted for her, desperately wanting her to survive and hoping she might find something real with Jackson. You ache for Emmy to finally see clearly and leave behind the emotional dead weight she’s clinging to. Even as circumstances grow increasingly dire, the emotional throughline never falters, keeping you fully invested in each outcome, each narrow escape, each devastating turn.
And then there are the twists. Megan Lally has built a reputation for delivering the unexpected at the end and What We Did to Survive fully lives up to that promise. I was convinced I had the ending figured out. I did not. The conclusion is both shocking and deeply satisfying, and is one that recontextualizes what came before and lingers long after the final page.
Razor-sharp pacing, and expertly executed suspense make this one of Lally’s most compelling (and surprising) novels yet.
What’s Next?
I just checked out You’re Dead To Me by Amy Christine Parker. So while I wait for Megan Lally to write her next book—I’ll be reading that next. Thoughts to come!
What are you reading right now?
I’d love to hear in the comments what you’re reading and what you might have to recommend to me.
Happy reading and happy haunting,
Jolene