Dear Debbie

Debbie Mullen is unraveling. For years, she’s dispensed compassion and practical advice through her Dear Debbie column, counseling wives who are ignored, belittled, or abused by their husbands. But after losing her job, growing concerned about her teenage daughters, and uncovering her husband’s secrets through a tracking app, Debbie’s own life spirals out of control. Done being reasonable, she decides to follow her own advice and take ruthless payback on those who deserve it most. Okaaaaaay, this isn’t a favorite at all but what can ya do? I was eagerly waiting for this release and unfortunately it fell short. The twist wasn’t as twisty in comparison to her other books and it wasn’t thrilly either. I didn’t really like Debbie either, though I did love the advice she gave lol Would I recommend this? Probably not. Was it the worst book ever? No. It’s somewhere in the middle for me!

Debbie is an unhinged housewife with MIT brains and I am here for it. Her advice column takes a wild turn and her flavor of vigilante justice was manic and a bit deranged. Most of the twists are easy to see coming, but there were a couple that caught me by surprise. FM is the best at plot twists! 4 ⭐️ Book #25 in 2026

Freida McFadden’s Dear Debbie starts with a premise that feels suspiciously cozy. Debbie Mullen writes the Dear Debbie advice column, where women send in letters about disappointing husbands, messy relationships, and everyday betrayals. Debbie listens, sympathizes, and offers practical advice to help them reclaim their lives. All while Debbie's life is actually chaos. Everything quickly begins to unravel when Debbie loses her job after giving a reader the very reasonable advice to leave her terrible husband. Her husband Cooper may or may not be cheating with her book club friend Harley. Her neighbor steals her long-awaited Home & Garden photoshoot. Her teenage daughter, Lexi, is making dating decisions that have Debbie deeply worried. Debbie's other teenager, Izzy, got kicked off the soccer team. Debbie is at her wits end. Debbie has spent years telling other women to stop tolerating bad behavior. Now she’s reached the point where she decides to take her own advice. Wow, does she take it. What begins as petty revenge quickly escalates into something much darker. Debbie destroys her neighbor’s prized rose garden. She humiliates the boss who fired her by exposing his secrets online. She manipulates situations in ways that made me stop the audiobook and think, "Debbie, girl! What are you doing?" I could not stop listening. McFadden has a gift for creating protagonists who are messy, impulsive, morally questionable, and still oddly compelling. Debbie is not a traditional heroine. She is intelligent, calculating, and absolutely capable of crossing lines most people would never even approach. At several points I was genuinely nervous about what she might do next. One of my favorite elements was Debbie’s voice through her advice column. Her responses are sharp, darkly funny, and a little unhinged. One line that made me laugh was her suggestion that couples who cannot agree on a road trip playlist should “make one together, or do minor surgery to make your husband deaf.” That biting humor runs through the story and makes Debbie entertaining even when her actions spiral into chaos. The plot twists also kept me guessing. I thought I had certain characters figured out, especially when it came to Debbie’s husband and the suspicious behavior surrounding her friend Harley. I was wrong more than once. The final reveal pulls several threads together in a way that made me immediately want to rewind parts of the story to see what clues I missed. The audiobook narration was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The story is performed by Julia Whelan, January LaVoy, and Scott Brick. Oddly, I did not even realize there were two female narrators until after I finished the book. The performances blended together enough that the voices did not feel very distinct. My biggest audiobook pet peeve also popped up here. The narrators occasionally attempted to imitate the voices of characters of another gender instead of letting the actor for that character carry the voice consistently. When that happens it can pull me out of the story. Even with that minor complaint, the audiobook moved quickly and kept the tension high. At just under eight hours, it is the kind of thriller you can easily finish in a day because you are constantly wondering what Debbie will do next and how she could possibly get away with it. Beneath all the revenge and chaos, the story also digs into Debbie’s past and the fears she carries as a mother trying to protect her daughters. That emotional layer gives the story a surprising amount of depth and helps explain why Debbie reacts so fiercely when the people she loves are threatened. This was my first Freida McFadden book. It definitely will not be my last. Dear Debbie is fast, twisty, and full of, “Wait! WHAT?” moments that kept me glued to the story the entire time.

This one started slower for me and I love Freida! I ended up really enjoying it - especially the ending!

Debbie kept me laughing and cause me to give a lot of “SMH” emojis with the things she did. The ending definitely shocked me and that’s why I continue to read McFadden’s books. The ending just made sense and it all came together.