Why You'll Love This
An advice columnist who spent years telling abused women to stay patient finally decides to stop giving advice — and start taking action.
- Great if you want: a darkly satisfying thriller with a revenge-tinged edge
- The experience: fast, propulsive, and morally messy — impossible to put down
- The writing: McFadden builds dread through ordinary domestic detail, then pulls the rug
- Skip if: you want psychological complexity over plot momentum
About This Book
Debbie Mullen built her life around giving advice — the steady, sensible kind that helped desperate women navigate impossible marriages. But when her own world starts unraveling, the woman who always knew what others should do finds herself completely lost. Her job is gone, her daughters are pulling away, and her husband is hiding something. What unfolds is a story about a woman pushed too far, the quiet fury that builds when no one is paying attention, and what happens when someone who spent years saying leave him finally turns that advice on herself.
McFadden writes with a sharp, almost sardonic intimacy that makes every page feel like a secret being whispered directly to you. The structure here does something clever — Debbie's advice column voice runs alongside the disintegration of her private life, and the contrast between who she presents to the world and who she's becoming is where the real tension lives. Fans of McFadden's earlier work will recognize her ability to make deeply uncomfortable situations feel darkly satisfying, and Dear Debbie delivers that in full, building to revelations that feel both shocking and completely earned.
