Breakaway Books

Authored by Freida McFadden; Published January 2026; Thriller

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️

I wonder how many housewives are out there who dream of living a life like the titular heroine of Dear Debbie, exacting (sometimes violent) retribution on anyone who dares to hurt them or their families. While the novel leans heavily on some homemaker tropes, it also provides quite a few twists. 

Debbie is leading a pretty charmed life in the suburbs with her husband and two kids. Sure, she has some nasty neighbors. Sure, her husband can’t seem to get the promotion he deserves. Sure, her older daughter’s boyfriend is slimy, and her younger daughter was kicked off the soccer team. Actually, now that Debbie is thinking about it, maybe she can make a few improvements to her family’s situation—more than she can for the people who write in to her advice column, at least. But Debbie’s improvements could land her and her family in a whole lot of trouble.

Dear Debbie brought back strong memories of Don’t Let Him In (review here): It features a character with a pathological condition leading them to attempt ever more daring crimes. The main difference here is that Debbie is painted as a hero of sorts, or, at the very least, not the villain. For the most part, the allure of this novel is seeing just how far Debbie will go, but I do give credit to the author: She keeps throwing twists in until the very last page, which I certainly did not expect. I almost wished that these secrets had been revealed sooner, so that I could savor the full extent of Debbie’s master plan. Because so many of the twists were packed into the end (literally the epilogue!), much of the middle of the book feels repetitive—Debbie discovers a wrong against her or her family, finds a devastating avenue for revenge, and executes her plan.

Although to be expected from a novel like this, the featured men are nearly uniformly villainous. I believe in the ills of the patriarchy as much as any other modern woman, but wow, do the men in this book come off as worthless! I certainly hope the average man is not quite as much of a slimeball as he sees to be in this novel. Yet, Debbie does not make me feel better about women. Something about portraying her as a bored housewife who is unable to brush off insults to her garden rubs me the wrong way. Despite the fact that the author highlights Debbie’s genius in computer programming, she still comes off as petty and even ditzy in some parts of the novel. 

Dear Debbie may be cathartic for a certain audience, and for others, it’s a pretty good beach read. It wouldn’t be my pick for a particularly challenging or pulse-pounding thriller.