What it Takes to Become a NYT Bestselling Author: The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

23 September 2026

What it Takes to Become a NYT Bestselling Author: Freida McFadden’s The Perfect Son

Snark Alert!

First of all, everyone needs to know that at 3.89 stars Freida McFadden’s book, The Perfect Son, is rated higher on Goodreads than Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau. It is, however, outrated by Crime and Punishment, 11/22/63, and Middlemarch. And something is happening here that confounds me because McFadden’s book is far shy of mediocre. I’m telling myself the ratings have much to do with different sorts of readers. McFadden has a large following. She writes and publishes prolifically such that her readership might pop her novels like M’n’Ms—and there’s a market for that. That said, I’m not condemning this sort of readership because there is a time and a place for it. There was a time and place for it for me, too. It was, for me, between Of Mice and Men and Coraline, a bit of sorbet to cleanse the palate (albeit flavorless sorbet).

If I’m being honest though, the reason I read The Perfect Son is because I’d like to be part of a book club but don’t know of any nearby, so I asked my neighbor what she was reading, told her I’d read it too, and then suggested we get together afterward, drink wine, and chat about the book. She seemed excited by the idea, so here we are. Reading can be social!

Alright, let’s get to the reasons I would rate this book zero stars, if that were possible: the distinction between popular and literary fiction, the favorite child narrative, the unsuccessful whodunnit reveal, and the sub-mediocre sentence-level writing.

McFadden’s book opens with a disappointing Author’s Note that makes excuses her for choosing to be a popular author over any other writing goal. She writes,

            Even though my books are thrillers, a genre that traditionally has dark elements, I do my best to keep them as family friendly as I possibly can. You’re not going to come across any graphic scenes of violence or S-E-X. (Mostly because I know my family members will be reading!) (n.p.)

She follows this cowardly admission with a web link for content warnings on all her books. Why does this annoy me so? I mean, bear in mind my background: the first novels I read as a pre-tween were Stephen King. Plus, I’m a literary scholar. You think Crime and Punishment could’ve been written without graphic violence? Please. God, I’m such a snob, I know, but here we are. Not even page one, and I’m already annoyed with this author.

Part of my annoyance stems from my literary education. My master’s thesis—for my MA in Literature—is titled “Deconstructing Rossetti,” and in my research for that essay, I learned how much Christina Rossetti, author of the gorgeous poem “Goblin Market,” disapproved—maybe even resented—the formulaic popular women poets of her day, poets like Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Here is one of my favorite quotes from Rossetti’s personal letters to publisher, Macmillan:

            A rather larger book will I doubt not be possible should demand arise: but I know myself too well to foresee that even were I ever so successful, I should always be a worry to the publishing world. Write to order I really cannot: not, of course, that I could not thus produce somewhat in bulk; but if I have yet done aught worth doing, it has been by simply taking what came when it came. (173)

Here you have one of my heroines of poetry putting her foot down when it came to publication: she would not write what was popular simply because it would sell. She valued her own craft and voice too much for that. These are the standards upon which my literary sensibilities were founded. Now that I have completed an MFA in Creative Writing, it is Rossetti who guides my writerly ethics and goals. Popularity—being a New York Times-bestselling author—may be someone’s goal, and that’s fine, but it will never be mine. I will write what is true (and preferably read what is true), no matter where that leads and no matter who might read it!

McFadden’s Author’s Note is immediately followed by the protagonist and mother, Erika’s, admission in Chapter 1, that of her two progeny, she has a favorite child. She insists most mothers do. This, on just page three of the novel, is already a second blow for the author. Maybe McFadden believes this shit—in which case, I’m judging her. Or maybe just her godawful protagonist does—in which case, I’m judging her. In any case, it becomes clear throughout the novel that despite what she tells herself in Chapter 1, Erika does not, in fact, have a favorite child at all. It’s a stretch to place Liam in the bucket of “favorite child” whilst he tortures guinea pigs, duct tapes a girl and leaves her in a closet during kindergarten, and is diagnosed a psychopath by his psychiatrist. Erika’s feelings for Liam are confused and confusing throughout this story and based on those feelings, never would I ever suspect Liam to be considered a “favorite child.” The ending, where we witness Erika’s relief that her daughter, Hannah, is OK, further suggests that this mother, like any mother, has complicated and differentiated feelings for both her children—not that one is a favorite. So why lead with this in Chapter 1? It’s not even fundamental to the story, and it led me to immediately dislike Erika. Ok, yes, I know I’m generally a fan of unlikeable protagonists, but Erika’s character is so indefinite and wishy-washy that I cannot ever get on board with her perspective. So McFadden even fails at the unlikeable protagonist here because Erika’s character lacks complexity the way her assessment of her son as a “favorite child” lacks complexity.

Spoiler Alert

This novel has a not-so-horrible setup as a traditional whodunnit. There’s a kidnapping, we think it’s the son, then McFadden throws a grandfather in there to throw us off the scent, etc. Unfortunately, the whodunnit fails because the character who actually dunnit is so underdeveloped the reveal feels like it’s been conjured out of thin air. OK. I’ll say it: the culprit is the father, Jason. But Jason’s character is never developed beyond the fact that he’s a milquetoast, lame-ass, dad-joke-spitting dad. Yes, his wife, Erika, alludes twice to his getting in shape and her suspicion that he might be having an affair; however, she dismisses this idea out-of-hand because his character is just so…tapioca.

My own first novel involves a protagonist who, in the end of the story, does something kinda crazy. Like, completely mentally unstable sort-of crazy. My MFA mentor and all my beta readers have echoed the same recommendation: she can’t act this way if there’s no precedent—it feels like it’s too uncharacteristic or unexplained, and you’ll frustrate your readers. There must be hints earlier in the novel that such behavior might be possible for her. I’d say the same to McFadden if I’d been a beta reader for this book (and, frankly, based on her productivity, I doubt she had any): drop a few hints that this character has secrets. Make it seem plausible he’s having an affair—or the type of man who could have an affair. When he wakes Erika in the night, make it clear that he’s getting back into bed after having been out of bedsomewhere. Jesus. Give the reader a fighting chance to see it coming. Let the reader do a little legwork. Let them figure it something out on their own, or they’ll be annoyed! There was no opportunity for me to figure this one out, and that made me want to toss the book across the room when the Jason chapter appeared and the whodunnit was finally revealed.

The cherry on top of what makes this a zero-star novel is the loose sentence-level writing. It was page one, sentence one that I noticed McFadden’s writing was not tight, contained redundancies, varied little in structure, and lacked vibrant descriptions to draw the reader into character and setting. It’s difficult to choose an example because it’s basically the whole book, but here’s something to grab on to: “I’ve stopped answering my phone entirely. I don’t know where people are getting my number, but I’ve been getting death threats all day. They keep getting worse and worse” (259). Three unrelated instances of the nondescript gerund, “getting” in two consecutive sentences? This writing feels lazy and reminds me of Fifty Shades of Grey. This would perhaps be forgivable if bad sentences led to deep, complex characters or an engaging setting—but they don’t. None of the characters in this book are particularly vivid, and we don’t really even know where the story takes place, beyond that it’s somewhere in the general vicinity of Long Island (yet still somehow has backwoods with a dilapidated cabin??).

Before this book, I’d never heard of McFadden; there might be a reason for that. After this book, I’ll probably forget McFadden, too. At least Stephen King never preludes mediocre novels with apologies and excuses. One star from me.