One By One by Freida McFadden
🌲 One by One by Freida McFadden – Book Review (3/5 Stars)
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: I’m about to break down the whole plot — twists, killers, and questionable van mechanics included. If you want to go in fresh, grab it here and come back!
🎯 Quick Take: Short, Suspenseful, but Full of Plot Holes
✅ Classic McFadden-style tension — fast, dark, and deadly.
✅ I stayed hooked the whole time.
✅ But... this one didn’t totally land for me. The logic? Kinda sketchy.
👉 My rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5
🚌 The Setup: A Group Trip That Goes Off the Rails
Six friends plan a chill trip to a fancy resort:
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Claire – Our main character, cheating on her husband Noah with his BFF.
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Noah – The husband, not as clueless as Claire thinks.
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Jack – The best friend / affair partner.
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Lindsay – Claire’s best friend… with serious anger issues.
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Warner – Not part of the friend group — he’s a sketchy outsider Lindsay recruited for her murderous scheme.
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Two other friends – (pretty forgettable, honestly, but there to raise the stakes and body count).
👉 Their van mysteriously dies in the middle of nowhere (because of course). No signal, no GPS, no clue where they are.
🏚️ The Cabin of Doom
👉 The map Lindsay gave them leads not to the resort, but to a random cabin.
👉 Lindsay + Warner have already murdered the cabin’s owner (because efficiency!).
👉 The cabin buys them time — it’s got water, food, and isolation for their plan to unfold.
🔪 The Big Twists: Who’s Killing Who and Why?
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Lindsay isn’t just a friend — she’s a serial killer who hates cheaters (thanks to a traumatic childhood).
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She discovers Claire’s affair via a text.
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She lures everyone to the woods to kill:
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Claire (the cheater)
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Noah (for retaliatory cheating)
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Jack (also a cheater)
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She partners with Warner, who’s supposed to help — until she kills him, too.
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Lindsay even calls the cops on herself to try to establish an alibi (plan: blame it all on Warner).
👉 Noah saves the day by stabbing Lindsay before she can finish the job.
👉 But don’t worry — Lindsay survives long enough to go to prison for life.
🧐 But Wait... What About Those Plot Holes?
📌 Van battery dying mid-drive?
👉 Super unlikely. A battery doesn't usually just quit while you're driving, even if tampered with. And how could Lindsay plan exactly where the van would die?
📌 Lost without cell signal = lost forever?
👉 GPS directions don’t stop working when you lose signal — if your route’s loaded, it’ll keep going.
📌 The signal bar that never mattered?
👉 At one point, Claire notices Noah’s phone flash a bar of signal before it disappears. If that happened, someone’s phone should’ve received the flood of pending texts. But... crickets.
💀 Final Verdict: 3/5 Stars – A Fun Ride If You Don’t Look Too Close
One by One kept me turning the pages, but when I stopped to think about it... yikes.
✅ Great tension, fast pace
✅ Entertaining twist
❌ Logic and realism? Not so much
📚 Other McFadden Thrillers I’d Recommend Instead:
📌 The Housemaid – Buy it here
📌 The Coworker – Buy it here
📌 Never Lie – Buy it here
🛒 Grab Your Copy of One by One:
👉 Buy One by One by Freida McFadden on Amazon
💌 Subscribe to my blog for more spoiler-packed, honest reviews — I’ll tell you when it’s great and when it’s nonsense.
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