I'm Halfway Through The Coworker and I Have Questions About the Turtles
I'm Halfway Through
The Coworker
and I Have Questions
About the Turtles.
Freida McFadden has surprised me with every ending she's ever written. This time I want to guess right. So I'm stopping at the halfway point, documenting every theory I have, and asking the most important question: is Dawn setting all of this up, or is she just a woman with a very committed turtle hobby?
Freida McFadden Has Never Given Me What I Expected
Let me establish my credentials before we go any further. I have read enough Freida McFadden to know that the person you think did it did not do it. The person you feel sorry for is probably the villain. The detail that seemed ridiculous in chapter three is the key to the entire plot. I know all of this. I have been here before. I have been wrong every single time.
So when I tell you I am stopping at the halfway point of The Coworker to write down my theories — knowing full well that Freida is going to read this from her house, laughing — understand that I am doing it anyway. Because this book is doing something I did not expect: it is making me laugh. Not in spite of the thriller elements. Not accidentally. Deliberately, specifically, in ways that keep making me stop and reread sentences to confirm that what I just read is what I think I read.
"I picked up a psychological thriller. Somewhere around chapter six I thought: is this also a comedy? And then I thought: has Freida McFadden written a comedy disguised as a thriller or a thriller disguised as a comedy, and does the distinction even matter when both are working this well?"
Dawn, the Turtles, and the Specific Energy of All of It
Dawn. We need to talk about Dawn. Dawn is the coworker — the one who brings homemade lunches, cares deeply about her turtle collection, sends emails with excessive exclamation points, and generally operates with the energy of a person who is either completely oblivious to how people perceive her, or is one of the most calculating characters Freida McFadden has ever written.
The turtles are the detail I cannot stop thinking about. The turtles are not incidental. No writer mentions turtles this many times incidentally. Whether they are a symbol, a distraction, or a direct plot device, they are in this book with purpose. The question is whether the purpose is comedy or devastation or — and this is the Freida McFadden special — both at once.
Here is my issue: Dawn could be read as a victim of Natalie's meanness — someone who is genuinely sweet and eccentric being mistreated by someone more socially powerful. That is one reading. The other reading is that Dawn knows exactly what she is doing and the turtle hobby and the excessive cheerfulness and the whole presentation of herself is a very specific kind of armour. Freida McFadden is expert at characters who are not what they appear. Dawn feels like a master class in that technique.
Either way, the turtles are having a moment and I am here for it.
Natalie Is Not a Good Person and That's the Point
One of the things I appreciate about this book already is that Natalie — our narrator, our apparent protagonist — is not particularly sympathetic. She is not kind to Dawn. She has made choices that are hard to defend. She is cheating on Caleb with her boss. She is, to be blunt, participating in the situation she finds herself in rather than simply being a victim of it. This is classic McFadden — the narrator whose unreliability comes not from lying but from self-serving interpretation of events they are genuinely complicit in.
Which means that when things start going wrong for Natalie, the question is not just who is doing this to her but also what exactly did she do to get here. Those are different questions with different answers and right now, halfway through, I have theories on both.
THE SUSPECT BOARD
📌 Live theories · Compiled at 50% · Subject to catastrophic revisionThe warmth is too consistent. The cheerfulness under provocation is too steady. Nobody maintains that level of bright-eyed goodwill while being treated the way Natalie treats Dawn unless they have a very specific reason to stay close. The turtles are a personality that was constructed, not grown. I do not trust a single exclamation point.
🔴 Primary SuspectNatalie is cheating on Caleb with her boss. Caleb is — as far as we can tell — not fully aware of the extent of it, or is aware and has not yet acted on it. Either version of Caleb has significant motive. A man who has been betrayed and is quietly watching and waiting is considerably more dangerous than one who is visibly angry. The quiet ones always are in these books.
🟡 Strong MotiveAny time a workplace affair features prominently in a psychological thriller, the person with institutional power is worth watching. He can protect himself in ways Natalie cannot. If this situation becomes a liability for him, the most efficient solution does not necessarily involve her wellbeing. Currently the least suspicious, which in a Freida McFadden book is practically a confession.
⚫ Watch This Space⚠ NOTE: In every previous Freida McFadden book I have read, the person I put in the "Primary Suspect" position at the halfway point has not been the answer. I am aware of this. I am putting Dawn there anyway because the turtles are too much. I accept the consequences.
The Comedy Question: Is This Intentional?
Yes. I am now confident the comedy is intentional. The absurdity of the turtle detail, the specific way Dawn's enthusiasm is written, the gap between how Natalie narrates her own behaviour and how that behaviour actually reads — all of it is too precise to be accidental. Freida McFadden is doing the thing where the horror and the comedy come from exactly the same place, which is the gap between how people see themselves and how they actually are.
This is, now that I think about it, the same technique she uses in all her best work. The Ward — the dark humour running underneath everything. The Nurse's Secret — the absurdity of the situation played completely straight by the protagonist. The Coworker is doing this too, but with the comedy dialled up in a way that feels new. Dawn's earnestness is genuinely funny. The turtles are genuinely funny. And the funniest detail of all is that none of it is reassuring. The funnier it gets, the more certain I am that something terrible is coming.
"The turtles are funny until they aren't. That's the McFadden signature. By the time you understand why the turtles mattered, you will not be laughing."
My Official Mid-Point Theory
Dawn is not who she appears to be. She has been watching Natalie very carefully for longer than Natalie realises, and the persona she presents at work — eager, warm, slightly odd, entirely harmless — is something she maintains with considerable effort because it serves a specific purpose. What that purpose is, and what Natalie did to trigger it, I do not yet know. But the turtles are involved somehow and when I find out how, I am going to feel either very clever or completely humiliated.
Caleb is my backup theory. A man who knows he's been cheated on and says nothing is not a man who has decided to let it go. He is a man who has decided to wait. The question is what he is waiting for.
Have You Read The Coworker?
Do NOT spoil it in the comments. But if you want to be cryptically smug about how wrong my theories are, that is actively encouraged. Also: did the turtles make you laugh or did they make you nervous? Because they made me both and I need to know if that was the correct response.
☕ Part two — the full verdict — coming when I finish the book. Subscribe so you don't miss my humiliation.SEO: the coworker freida mcfadden (800/mo KD 1) · freida mcfadden books (66,000/mo KD 4 TP 35,000) · the coworker book (200/mo KD 0 TP 2,000). Slug: /culture/the-coworker-freida-mcfadden-mid-review-theories
