Freida McFadden is the queen of the popcorn thriller with lots of loyal fans. What did I think of her latest AND what’s the deal with the Barnes and Noble “Exclusive Edition?” Here’s my Spoiler Discussion for The Teacher by Freida McFadden with a full plot summary.
The Teacher by Freida McFadden
Published on February 6, 2024 by Poisoned Pen Press
I read The Teacher in February 2024
My Quick Take on The Teacher
- Very plot-driven, as this is a thriller you can read in one sitting!
- Loved the shoe fetish. Also, the shoes reminded me of the turtles in The Co-Worker. Which reminded me of the turtles in The Last Mrs. Parrish.
- The Barnes and Noble “exclusive” edition has a couple chapters of a future book, The Boyfriend and a short Q and A with Freida.
- Readers are VERY divided about the twists; so vote in my poll below!
Your Main Questions About the Teacher (discussed below)
- Did Eve know who “Jay” was?
- Did Jay know who Eve was?
- How was Hudson able to pick up Addie and Eve, and did he figure out the two pickups were connected?
Full Plot Summary/ Synopsis for The Teacher by Freida McFadden
The book starts Big Little Lies-style, with a prologue shows a person digging a grave. Whose grave and who is digging? You’ll have to wait and find out!
Everyone thinks Nate and Eve are in love, but Eve really loves shoes
Nate and Eve are high school teachers who have been married for eight years. But Eve lies to Nate about her expensive new Jimmy Choo pumps and seems dissatisfied with their relationship.
It’s the first day of a new school year and Addie, a student, is worried about a scandal from the prior year.
Eve talks to fellow teacher Shelby (who is wearing low budget Nine West pumps lol) about how Addie got a teacher named Art fired.
Addie eats lunch with a fellow student and they discuss the school’s power couple: Kenzie and Hudson, who is Addie’s former friend.
Eve goes to a store called Footsie and looks at Christian Louboutin pumps. She starts to shoplift them, then reconsiders.
Addie gets a note from her English teacher, Nate Bennett, asking her to see him after class.
Eve runs into Art Tuttle, and he warns her that her new student Addie is “troubled.”
Nate tells Addie that her poem is a lyrical masterpiece. Oh Addie…
Addie steals Kenzie‘s keys, then goes to the literary magazine meeting led by Mr. Bennett.
Eve and Nate aren’t that happily married
Eve tells Nate she’s “going out with a friend” but really she’s putting on her Manolo Blahnik boots so she can hook up with a shoe salesman named Jay. They go at it in the storeroom, surrounded by boxes of shoes.
Nate wants Addie to submit her poetry to a competition.
It’s Eve’s 30th birthday. Of course she has to decide what shoes to wear.
We also learned that Addie‘s father was a drunk who died after falling down a flight of stairs.
During Eve‘s birthday dinner, she and Nate fight about Addie. Nate thinks Art is a creeper, but Eve thinks Addie plotted to get Art fired. Thankfully, Eve’s lover, Jay, has left her some Sam Edelman red patent leather pumps as a present.
Kenzie pranked Addie by filling her locker with shaving cream, but Hudson helps her clean it up.
We also learn that Addie‘s father fell down the stairs after a shoving match with Hudson.
Kenzie accuses Addie of cheating on their math test. Eve Bennett wants to get the principal involved.
Addie uses her keys to go inside Kenzie‘s house.
Nate convinces Eve to give Addie a zero on the test instead of reporting her.
Nate Makes a Move on Addie
Of course Nate tells Addie that his marriage is over and that he feels a connection to Addie. They are SOULMATES. Of course she falls for his cheesy flattery.
Addie and Nate make out, then he drives her home. He arrives home all fired up and sleeps with Eve.
Addie and Nate have written (bad) poems for each other, which is foreplay. Yes, they start a relationship.
Eve sees Addie lurking in their backyard. Again, Nate tells Eve not to go to the principal.
Addie admits that she lied about Art Tuttle, who didn’t do anything wrong.
Eve realizes that Addie‘s actually stalking Nate, not her. She sees Nate and Addie kissing and realizes Nate is cheating on her with Addie.
Eve tells Jay about Nate’s cheating and Addie‘s lying. She gets drunk, and when Nate comes home, she tells him she knows about him and Addie. Eve asks for a divorce, and he agrees. She also wants him to resign as a teacher. He tells her she’s a drunk who hoards shoes (partly true.)
Nate also asks Eve if she told anyone about his relationship with Addie, and she says no. But Eve mentions that she took a picture of them kissing, and I think that’s when Nate decides he has to kill her.
Nate tells Addie that if Eve were dead, they could be together.
Addie shows up in Eve‘s kitchen. Eve accuses her of sleeping with Nate.
Addie says that she and Nate are in love, and hits Eve with a frying pan. Then Addie unlock Eve‘s phone and calls Nate.
Nate arrives and makes a plan: he’ll buy a train ticket on Eve‘s phone, pretend she went to New Jersey to visit her family, then they will bury her.
While Addie is getting bed sheets from upstairs to wrap Eve in, Eve wakes up. Nate asks her if she remembers what happened. Eve says Addie hit her with a frying pan.
Wrong answer! Nate strangles her.
Nate drives his car with Eve’s body in the trunk. Addie follows in Eve’s car. They’re going to leave Eve’s car at the railroad station and bury her body in a pumpkin patch.
Addie and Nate starts digging the grave. Nate claims he forgot to get Eve‘s purse out of the trunk, and needs to go grab it. (This is not true, because Addie finds the purse and buries it with Eve.)
Nate doesn’t come back. Addie finishes the burial and calls Hudson for help.
Addie tries to contact Nate, but he has deleted his messaging account.
Nate calls the police and mentions to them that Eve caught Addie cheating on the test and that Addie was stalking Eve. He’s a bit surprised to find a pair of dirty blue pumps in his kitchen. And then a bird.
The police show up to talk to Addie, who realizes that Nate is going to deny everything.
The police tell Nate that they think Addie had something to do with Eve’s disappearance. A new pair of shoes shows up in Nate’s mail, covered in dirt.
The police come talk to Addie, telling her that Nate is trying to convince them that she’s a mentally unbalanced stalker.
Kenzie shows up at Addie‘s house. She says she knows about Addie and Nate.
She then tells Addie that she and Nate have been sleeping together since freshman year. And that the bad poem was written for HER.
Kenzie and Addie go to the police and tell them everything.
What Was the Ending of The Teacher by Freida McFadden?
Nate drives back to the pumpkin patch to make sure Eve is actually dead. Someone hits him on the back of the head.
Eve was actually buried alive, but she was able to dig out of the grave. She also found her purse (which had her phone in it) and called Jay to pick her up. They are the ones who planted the shoes to taunt Nate. They hit Nate with a rock and bury him alive.
Addie and Hudson are friends again. Eve Bennett leaves town.
Freida McFadden is known for her twists, so ….
What’s the big twist in The Teacher?
Twist One: Jay is actually Hudson. If you’ve read Freida McFadden books, this is one of her favorite twists: the person who is actually someone else. But I still didn’t see that coming.
Twist Two: Nate’s bad poem wasn’t written for Addie or Kenzie.
Nate wrote it for Eve when he was her teacher and she was his (15 year old) student and has been (presumably) recycling it ever since.
Spoiler Discussion for The Teacher by Freida McFadden
Please leave any and all questions or corrections in comments and we will discuss! Here are the top questions from the comments (which you should read!)
ONE: Did Eve know that Jay was Hudson, since he is a student in the suburban school where Eve teaches?
I think the book suggests that no, Eve didn’t know who Jay was. Eve is a first person narrator and mentions that when she first went into the shoe store, the salesman “looked familiar.” She refers to Jay as her “shoe salesman lover.”
COMMENTERS SAID: But is it PLAUSIBLE that Eve did not realize “Jay” is sixteen year-old Hudson? He’s a football player at the school where she teaches!
It’s unclear how old Eve thinks Jay is.
- The book says that Hudson, a football player, is taller than Nate.
- Eve seems to think Jay is in a relationship and has a baby. She is annoyed that a woman keeps calling him and mentions resentfully that Jay is going back to “her.” I don’t think she’s thinking “Mom.” At one point she calls the caller (Hudson’s mom) “another woman.”
- I really don’t think she knows Jay is a student at her school.
Also, this is a clever way that McFadden protects her twist, as we assume that “Jay,” like Eve, is cheating on his partner.
But what do YOU think? A commenter made the point that Eve was groomed and abused by Nate, so maybe she became an abuser herself.
What do YOU think? Does Eve know who “Jay” is? Please vote below!
TWO: Does Jay know who Eve is?
He must! He gives her a fake name, which is my best argument. Otherwise, why would he just not use his real name? Then again, “Jay” is what the football team at school calls him, so it’s hardly a secret name.
I have no proof because he is a character with no POV.
THREE: Many commenters have said they found the underage relationships creepy.
I agree that it is 100% wrong for a teacher to get involved with a student. Remember, Art got fired when Addie lied and said he was inappropriate with her.
Many states have criminalized teacher/student relationships, even when the student is over the age of consent. If anyone knows the law in Massachusetts, tell us in comments.
BUT, as Nana points out in comments, Eve is not Jay’s teacher.
In addition, the teen characters in the book are all over the age of consent when the story takes place. In Massachusetts that’s how old you need to be to get a learner’s permit to drive. Both Hudson/Jay and Addie mention that they aren’t supposed to be driving at night without an adult in the car under the terms of their permit. I found this kind of funny: they are worried about breaking the permit rules, but not about murdering people and burying them alive!
Still, I think if it came out that Eve had been sleeping with any student at her school, she probably would have been fired and/or faced public scorn.
Nate did get involved with Kenzie when she was a freshman (and Eve when she was fifteen) so both of them were legally underage at that time.
Does learning that Nate was also Eve’s teacher and they had a relationship when she was underage. make you more sympathetic to Eve?
I also noticed clues that I’d missed. Eve’s estrangement from her parents and their obvious dislike of Nate.
FOUR: Who is the narrator in the prologue?
Several of you asked in comments, and it’s a great question.
I assumed it was Addie, and I think it was based on what she says and what happens later. To me, it sounds like she got left to dig by herself and is trying to hurry and finish. I think Jay stayed and helped Eve out!
FIVE: How can Addie calls Hudson for a ride home from the pumpkin patch, and then Eve call Jay for a ride the same night? Hudson and Jay are the same person!
I thought this was a great question, so I went back and made a timeline:
After school: Addie lets herself in, gets confronted by Eve, and hits Eve over the head. Nate arrives home and strangles Eve. They wrap her up and make their plan, which is to drop Eve’s car at the train station and then drive Nate’s car, with Eve’s body in the trunk, to a pumpkin patch.
Evening through early morning: Addie and Nate dig and dig and dig. This obviously takes some time. After the hole is finished, Nate vanishes. Addie waits a while, tries to contact him, finishes burying Eve, and covers her up.
Did Addie move Eve’s body into the hole by herself? Earlier in the chapter she watches Nate carry the body, thinking how big and strong he is!
3:00 am: Addie calls Hudson for a ride. He mentions tells her it will take an hour to get there to pick her up, and as she says he arrives 48 minutes later, so 3:48 am, and they head back.
During this time, Eve is (presumably) digging herself out of the hole.
4:30 am: Presumed time that Hudson drops Addie off. She mentions that fifteen minutes before he drops her, his phone buzzes, probably with Eve’s snapflash message mentioned below (so around 4:15 am.)
Almost 5:00 am: Jay calls Eve back (she says it was twenty minutes after she messaged him, so 4:35?). Then he has to drive the 45 minutes to get her, arriving around 5:20, and drive back AGAIN.
So yes, this is technically possible, though poor Jay spends over three hours driving back and forth from a pumpkin patch in the middle of the night.
Someone mentions in comments that Eve walked a bit to find a signal. Presumably she’d walk closer to home, but with no signal she could have walked in any direction. Still, I think the timeline works!
SIX: What did Hudson/Jay know about Kenzie’s relationship with Nate, and her own attempted murder?
First, Hudson picks up Addie from the pumpkin patch. She’s presumably all dirty and sweaty. Then, right after that, Jay picks up Eve from the pumpkin patch, Eve is probably even more bedraggled and covered in dirt. He can’t think this is a coincidence.
But Eve decides NOT to mention that Addie was involved in her attempted murder. She just tells Jay that Nate tried to kill her.
SEVEN: Some readers have said that they found all the characters pretty unsympathetic, if not terrible.
Nate: a serial groomer and sex abuser.
Eve: a bit quirky, like the main character in The Coworker. And I was laughing at the descriptions of how unattractive she was with her stringy hair and gangly limbs. And that she says she thinks Addie looks a little like her. But I had to give Eve credit for pushing through after being hit over the head, buried alive, then strangled.
Addie: lied about her teacher grooming her and got him fired, lies about her father’s “accident” (or murder.) I really wish her father’s “accident” had been explored more.
Hudson/Jay: did he know Kenzie was sleeping with Nate? He knew how Addie’s father died. Hudson feels underused in the story just to keep his identity hidden.
Did you think this was going paranormal, with the references to Edgar Allan Poe and the dirty shoes showing up after Eve was dead? I was getting “Telltale Heart” vibes.
What’s the deal with the Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition?
It has a couple of chapters from a future book, The Boyfriend.
Then a Q & A with Freida where we learn:
Her favorite character in this book is “Jay” because he’s “ride or die.” I guess? He is nice to Addie even though she’s unpopular. And spends three hours picking up stranded women from pumpkin patches.
How Freida comes up with twists: the suspects are A, B, C, and D. But the killer has to be E. (Or “J” haha…)
What did you think? Though a fun read, The Teacher will not rank among my very favorite Freida McFaddens. What’s my favorite? The Wife Upstairs, which I will do a post about soon! What is your favorite of her books?
A plot point I’m thinking about also is that, assuming the prologue is written from Addie’s POV, she mentions she doesn’t understand why a grave needs to be 6 ft deep, so maybe she only dug a few feet then stopped? Also, later on we learn she ended up filling the rest of the grave with leaves rather than dirt, which inadvertently saves Eve’s life as a big reason why she was able to dig herself out of her grave was because it wasn’t all dirt above her (and also maybe she wasn’t as deep as 6ft). Addie even mentions in the epilogue if she didn’t use leaves, things could’ve ended up differently for Eve. So my question/thought is this: did Addie know Eve wasn’t really dead? or maybe had a feeling it was a possibility?
That is an excellent question.
I do think the prologue is Addie because it fits with everything else.
Addie does seem to think Eve is dead. She asks Nate to confirm and then defers to Nate’s opinion.
As for the burial, right after Addie puts the leaves on top of Eve, she goes to try to find Nate (maybe to help her finish digging?) This suggests she used the leaves to hide Eve until she found Nate. But then she realizes he ditched her and calls Hudson instead. That is sort of her turning point with Nate when she realizes he’s a terrible person. BUT she doesn’t go check on Eve either. If she thought there was a chance to save her (and blame Nate,) she might have done that. So maybe she does think it’s too late and Eve is gone.
You’re right – the shallow grave is necessary so that Eve is able to survive. Nate ditching Addie is completely in character for him, as he’s terrible, AND makes the twist of Eve’s survival possible.
I read it over and Eve was groomed by Nate when she was his student. (The original poem was written for her not Kenzie) That’s why at the beginning of their relationship he was all over her and now in the book he never wants to have sex since he prefers young girls. It isn’t the same for Eve as Nate when she went for someone younger to me because I feel she got messed up by Nate. Just my 2 cents.
Yes, agree with all that. Nate is a classic predator and Eve was definitely his victim.
Besides being victimized by Nate and estranged from her parents, the rest of Eve’s behavior doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. She has an affair because her husband seems uninterested in her. I am on Team Eve didn’t know that Jay was a teenager. I really don’t think she knew that the relationship was wrong besides the fact she was cheating.
Did it occur to Eve that Nate has been preying on a new crop of girls? I’m not sure.
Can someone explain to me who is the nurse in the end of the book and who s she referring that she put them to jail?
Hey and welcome! Happy to help. Can you tell us which chapter or page you saw that part because I don’t remember anything about a nurse. Book amnesia, sorry. But will look it up if you tell me where.
sorry I just realized it was the first part of another book of hers “The inmate”, since english is not my first language i got confused, thank you, the book was really great im looking forward for the next one!
No worries at all 🙂 I’ll try to get to that one soon!
I felt really dumb not getting that Hudson was the same person as Eve’s Jay. Even when Addie mentioned the baby brother in the epilogue, I was thinking that Hudson’s dad must have been having the affair with Eve. Then I started second guessing myself when Addie suggested Hudson had been seeing someone and then I realized Freida meant he was seeing Mrs Bennett.
Also, I don’t think Addie lied about Mr Tuttle. As our narrator she says she told the truth about him during the investigation. I think the veil of suspicion was on Tuttle and a lot of people didn’t believe that nothing happene because they did have a close relationship and Addie was arrested on his property.
I didn’t see the Hudson twist coming at all either!!
Not sure why Nate married Eve. He’s so alienated from her by the beginning of the book, and he seems like such a psychopath and an opportunist, it just doesn’t make sense. He waited to marry her, theoretically maybe he believed the soulmate bs he spouted with her, but the way he so casually threw away Kenzie and Addie (and framed her for murder) shows he’s cold and calculating. It would have made a little more sense has he gotten Eve pregnant, but an 8 year old wandering the book might have been difficult to get around.
True! Maybe he was into Eve when she was younger and then decided being married made him seem safer so he could carry on with his bad behavior….