The Things We Do To Our Friends by Heather Darwent is a dark picture that just gets darker as the book wears on. It was difficult to get into but when that passed it became a nightmare. It is not my kind of book and I am not sure I can give a fair review for that reason. I didn’t like it at all. It was relatively well-written and the plot was good, if not appealing. If a reader loves physiological thrillers, this might be the book for them. It was not for me.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of The Things We Do To Our Friends by Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine, through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #Ballantine #HeatherDarwent #TheThingsWeDoToOurFriends

Clare came to Edinburgh looking for a new life. Now that she’s enrolled at St Andrew’s, surrounded by smart people of every set, she thinks she’s ready to make friends and forge a bright future for herself. But she also knows she has to be careful about whom she lets into her inner circle. She needs the right people, the glamorous people, even as she tolerates her much more down-to-earth roommates and, eventually, colleagues at the bar she works at in order to help make ends meet.

Tabitha and Imogen – and soon the rest of their charmed circle – seem to be exactly whom Clare is looking for. Both art history students like herself, Tabitha is dazzlingly beautiful and self-assured, while Imogen is her clever, crafty shadow. As Clare ingratiates herself with the pair, she is introduced to their other close friends. Samuel is a louche man-about-town, while Ava is aloof and cosmopolitan. Soon, to Clare’s great relief, they’ve included her in their group. A grateful Clare is all too happy to do as they bid her:

QUOTE
[I]t seems odd how easily I went along with it, but you must understand, finding Tabitha and the rest of them hadn’t changed things entirely for me. I still woke up some mornings wanting to claw the skin off my face sometimes when I looked in the mirror. I would sit there and practice a natural-looking grin, or I’d frown and see the furrows in my brow. But being with them made me feel like I was part of something. I craved them when I wasn’t there with them. When I saw them look toward each other and share secret glances, I was desperate to be involved. When I heard someone talking about them, I felt almost drunk on the sense of superiority that came with being who we were.
END QUOTE

The more entangled Clare becomes with the Shiver (as she silently calls them, after a grouping of sharks,) the more she gets swept up into Tabitha’s machinations. For Tabitha has her sights set well past graduation and life in Edinburgh. Her plan for securing the Shiver’s future requires Clare to be their missing piece. Even as besotted as she is with her new friends, Clare hesitates… until it’s made clear that at least some members of the Shiver know about the past she’s spent so much time and effort trying to obscure.

At first, the plan doesn’t ask too much of her. But when things go wrong, and the Shiver’s efforts to right things make everything go from bad to worse, Clare finds herself trying to escape the very people she’d spent so long trying to befriend. Worse, all the impulses she’s worked so hard to tame come roaring back:

QUOTE
It’s the sense of being wronged. When I think that someone has mistreated me, it’s not something I can forget and move on from. It was manageable at that point because I had worked hard not to let things affect me like they used to. I could rein it all back in with my carefully formulated tricks. There was no one to punish anymore.
END QUOTE

Alas for her self-control, she’s now been wronged once more. Caught between her so-called friends and her freedom, what will Clare do in order to forge her own path into the future?

There were a lot of interesting ideas going on in The Things We Do To Our Friends, Heather Darwent’s debut novel. I’m a sucker for books about toxic female friendships, especially with a dark academia setting. Ms Darwent brings an imaginative blend of jet-setting glamor and sheer grotesquery into her tale of college relationships gone awry, with the added bonus of Clare being anything but an ingenue sucked into a dangerously alluring whirlwind. Clare has her own awful, closely held secrets, that may be the only things that allow her to survive the clutches of a sociopath in this unique melange of a novel.

Love academic settings and felt the twists were well timed and quality! I enjoyed the focus on friendship vs love… unique in the thriller field!

~i judged a book by its cover & i didn’t like it~ (Katy Perry voice) 🙃🥲

guyyys. this cover is so beautiful!! I had high hopes for this one, but it sadly missed the mark for me.

Clare heads off to college, hoping to find a new group of friends. it doesn’t take long before she becomes engrossed in a small clique with a charming, eccentric girl named Tabitha leading the pack.

taken under Tabitha’s wing alongside the rest of the group, Clare feels as though she can finally move forward & forget about her mysteriously ominous past. that is, until Tabitha & the group lure Claire into their “special project”, one that brings back haunting memories of Clare’s former life & threatens to reignite parts of Clare that she’d prefer to keep under wraps.

so where to begin…I guess we’ll start with the beginning 🙃 I think the first chapter of this book added to my general dislike bc it SUCKED ME INNNNN. the scene depicted was vivid & suspenseful without giving too much away, but enough to think that the rest of the book would follow suit in its eeriness.

for me, that was not the case. it felt like 80% of the book was spent going through the making of this quirky friend group & how they would spend their time together, leaving the last little bit of the book for an explosion of suspense & action; but that really never came. I’m all for slow burns & developing characters, but at some point we need a little oomph to keep us intrigued!

we definitely get some psychopathic tendencies in this book among a few other dark scenes & harrowing plot developments, but the overall general consensus was that I felt bored reading most of this. even the suspenseful parts were uneventful. perhaps if there wasn’t so much leading up to it, the climactic parts of the story would have been more worthwhile, but I feel like whatever was being foreshadowed for so long should have been INSANE. & it just wasn’t.

as with any book, there are some good reviews for this one that I recommend you read to see if it’s for you (I just personally don’t recommend it lolll) 🙈

thanks to @netgalley for my #arc! this book hits the shelves today!!

I loved the concept and the creativity of the plot of this book. The beginning started off with a bang and I just knew it was going to be dark. In theory, it seemed like it would be a book for me, but unfortunately, I struggled with the writing style. I can’t place where the issue was, but I had trouble keeping up and I got a little lost at times. It was a little hard to follow and I had to read over a few parts more than once. I also, couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I couldn’t find a single redeeming quality to latch onto. I’ll definitely read more from this author, I just don’t think this one was for me.

I loved this one! Dark academia and toxicity? Yes, please. Friend groups are always captivating to me and this was no different. This book is moody and disturbing but the writing flows so well, it was easy to read in one day.

✨this was more like a 3.5/5 for me, but there were more things that i liked about than things that were just okay for me so i am rounding up to a 4!

✨this book is for the dark academia girlies, the psychological thriller girlies, etc. i don't want to compare this book to others too much, but i am sure if you enjoyed the secret history or if we were villains or in my dreams i hold a knife, then you will find something to enjoy in this book.

✨what initially drew me to this book was synopsis and the sense that this book was going to be about the most messed up, obsessive, toxic friendships one can have. and this book delivered! toxic friendships are hard to create with originality (in my opinion) because they tend to be based in jealousy and insecurity, and that plot can only go so far most of the time. i think the things we do to our friends had a great mix of insecurity in our protagonist Clare, who always desperately needed friends but tended to be a bit selective in her choices, and how once she was able to find Tabitha the need quickly turned into a bit of an obsession.

✨without spoilers, some things that i felt like this book lacked were mainly in the way that the chapters were formatted that affected the way that i read the book. there are chapters that are inserted from the present, as our main story takes place in the past, that threw me off and also spoiled the ending for me a bit. i think i would have rather not known what was going to happen in the end until i got to the end. i also wish that those chapters into the future were labeled as such because at times it was just jarring.

✨again, with no spoilers, i am also not a huge fan of the ending of this book. i think the idea surrounding the ending it one of my favorites in the dark academia/psych thriller sphere but the execution fell a bit flat. some bits felt underdeveloped, some felt disjointed, but there were pieces of the puzzle that were wrapped in a tiny bow that i did like.

✨i think the fact that i do have so much to say about it is an indicator for the fact that it made me think and feel something, which is why this is more of 3.5 than a solid 3. I liked the book, I'm interested to read more from this author, and I would definitely recommend this to any dark academia stan because this was really a great new spin on some of the more conventional story plots in those types of books.

✨thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group / Ballantine for allowing me to read this eARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Things We Do To Our Friends was a dark and twisty thriller. None of the characters were particulary likeable, but I enjoyed the novelty of the story.

The novel starts in France with three girls torturing and killng a man. We then jump to Edinburgh Scotland and Clare who has come to the city to escape a dark past and go to University. She gets a job at a local bar and meets a group of wealthy fellow students led by glamorous mean girl Tabitha. Clare longs to be a part of their rarified world. She befriends Tabitha, Imogen, Ava and Samuel and they all start a not quite legit business together, then the cracks appear and then tragedy strikes.

Even though none of the characers were very likeable, the story held my interest and kept me guessing. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in an escapist thriller to while away and evening.

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Ballantine and the author for the chance to read and review this book.

A deeply unsettling and sometimes difficult read, I was mesmerized from beginning to end. The introductory chapter set the tone for what was to come, and successfully made you *think* you knew something about what was going to happen, but ultimately surprises you. In fact, this book was full of twists and turns. Definitely for fans of The Secret History or Other People's Clothes, this story examines the darkest parts of ourselves and especially our friendships. The overall feeling is tense, like you're always on the precipice of something, and while none of the characters are particularly likable, they are compulsively interesting to learn about.

The main character, Clare, is swept into a new friend group at her art school in Edinburgh. Think she has finally put her dark past behind her and moved into a new chapter, she settles in. But the friendships turn wicked and twisted, and she realizes that darkness is not only in her past, but comfortably settled into her present and future in the form of rich art school students with lofty expectations of her.

I enjoyed the darkness at the heart of The Things We Do to Our Friends. There’s an underlying insidious feel to Clare and the group of friends she makes when she heads to university. They are the unlikeliest of friendships; toxic and dangerous with a deviousness that is truly shocking.

While this is a slow to start thriller, it’s well worth the time it takes to build up the story. Each character is unlikeable, unreliable and I couldn’t help but feel the menace seeping off the pages as the story progressed.

Deeply atmospheric with a darkly menacing presence, this is a slowburn thriller that I’ll be recommending to fans of the genre.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group for this gifted DRC.

An outsider with a dark secret wanting to fit finds a place to belong at the University of Edinburgh.
Clare is looking to start over, to reinvent herself. She wants to leave behind her disturbing past and pave a new path. She enters into a friendship with a wealthy circle of friends. But will this be the new beginning she wanted, or will there be a cost to pay for such a friendship? Will their games be fun? What price is there to be paid?

First off, the cover of this book is beautiful!

This book did not work for me. I struggled with it. This book is dark (which I don't mind) yet slow. I have a hard time with books on the slower side. This is not the author's fault but my personal preference. The characters were not likeable, and their relationships were toxic. Even with unlikeable characters, I tend to find something that grabs me and sucks me in. I just could not connect with this book. I do appreciate how the author showed an unlikeable character finding other unlikeable characters. Like attracts like as they say.

Others are enjoying this book, so please read their reviews and decide for yourself.

The opening chapter had me really excited. It’s a only a few pages and yet it was delightfully twisted, with the opening paragraph having me thinking one thing might be happening only to have that belief flipped completely by the end of it. It was quite the tease which is why I was a bit disappointed when story began in earnest. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that writing or the story being told is bad…it’s just that the shift was so jarring, like being on a wild rollercoaster only to suddenly take a turn and find yourself on gentle carousel ride. Both enjoyable but completely different experiences. And as such the true start of the novel and the early first third or so of the book, where we are first being introduced to Claire as she starts school, gets her job in the bar, and begins her friendships just felt a little slow by comparison to that opening tease. And I have to say that while I thought the story was decent and the characters interesting, that initial shift in pacing and intensity just threw me and I never quite recovered, though there were some decent twists and a solid ending. I’d like to thank Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of The Things We Do to Our Friends.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1AHID1399O121/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

A darkly dizzying literary thriller about identity and reinvention, isolation and friendship, and how far one young woman will go to be part of the in crowd.

The Things We Do To Our Friends is marvelous for about two thirds of the book before it starts, just a bit, to lose its grip. Really, it's so close to being a genuinely fantastic book, but it’s just got these gaps and lacunae in some places that don’t let it quite reach the ambitious heights (or depths?) it could go, and unfortunately the resolution doesn't totally live up to the promise of the first half or so. Even so, it is absolutely a rich, intoxicating read, and a truly exciting debut. Still, as with being on the outside or inside the social circle, there's a narrow but unbridgeable gap between great and *perfect*.

Thank you to Bantam for the advance review copy!

The prologue was dark and so intriguing. But after the first 3rd of the book it was a bit slow and but the ending picked up and was just as interesting as the prologue.

I am a sucker for a dark academic focused mystery that involve a clique of friends keeping secrets. This book was beautifully written and in a way that sets it apart from most psychological thrillers. This is worth taking a chance on.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Things We Do to Our Friends had a darkness that I should have anticipated but was still surprised by. Set-up as an almost "privileged coming of age story" while skirting around the vestiges of dark academia, the story of Clare and her newfound university friends is a quick read. I enjoyed the bite-sized chapters, particularly in relationship to building the tension surrounding Clare and the friend group she acquired upon starting university. The ambiguous morality of Clare, Tabitha, and the rest of the friend group, as well as the activities the group took up as a primary plot point, drove the story forward but still felt flat at points.

As a freshman novel for Darwent, the Things We Do to Our Friends, is a quick read that is easy to digest in a few sittings. However, I thought there was room for more reflection on the characters, their personalities, the easy dislike we should have of them as a reader. On the positive side, I thought the prose of the story was lovely and made the novel palatable.

I hated all the characters in this book except maybe lonely, sad Finn. Does that mean I hated the book? Absolutely not! It was a creepy, terrifying, layered, young adult suspense debut without a single good character. I feel like everyone deserves what they got, but Claire didn’t get enough which definitely made me mad. Sometimes you need to have an author bring out extreme negative emotions so that you feel and think about the meaningfulness of their book. She certainly did in The Things We Do To Our Friends.

Clare arrives in Edinburgh, Scotland alone and trying to reinvent herself. She attends University there and meets Tabitha, Samuel, Ava and Imogen. Clare is immediately drawn to the group and soon becomes fully immersed in their lives, when Tabitha reveals a project that she’s been working on and needs Clare’s help. When things take a dark turn and Clare realizes what her new friends are capable of, is it too late?
This was a dark story about obsession, belonging and toxic relationships. There were really no redeeming qualities in any of the characters but I liked it. 😂The writing was great and kept you wanting to read more to see where everything was going. 4 ⭐️ thank you NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine publishing for an ARC copy!

Oooooh this was a tough one to rate so I'll put it middle of the road at a *3.5*.

There were lots of things I liked about this book and lots of things I didn't like. A few of the things I did enjoy was the academic setting and I did like the friendship group. I thought everyone was so different that you could easily see how they all would be attracted to each other; something in everyone that they don't have themselves. Now this is certainly a toxic friendship group and not just between main character, Clare, and the group. I main leader of the group Tabitha is pretty rude to them all but they all treat it as a shrug of the shoulders, 'that's just how Tabitha is'. Umm no, someone needs to call her out. There is def conversations of obsession and the title of the book is SO FITTING!! I did appreciate a few of the plot twists, I probably could've seen them coming if I'd been paying more attention and truly trying to guess it. But the characters go with the flow, so I was too. This book does have some dark parts, though not as dark as I was thinking and def not as dark as I was hoping for. Comon Heather, I know you got it in you!! HAHA!! The prologue was the best part of the book and though it came back around, it was to little to late in my opinion. I thought the pacing was a little strange, we'd get peaks of intense scenes and then it would cut to a different time period and then it would slow down. I was also expecting more of a slow burn to high intensity rather than the choppiness we got. Now with all that I will say; when the parts were good, they were GOOODDD!!! I would still say this is a solid debut from Heather Darwent and I think she's def one to watch and I can't wait to read what gets published in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine/Bantam books for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Campus setting✅
Unreliable narrator ✅
Secrets in the past/present✅
Creepy setting✅

All the thing I love in a thriller and decent writing. This was a fast paced read for me. I finished it in 24 hours. Nothing new but done well enough I didn’t care. Comes out tomorrow. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. 3.5