Combine Pretty Little Liars with The Secret History or The Bequest and you have The Things We Do to Our Friends. Beyond the dark but beautiful cover is a twisty thriller about a young woman escaping a dark past and looking for a fresh start at university in Edinburgh what what she’ll do to fit in with a new fascinating group of friends. The tight-knit pack of students Clare nicknames The Shiver (a pack of sharks) - beautiful and captivating Tabitha, sly Ava, aloof Imogen, and charming Samuel - invite Clare into their inner circle. Before too long, she been drawn into their power games and dark web of lies and secrets. Before too long, Clare is out of her depth with their wicked and immoral plans, that are a shocking parallel to her own dark past. When tensions boil over and secrets come to light, who will be left standing?

I was drawn to this book because of the beautiful cover art.
This is the author's debut novel.

Clare is a college student in a new town, desperate to escape her past and to create a new future for herself. She befriends Tabitha, a rich girl who she meets in art history. Clare seeks to reinvent herself with the help of Tabitha. She becomes friends with Tabitha's friends and begins to enjoy the perks of her wealth. She becomes enveloped in Tabitha's "honey trapping" business and soon realizes they are in over their heads.

What I liked:
-juxtaposition between the haves and have nots, rich vs. poor
-how easy it is to get in over one's head when it comes to money and status
-interesting premise - dark academia
-rich people behaving badly

What I disliked:
-while the premise was interesting I felt that the story advanced slowly for a thriller
-I had trouble staying invested in the story, it took me 10 days to read while I usually am a 2-3 day book reader

Yikes! With "friends" like these.... a fast paced, what-is-going-on kind of story with interesting characters, The Things We Do to Our Friends will keep you reading to find out what will happen next!

Heather Darwent’s “The Things We Do to Our Friends” is a psychological thriller primarily told from the point of view of Clare, a university student ready to leave her dark past behind and start a new life and identity in Edinburgh. While bartending, she meets fellow art history students Tabitha and Imogen and is eventually invited into their world of privilege and eccentricity. She meets Tabitha’s other companions Samuel and Ava and becomes further involved in the “shiver of sharks” and their toxic relationships and wild business schemes.

Clare longs for friendship, but there are two sides to it in Tabitha’s beautiful, enigmatic circle. On one side, there is companionship, a feeling of belonging, and a sense of self-importance; on the other, co-dependency, deference, and personal debts. Clare slowly starts to realize the darkness she was trying to escape has entered her life once again... or maybe it’s always been there.

Darwent has come up with a very intriguing premise and is good at describing environments, however the characters fell a bit flat for me. For example, it’s difficult to get a sense of Clare’s true personality—even when she’s doing terrible things, she seems oddly passive. Other characters aren’t fleshed out well either so their words and actions sometimes come off as hollow. I feel like this novel would be best suited for new adult readers wanting to try the genre, as overall it’s an interesting enough novel.

Thank you to to NetGalley and Bantam for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. My review was posted online to Goodreads on January 2, 2023 here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4846942535.

I thought this was going to be another by-the-numbers rip off of The Secret History - an outsider comes to college and gets swept into a clique of fascinating yet sinister students - but, to its credit, The Things We Do To Our Friends forged its own literary path.

I’m just not sure I liked the direction.

It took me at least the first third to really get into the story because there is way too much exposition. Once the scheme at the center of the plot started to unfold I was hooked, but the ending took such a sharp turn, it lost me again.

I’m all for unlikeable characters and unreliable narrators, but I was never interested in any of the characters all that much and the dynamics between them were told much more than shown.

Read if you like: unlikeable female characters, revenge, Heathers, foie gras

I wanted to love The Things We Do to Our Friends -- the cover is gorgeous, and it utilizes some of my favorite tropes in fiction: a dark academic setting, toxic and obsessive female friendship, a dangerous clique of invincible, gorgeous people.

What we have here is a familiar story: A young woman with a dark, secretive past moves to a new place for a fresh start, only to be drawn in by an intoxicating group of people with devious ambitions that swiftly spiral out of control. When Clare arrives at the University of Edinburgh, her intention is to keep her head down, stay invisible, and focus on her art history course. But when a classmate named Tabitha takes an interest in her, Clare can't help but be captivated and flattered, and it isn't long before Clare is firmly enmeshed in Tabitha's sophisticated, glamorous, carefree world. When Tabitha enlists Clare's help on a "special project" that could ensure a secure future for Clare in her new life, Clare reluctantly agrees. But Clare's new friends may know more about her past than they're letting on...and as the project goes further, Clare must decide how far she will go to keep her secrets.

The Things We Do to Our Friends is a gorgeously written book. Debut author Heather Darwent's prose is hypnotic, intimate, and evocative, with a flow to the writing that made me want to keep reading, even though this one is definitely a slow burn. But unfortunately, there isn't a lot of substance behind the stylish storytelling, and a book that had so much potential fell flat.

The prologue was incredibly uncomfortable and disturbing, and I thought I was in for a treat. But for a book that takes on several scandalous topics and includes a handful of graphic scenes, I was missing an edginess, a seediness, a willingness to really go there in the narrative. The way everything unfolded felt very passive and sanitized to me. A narrative that should have felt forceful and full of rage instead came across as lifeless and lacking an emotional punch.

This novel felt like it had no beating heart. Although they are well-described, I never felt like I got a sense of who any of the characters really were -- including Clare herself, who narrates the book in the first person. I love an unreliable narrator, but I felt like Darwent held too much of Clare back -- and so when Clare finally does start to reveal some hidden truths, it doesn't feel realistic or organic to her character. And speaking of unrealistic -- the entire "special project" itself came across as absurdly unbelievable.

Darwent explores several relevant themes in her debut: toxic and co-dependent friendship, reinvention of the self, ambition, obsession, vulnerability and the incredibly human need to belong. The Things We Do to Our Friends is well-written and sophisticated, but uneven pacing, some unrealistic plot elements, and the lack of a cohesive narrative arc made it just an okay read for me. Thank you to Bantam Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

It took me quite a bit to get into The Things We Do To Our Friends. For the longest time, I couldn't figure what the book was about--was this dark academia (yes though not too much really happens in the setting of the university)? Was this about toxic friendships (certainly yes but what was up with all these power dynamics?)? What did Clare do in the past (this was told too late in the book for my liking)? It mostly confused me until maybe the last quarter of the book when everything finally unfolds. It had the potential to be the moody dark academia thriller I expected it to be but it ended up being strange and a little bit flat.

I came for the dark academia vibes, toxic friendships, and gothic Edinburgh location and was not disappointed. Though the beginning is disturbing to the point I almost didn't continue, I soon got sucked into Clare's story and struggle. Full of unlikeable characters (something I personally love) and a slow burn plot (also love), this psychological thriller may have taken me a little longer to read that I might normally like but the payoff really worked for me. I will absolutely recommend this book to readers interested in psychological creeps and dark academia.

This was a creepy, chaotic little read. Clare is recreating herself at college in Edinburg after an incident in France. After settling in, she quickly transitions from outsider to part of of a strange, tight-knit group of friends with a golden girl, Tabitha, at the center. They start a business together, helping wives prove that their husbands are cheating and things quickly begin to go off the rails in a series of twists and turns. Overall, I thought this was an okay read -- the story was compelling enough, it took a long time to come together and wasn't as satisfying of an ending as I had hoped for.

This was an unexpected read for me but I ended up enjoying it for the most part. It had just the right amount of suspense to keep my interest and keep the story entertaining. I enjoyed the characters and enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what the author comes out with next as I will most likely pick it up.

This one was so unexpected in all of the best ways. Likee truly go into this blind and also this cover is already a top cover of 2023.

The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent is a so-so debut psychological thriller.

Clare is attending the university in Edinburgh, Scotland while reinventing herself. She has changed her name and hopes to distance herself from her past while studying art history. After she finds a job at a bar, she notices Tabitha, a rich privileged young woman, and her group of friends. Soon enough Clare is drawn into their group and Tabitha reveals a project she and her friends have been planning.

The characters are all unbelievable, unreliable, and unlikable, which I could go with but they are also undeveloped beyond the surface traits. Simply put they are all caricatures of a type and none of them are portrayed as realistic individuals. There were plenty of red flags to avoid this strange, annoying group of people and never any compelling reason presented for Clare to want to join them.

Honestly, I struggled to finish this novel but pushed through hoping the ending would redeem it. Adding to my lack of motivation to finish reading it was the uneven pace and very slow start. Sure, the opening grabs your attention, after which the pace is akin to a leisurely stroll until later in the narrative. When the excitement finally does pick up, it is still uneven. I realize I'm an outlier on this one, but the plot could have been better planned out and tightened up considerably. The twist at the end did not help. Perhaps this is more of a new adult novel and one I should have avoided. Gorgeous cover, though. 2.5 rounded down
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Bantam via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

This book was extremely engaging, suspenseful and hard to put down! Twists and turns kept me on my toes! Highly recommend it!

Clare moves to Edinburgh to attend college, aiming for a fresh start to her life. She is clearly a young woman with a dark past, and she has moved away, changing her name, in the hopes of keeping her personal secrets secret.

Clearly a misfit, and uncomfortable around the other History of Art students, she is eventually drawn to an unusual group of students. Tabitha, Ava, Imogen and Samuel - a very close-knit group with expensive tastes and secrets of their own. Clare becomes a member of the group - the Shiver of sharks as she calls them.

When Tabitha suggests a 'project' for the group to become involved in, Clare is drawn in, unable to resist the call of being part of the group, despite a nagging doubt that things are not as they seem. When it becomes clear that one of the group knows about her past, she is frightened - and yet goes along with the project.

I came away from the book with a sense that all of the main players in this novel were damaged, psychopathic in behavior at times and deeply disturbed. It took me a long time to read the book - which is unusual for me - because while I wanted to know what happened, I really didn't like any of the characters and wasn't particularly invested in them. I found Clare's behavior incredibly naive.

I just don't feel this was the book for me.

I DNFed this book at 51%. The beginning flashed forward to a later event that was so intriguing and a bit disturbing - I wanted to dive in to get to that part of the story! However, the more I read, the less involved I became and the more obvious it became that it would be a long time before I got to the “full circle” moment that made the beginning make sense. The pacing seemed a bit off to me - every time I got excited or more intrigued, the book didn’t keep up that momentum in my opinion.

You may like this book if you like…
- slow burn thrillers
- mysterious characters
- dark academia
- dramatic friend groups
- an odd MC with a hidden past

Thank you Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Edinburgh, Scotland is full of mazes. It’s the perfect place to hide. Clare is all alone and finds that this is the perfect place to hide and reinvent herself. She yearns for a new start and finds it when Tabitha pulls her into her exclusive circle. The cost of being a member of this exclusive group though is much too much. This is a story of obsession, fitting in, finding yourself at the costs you will go to be included.
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Thank you #bantam and #netgalley for and advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

This suspense novel is a great read for fans of dark academia stories with a side of outsider fiction and a healthy dose of examining the intricacies of toxic female friendships. A slow-burn with a satisfying payoff.

This book has a very sinister and dark vibe. After a slow start I really got in to the storyline, wondering what this quirky group of friends were up to behind the scenes. They are very secretive and keep newcomer Clare guessing where she fits in. Clare has her own dark history and is trying for a new start at school when she meets the elusive friend group and wants to fit in at any cost. The things that this group do are really dark and twisted which leads to a belief that they are all psychopathic and seem to feed off of each other and their leader Tabitha, who they all worship in a strange way. I was expecting more of a surprise at the end, but it was good book!

The writing was great but the writing of the actual story was ineffective. I read multiple books at once and, whenever I put down this book, it was the last book I chose to resume. It's a skimmer after a certain point. It drones on and on.

Interesting premise but another one I couldn’t really get into again. It was well written but not anything unique or super able to draw you in!