The beauty in this story is that what you think is happening in the beginning... is absolutely not what you get in the end. 'The Things We Do To Our Friends' is raw violence written with a poetic magnetism, and I loved every deliciously twisted potentially-psychopathic part of it.

A SHORT PREVIEW:
Reading through the lens of a fractured psyche is always incredibly compelling, and Heather Darwent's debut novel 'The Things We Do To Our Friends' was no different for me. Somewhere between stories like The Talented Mr. Ripley, Gossip Girl and The Roommate (with Leighton Meister), we're presented with the story of a college girl desperate to fit in. Clare finds herself alone and friendly desperate to reinvent herself after a questionable past. But cobblestone streets, fresh faces, and the lure of becoming whoever you want to be aren't enough for Clare. She wants to fit in.. and after meeting the 'right' group of seemingly unspoiled rich girls, she thinks she's found her home. Home, however, means something far scarier than it should.

WHAT I LOVED:
- The seduction of this story. So much about each section of this book is written to seduce the reader. Your senses are lulled because of how characters are portrayed.. and then all of a sudden.. you read that someone is slipping the thinnest piece of glass out of their pasta that had been intentionally placed there... its beautifully grotesque and almost bordering on horror. (That's one of my favorite ways to read about violence by the way. Nothing flashy, nothing loud. Just malice for the sheer malice of destruction and the symphony of impending collapse. It's poetic really.)
- The way the author wrote about struggles to fit in. I don't think there is a person between the ages of 8-25 out there who doesn't, on some level, feel that they're just not doing life quite right. Having it written out on paper - what it feels like to be friends but just a step away from all the others.. if you're that person, Darwent's writing is a balm to the soul.
- If you read psychological thrillers, you'll notice that a common literary device is seamless equivocation for misdeeds on the part of the deranged. Not all authors accomplish this with the same level of finesse? I think Darwent did an exceptional job settling us into the madness just short of accepting the motivations of the main characters! I think that's truly what I enjoyed the most -- just how close I found myself to rationalizing psychotic behavior?!

FAVORITE QUOTES:
- "When I was allowed out, I’d always go back downstairs and watch them edge around me like I was about to explode. A week later I would slip a piece of glass into my mother’s food. A long and slender shard, glistening in the sauce around her pasta. Not to hurt her, just so she had to fish it out.". - WHAT?! The burgeoning violence of a psychopathic child is so seamlessly written here!!! *chefs kiss*
- "I needed to find friends who were going to make me the best version of myself, and they already had that ease with each other that felt so natural. I slotted in." - Looking for a specific type of person to surround yourself with is a marker of immaturity that many of us can relate to - especially in those highschool/college years.

NOTES:
- If you like any kind of obsession story - this is a great read!!
- Character-driven
- Jumping Timeline
- Psychological thriller
- Partly a Coming-of-Age read
- Single POV / First person narration --- later leading into the unreliable psychopathic narration that I didn't realize I was reading at first. (Reminds me of the psychopathic narration in Liars Annonymous that I read earlier this year!)
- TWs: Abusive parents ( It's incredibly difficult to fit in with one's peers when the influences one was raised with weren't conventionally normal, pretty, etc. Fill in whatever adjectives you want, but this book will cause you to be highly introspective!!)

**I received this book as an advanced reader copy, but all reviews are my own. - SLR

Clare moves to a new city to start over. She needs to make friends there, so when she meets Tabitha in an art class, she is introduced to Tabitha's friends and begins to feel like she has found her new beginning. Then Tabitha tells Clare about a project she is working on and although it is something Clare does not feel comfortable with, she goes along with it to keep the new friends she has made.
This mystery book has an interesting plot.
I thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

DNF at 25%. There just wasn’t enough happening to keep my interest and it felt like by that point the story should’ve picked up more and it just didn’t.

Less a university novel-although set at the University of Edinburgh- than a tale of secrets, lies, and toxic friendships, This starts with a pow and then wiggles a bit toward the end which is also dynamic, Clare has a secret- she's relocated from Paris to Scotland and is trying to remake her life. When she meets Tabitha, she thinks she's found a friend but what she's found is a manipulator. Clare's past becomes known, the group engages in bad behavior, and, well, no spoilers. Claire comes off as naive, especially given her background, but that hypes up the tension. for the reader who can guess what's coming, Thanks to netgalley for the ARC, A good read.

I wanted to love this book so much. The cover and the synopsis sold me. It was a slow burn and it was rather boring even after it picked up. I know for sure I was not the audience for it, I know a lot of others liked this book, and I was all for what these friends were plotting, it was seriously interesting up to a point, I was expecting more. Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

After reading the description of this book, I was looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately, once I started, instead of finding a seductive thriller set in a brooding city, what I found was a dull and plodding story about boring college students. After 30% I simply couldn’t take any more. That far into the story I needed a reason to continue and there simply wasn’t one. There was whining and obscure hints but nothing that made me want to keep reading.

My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and honestly review this book.

"Things We Do to Our Friends" by Heather Darwent hasso many twists and turns I was completely turned inside out! It's rare that I enjoy a novel whose characters are all thoroughly unlikable, but this impressive debut won me over with its character development, elements of surprise, and intriguing plot.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this book, in exchange for my honest review.

I feel like a bit of a [redacted] dumping all my “I don’t really know how to articulate my feelings” reviews onto here in the same day.

But oof. This book was boring. I say that coming off the heels of quite a few dark academia novels (and let’s be honest fics) this year, and even though I don’t compare as a rule, I couldn’t help but spend the whole book thinking “I’d rather just re-read Bunny” and I didn’t even like Bunny all that much if I’m being honest.

Thanks bantam & Netgalley for the ARC. I’m sorry I didn’t get more into it

I'm sure this kind of writing style has a niche somewhere.
Unfortunately, as interesting as the premise for the book was, I could not get on with the writing style. That means I was not the intended audience for this book, though I sincerely hope it finds it's audience and readers.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley. More of a slow burn and less of a thriller. The build-up did not match the ending at all. The cover is more intriguing than the story.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book drew me in but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

This book reminded me of The Sex Lives of College Girls mixed with Heathers and the Secret. History. Darwent is an author to watch. This book will top many best of 2023 lists. Highly recommended.

The Things We Do to Our Friends is a pyschological thriller/dark academia book set mostly in Edinburgh, Scotland. Clare is a college student who gets mixed up with a dangerous crowd. I can't say much else about the plot because there are a lot of twists and turns. It definitely kept me on my toes the whole way. The characters were interesting and surprising.

This is an unusual book. It's quite good, but not really for me. It's certainly what I'd characterize as a slow burn and a character study. Clare is a student in Edinburgh and looking to shed her past and reinvent herself. It's unclear why this is for a long while, only that she's desperate to fit in and maybe not the best judge of character.

She falls in with a new group led by Tabitha who has a 'project' she wants the group to work on. Once that plan is revealed the story takes off but things also start to get quite odd. For me, I never really knew if Clare was troubled or naive -- until the very end -- which made it hard for me to know how if I should empathize with her or not.

I'd say the story is about reinvention and revenge and exerting power over other people. It was an engaging read and I think many will find it engrossing, but it wasn't quite for me.

This book was very interesting. I went back and forth on this book. I did not like any of the characters except for Finn who was pretty minor. These characters are horrible but I believe that is the point. We aren’t supposed to like them. The author did a great job trying to get us to like the main character but you always know something was off about her and the friends she made, so you never really do. Even Finn understood that on some level.

There weren’t too many twists in this book. I knew I wasn’t getting all the information and I kept waiting for the big twist or the big reveal but once it came it was a little anticlimactic for me. I had already figured most of it out.

All in all this books was well written and the uncomfortableness you got from the characters was great. I thought the this was a good debut (I think this was a debut novel) and I would read this author again.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow this was super dark and creepy. Well written game of intrigue and manipulation. Great characters that kept me hooked.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

The Things We Do To Our Friends is labelled a psychological thriller compared to Dark Circles by Caite Dolan-Leach’s Dark Circles. I did not see much of a comparison to this book, nor did I really get any dark psychological vibes from it. I had higher hopes for it and while I did keep reading, I unfortunately did not find myself wanting to pick the book up again after putting it down. Clare is an outsider trying to find her way after living through a scandal and being disowned by her parents. Ultimately, this is a peculiar tale of toxic friendships and the lengths one can go to hold onto them.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bantam/Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Clare has had a difficult childhood and is harboring a deep secret, but now she is set to reinvent herself as she starts college in Edinburgh. Working in a local pub, she becomes fascinated with some other students she meets there who, in her view, seem to have it all. Desperate to be accepted, she clings to them, even going along with an unsavory “project” they propose. To what extents will she go to be part of the group?



This debut novel is dark, touching upon obsession, toxic dependency, the effects of poor parenting, and what I would view as mental illness. The language is evocative, especially when describing scenes such as Edinburg in January. It is well plotted, but I just didn’t take to any of the unlikable characters or their stories. I read the book quickly just to get through it. By the end, I felt like, “so what?

This was just an ok read to me. The storyline was an interesting one but it just fell flat. I think it could've been at least 25% shorter, some parts just dragged on and I was ready to call it quits a few times. The characters are all despicable which maybe is the point? But there are characters that are written that you love to hate and none of these are those. They were just miserable characters. Unfortunately this just didn't do it for me.

Well-written and different from other books I’ve read in this genre. I really enjoyed the atmospheric setting and the cast of characters you love to hate. Great debut!