The Things We Do to Our Friends is an atmospheric (sometimes dark) read with twists and turns and a pace that keeps you turning the pages.

The book is compelling and well written and delves into toxic female relationships and is full of secrets and the wanting to belong.

I cant forget revenge.

Clare is not the nicest person and yet you cant help but feel empathy for her.

The Things We Do to Our Friends is a great debut that I wont soon forget and I am looking forward to seeing what Heather Darwent has in store for us in her next book,

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine , Bantam for an unforgetable but good read.

Clare is ready to leave her old life and dark secrets behind to start school in Edinburgh. Soon Clare is drawn in by Tabitha and her group of loyal friends. Clare is eager to be their friends even if it takes her down a dark and twisty road that she thought she left behind. Schemes and plans are soon hatched and Clare is in too deep to get out.

This was one of the most unusual books I have read in a long time and I mean that in a good way. I enjoyed knowing that I didn’t know what was coming next. Everything from the locations to characters were dark and broody and I loved every minute of it.

Clare is new to the university life in Edinburgh but is doing her best to fit in with the others. Until she comes into contact with Tabitha, a beautiful rich girl who has a close circle of friends. As Clare does her best to make herself part of the group, she’s slowly brought into the plots and schemes of Tabitha, including a secret project that they need Clare’s help with. But by the time Clare realizes that she’s gotten involved with more than she bargained for, she also discovers it’s too late to back out, especially since it seems that Tabitha has learned about her hidden past.

This was an interesting read that wasn’t quite what I expected. It ended up being less of a thriller or a mystery, but more of a portrait/character study of Clare. This wasn’t a bad thing, and I found it to be just as fascinating. However, it was a very slow burn and took plenty of time to build up to the unsettling and more suspenseful parts of the work. The author excelled at creating a darker and moody atmosphere, which added to my enjoyment of this work.

The characters left me wanting more. Aside from Clare, they felt relatively interchangeable for most of the first half of the work, and even after we got to know them better, it felt as if they were lacking much real depth, development, or personality. It was almost as if the author gave them each a couple of personality traits, then left it at that. I did mostly enjoy the way toxic relationships was examined in this work, though there could have been a bit more of an exploration and emphasis on that aspect.

Overall, I did enjoy this easy read and recommend it to those who are interested in slow burn somewhat suspenseful reads. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for allowing me to read this work, which will be published January 2023. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

3.5/5

What a strange read this one and my experience with it overall was odd as well. My feelings were mixed the entire time I was reading it and I flipped back and forth between being interested in these toxic and obsessive relationships and then being kind of bored. There were so many times I wondered where the whole thing was going and wondering if it would be worth my time in the end and I’m still not sure if I have a straight answer to that question. I did like parts of this bizarre tale and I always like when an author veers into dark and dangerous territory but there were aspects of the plot and the characters behavior that just frustrated the hell out of me. So overall I’m somewhere in the middle here, but I would definitely read more from the author because some of the darkness was pretty good.

Wow, "The Things We Do to Our Friends" by Heather Darwent is an intense, dramatic novel. A group of college girls, drawn to dysfunction, dark, revengeful actions, team together, with much conflict and unrest, to create an interesting venture. This book was certainly unsettling and unique! Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the early reader copy. All opinions are my own.

The cover is gorgeous, the writing is great, but the characters are utterly unlikeable (perhaps intentionally so).

Her descriptions of the locations are beautiful and poetic:

“The land up close had a sharpness to it, as if someone had taken one of those undulating hills and torn chunks from it, bitten off sections hungrily, stripped it to the bone to reveal craggy rocks and water and marshland. The peaks stretched up away from the road, like we were buried deep in the valleys.”

However, the characters and the storyline just left me feeling gross and depressed. I struggled to finish the book, even though I think the author is very talented.

I would be interested in reading books from her in the future, but this one missed the mark for me.

Thank you to #netgalley for this ARC of #thingswedotoourfriends

I was very excited to read this one, but despite an intriguing start, it just didn't work for me.

The redeeming qualities to the characters are pretty non-existent. I don't mind unlikeable characters, but the destructive codependence of the friend group was more annoying than intriguing. There were suggestions throughout of why Tabitha was so captivating and had so much sway over the group she created, but it just didn't ring true to me.

The story moved along slowly and at times seemed disjointed. You would get glimpses of the "business" activities of the group, and hints of our main character Clare's past, but it didn't come together in a satisfying way for me in the end.

I tore through this beautifully written dark and haunting book in no time. Narrated mostly by an isolated student at uni who in 2005 is now going as Clare, who spends hours practicing her tone, pitch and delivery so as to mask who she once was. This is girlhood drama at its utmost.

The story takes place mainly in Scotland and France, shifting back and forth between Clare's friendship with shark-like Tabitha, Imogen and Ava at the University of Edinburgh and with her more innocent childhood friends Adrienne and Dina who she went through a horrible ordeal with. This book is about fitting in, power dynamics in friendship, bad parenting and about struggling with consequences; also it's a mystery that comes together quite satisfactorily in the end. I loved everything about this wicked story, can't wait to read more by Heather Darwent.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: January 10, 2023
Clare is an outcast, hoping that a fresh start at a university in Edinburgh will give her what she craves- friendship, and a sense of belonging. When she meets Tabitha, charming, beautiful and exceptionally rich, Clare is surprised that Tabitha seems so willing to welcome Clare into her clique. But Tabitha’s friendship comes at a cost. Tabitha knows things about Clare’s past that no one knows, and Clare must cater to Tabitha’s seemingly careless whims or else her entire future and everything she’s tried so hard to forget will be thrust into the spotlight.
Heather Darwent’s debut novel, “The Things We Do for our Friends”, is a powerful look at toxic female friendships, the desire to belong, and, above all, revenge. Creative and masterfully written, Darwent’s novel is unique and addictive, bringing the dark side of friendships into the light.
Right away, it is evident that Clare has secrets. Although right at the beginning, Darwent gives us a snippet as to Clare’s past, it is just enough to keep the reader invested. Throughout the remainder of the novel, Darwent slips us breadcrumbs, slowly feeding us tidbits of Clare’s disastrous childhood, her cold and unloving parents, all leading up to the “event” in France which Clare works throughout the novel to keep quiet. It is an epic cat and mouse game between Darwent and her readers, all concluding with a gripping and shocking finale.
Clare is not exactly likable, but she’s definitely relatable. Awkward, eccentric and considered “odd” by mostly everyone around her, it is obvious why she is so susceptible to Tabitha’s spell. Each and every one of Tabitha’s “shiver” (as in, a shiver of sharks, which is how Clare refers to Tabitha and her group of friends) are vapid and deplorable, yet they still manage to create sympathy, and to generate a genuine concern for their outcomes. Each chapter is relatively short, told completely from Clare’s side of things, with easy to follow flow and a unique writing style. Add to that my favourite setting (Scotland), and Darwent’s debut novel is one not to be missed!

I was transfixed by the description and cover of The Things We Do to Our Friends, without any real expectation for the novel. That being said, Heather Darwent completely knocked my socks off with this one.

Everything from the locations -- moody Edinburgh, dilapidated houses in the South of France -- to the characters, especially the main characters Clare and Tabitha -- I could not put this one down!! It really has the quintessential "be careful what you wish for" sentiment, with a bunch of twists and turns along the way. A great book to cap off the year!

Our main character goes away to Glasgow for college, where she wants to reinvent her life. She meets an intriguing group, not unlike Richard finding his friends in The Secret History.

I enjoyed this story, but never quite connected with the main character. The twisty plot never really felt particularly twisty, but overall I think it was a fun read.

Dark academia and toxic friendships are usually hits with me but this one fell flat. I wasn't invested in any of the characters and it felt very surface level to me. The writing was good and felt more literary than thriller to me. If you liked The Secret History this might be one for you.

Definitely one of the strangest books I've read in a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I suppose the only turn-off - and it's a slight one - is that it took longer than it probably should have to confirm what I suspected almost from the beginning.

But the learning process was an intriguing one despite almost totally unlikable, unrelatable characters - starting with story narrator Clare, a beautiful woman who appears to be in some kind of exile in Scotland to escape serious transgressions in France. In school at Edinburgh, Clare meets Tabitha, a beautiful, rich and totally annoying young woman (or was it that Tabitha meets Clare - whatever) and her small cadre of snobby friends. Clare is both repulsed and drawn to the fiercely loyal group, especially Tabitha, but for the most part her distaste turns sweet when she's admitted to their inner circle.

The bond becomes even stronger when Tabitha decides that they'll start a business - a big-money "project" that turns the group into, well, you'll have to read it to find that out. Despite misgivings all around - except for Tabitha - they all go along with the plan, because, well, what Tabitha wants, Tabitha gets. Readers, though, get only limited glimpses into their activities - I'd love to have been privvy to more - but most of Clare's recollections focus on her and her interaction with the others. Interspersed are hints as to how horrific her youthful transgressions really were and what the ending holds; those who pay attention will have a pretty good idea what that is by the time they get there. Overall, it's a well done debut novel and a treat, I think, for those who enjoy head games. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent is a dark academia book that has a lot of promise and atmosphere.

The desire to have what is seemingly desirable, possibly in reach (but never really is, like tantalus's grapes) is a powerful theme in this debut that blends ambition with what can only for me be called chaos faux friendship.

It's an ode to all things The Secret History and brings to mind recent books such as Ware's The IT Girl, Henkel's Other People's Clothes, and Barasch's A Novel Obsession (so if you liked those recent reads this one is for you!).

The book falls short though for me in comparison to The Secret History (a personal favorite read) as the book leans into mood and style and the uneasy feeling that a book/character isn't grounded and is floating through bad decisions/poorly reconciled actions without really developing the draw of the circle of friends ("friends") that Clare yearns to join. There is also limited placement of the story/characters within an academic setting; Tartt's Secret History manages to blend the messiness of academics and college and young adulthood effectively but this book doesn't for me hit that mark. I wanted less moodiness and style and more development of Tabitha and Clare, more cat and mouse, less codependence.

It has the promise though and for me these themes of obsessive friendship and secrets and darkness always remain such a draw.

Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. This one was a very slow burn, which is not my thing. I need more excitement in the first half, or I'll never get into it.

Thank You to NetGalley, Random House-Ballantine for an eARC. Unfortunately this one just wasn't for me and I DNF. I will definitely give the author another try though.

Disclaimer: I was invited by Random House to review this book.

Unfortunately, I have to DNF at about 19%.

The first chapter was amazing! I wished the rest of what I read held that same energy. Instead, it felt like I was strolling through someone’s life who would over-describe some situations and doesn't provide enough descriptions for ones that need more.

There are hints of something happening in Clare’s (the main character) past, but at this point, we should have been given a kernel of information. The slow burn involved with this novel was taking too long to keep us under a blanket of vagueness.

I didn’t get far enough for the characters to bug me except for Clare who judged everyone but wanted to be in the group with those she judged.

This one was a very slow burn, which is not really my thing. I need more excitement in the first half or i'll never get into it. I liked the Cruel Intentions type vibe, with the creepiness, darkness, and people generally just being bad but wish the pacing was a bit more fast.

I wanted to like this one so badly. The cover, the setting (I've been dreaming of going back to Edinburgh every since I went in 2018), the campus setting. Maybe I'm getting tired of psychological thrillers, but I found myself not wanting to pick it back up when I put it down (which was often). I probably should have DNF'd it, but I really wanted it to work for me. If you decide to read this one, go in knowing that even though this takes story focuses on college students, there is very little atmospheric academia that the premise make you think there will be.

The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent is an electrifying thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It follows university friends as they struggle to survive in a world of deceit and manipulation. The characters are so well-developed and the plot is so suspenseful that you won’t be able to put it down. The story is full of twists and turns and you will never know what’s coming next.