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

Disgusting, gripping, revealing, and shocking, Darwent’s twisted tale of friendship will leave you hungry for more and desperately pleading for it to stop.

This masterpiece of social horror is available January 10 from Ballantine Books. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

No one is who they seem to be in this twisty book about a group of friends who meet up in college and form their own insular group. While I overall enjoyed it, the story felt a bit forced. The twists didn't seem natural and the characters didn't feel authentic. And while perhaps the characters were meant to be a bit on edge, having them all be that way was a little too much for me. Add to that the odd pacing of the book and the result was a read I couldn't get completely engaged with. I liked the premise and overall plot but wish maybe more time had been taken with parts to flesh out the story and characters so that they felt more natural.

This book is a tough one for me to review. Honestly, I wish I liked it more than I did. I really, really liked the idea of this book. It felt like a million other thrillers at the start of it all: a shy girl goes to a "fancy" school, and then gets swept up with popular girls. But this book took a few unexpected turns that really surprised you. That said, the execution was way too rough and muddled, and it honestly failed to stick the landing for me. The problem is the POV, honestly. It wanted to take us down one lane and have us see the main character through a specific lighting, and then shock as you read it. But then it just made the entire book confusing and convoluted, and made the main character too weird to feel real.
The things this book did well was the few shock value moments. A few of them worked incredibly well. But the author tried for at least 3 too many. A few of the shocks felt too silly to be worth your reaction in context with the overall novel. Then a few were trying to do something, but in the end made you feel like "well of course this happened, why didn't you use this as an opportunity to flesh out the character more." It almost made me feel like the author wanted to have certain characters see certain things that were wrong for what was really happening, but then expected the readers to take their statements and points of view as fact. And they just weren't really hitting for me.
Overall, this is a thriller with a few better twists than most. I was expecting more gothic horror and was disappointed when that didn't happen

This book follows Clare as she settles into college and trying to make friends with a popular group she has become enamored by, while hiding some secrets from her past.

I was drawn to this book because of the gorgeous cover. I wanted to love the book, but unfortunately I just could not connect to any of the characters. I found Clare to be unreliable and overall unlikable which is tough when she is the main character. The story was a bit of a slow burn and I wish the pacing was a little better. Overall I thought it was a good debut and I would pick up another book from this author, but this story did not captivate me the way I wanted it to.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

To be perfectly honest, I am not sure what I can write that won't give some part of this away. The twists were twisty, the reveals surprising, and all of the characters were unsympathetic. I really enjoyed it!

This is probably going to be considered a literary masterpiece and it would be well-deserved, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. The book was slow and difficult to get into for me. I frequently fell asleep halfway into a chapter, which were fairly short, but just didn’t hold my attention.

Clare moves to a new town to attend university, determined to create the life she dreams of, which centers around finding the “right” friends. With her eye on Tabitha, Clare ingratiates herself into the group until she’s in so deep it’s impossible to get out unscathed.

I do think that a lot of reading on the reader’s part has to do with mood and emotional/mental state, so maybe I would have liked this book more at another time in my life. I can definitely relate to the feelings of wanting to fit in and trying so hard to make yourself “fit” with the crowd you think you should belong to, and Clare’s moments of knowing she was being too much but unable to stop herself. The plot was a little crazy but intriguing, and I loved the lens that it put friendships under – really digging into the convoluted bonds of loyalty.

This book is just as much about friendship as it is about self-worth. So often, we allow our self-worth to be dictated by the people in our lives, especially our friends. These girls were all clearly a bit unhinged. which begs the question: what is the cost of friendship, and how far would you go to keep it?

The Things We Do to Our Friends is the definition of a psychological thriller. It was a wild ride from start to finish. Main character Clare is a bit of an unreliable narrator. It took me a long while to figure her out. The prologue is utterly insane and I wasn't sure until about midway through the book, how exactly it ties in. Hints are dropped throughout which definitely kept me reading on the edge of my seat but I can say that I was honestly surprised how the story ended. Actually, I was surprised at what the story ended up being about. Excellent debut from Heather Derwent.

I was immediately drawn in by the cover but I slogged through this one. I would read some and then forget about it for days before picking this book up again. It has a catchy first chapter but slows down after that. Tabitha is the definition of a "user" - I'm not sure how her clique didn't realize this immediately. I definitely would have noped out right after meeting her. Clare's past was the most interesting part for me and I wished there was more about her shady upbringing. If you're in the market for a dark and sinister psychological suspense than this might be for you!