The Things We Do To Our Friends has the most fascinating friend group that I’ve read about in ages. Imagine the plastics from mean girls only somehow crueller and more pretentious.

We follow Clare who’s planning on starting her life fresh when she becomes enamoured with Tabitha and her circle of friends. Tabitha has big plans and with The Shiver, you’re either all in or you’re out. I adored the setting, this is the first book I've read about university students that actually felt like they were in university - even though not much of the story revolves around the uni. Every student has this grand idea that their friend group is special, that others notice and envy them. The Things We Do To Our Friends perfectly captures and then shatters that idea.

My only problem with the book was that the buildup was so good I felt slightly underwhelmed by the conclusion. I believe a lot of this is due to reading fantasy and sci-fi where truly atrocious acts are a given. I’d be horrified if anything in this book actually happened to me. I would love a glass of champagne on the roof though!

When a book promises to be as dark and mysterious as this cover suggests, I am definitely going to want to pick it up. I was expecting some dark academia mixed in with some kind of fairytale-esque wickedness (although I knew it wasn’t a fantasy) but I’m afraid I found it to be a bit of a slog.

Clare arrives in Edinburgh with a desire to reinvent herself. So, when she meets Tabitha, a rich art student and university Queen Bee, she feels that she may have found her place amongst Tabitha’s circle. But Tabitha has a business idea that she needs Clare’s help with. A business idea that might put Clare back in trouble, similar to the type of thing she’s already running from. But these friends are capable of anything and they won’t let anything get in the way of what they want.

University is often seen as a fresh start and clean slate for everyone, so relating to Clare is easy at first. We know she has a dark past and we expect that we’ll discover it at some point. As the story developed, I guessed part of Clare’s secret but I don’t think I could have imagined the true extent of it. This isn’t some run-of-the-mill teenage drama and I did find it hard to suspend my disbelief. I thoroughly disliked Clare by the end of the book, causing me to do a U-turn quicker than I’ve ever done before with a character.

Clare is a victim of sexual assault within the book, so please be aware of this, if you intend to read it. It’s a horrific scene but her ‘friends’ display almost complete indifference in its wake. We already know that they’re toxic as hell by this point but I couldn’t get over how it was almost brushed over. Perhaps the author was trying to make a point that this kind of thing is normal in the lives of privileged teens, so they didn’t see it as that big of a deal. It was a turning point for Clare’s involvement with the group but they continued to haunt her.

Tabitha is very much the Queen Bee stereotype. If you know Regina George, Heather Chandler and Blair Waldorf, you know Tabitha. She comes from money, relishes her adoring fans and is prepared to cut anyone who tries to take her crown. I think Clare’s motivation for befriending her came from the idea of ‘it’s better to be her friend than her enemy’ but in a normal society, I don’t think Tabitha would have been interested in Clare at all. I never really understood the connection between them but it eventually transpires that perhaps it wasn’t actually Tabitha’s decision.

Ava is another girl in the clique and it’s her who insists that Clare belongs with them. I wondered whether it’s Clare’s secret past that makes her interesting to these smart, ruthless characters but I had a feeling that Ava was up to no good. She has a very questionable vibe about her and she appears to know things that she shouldn’t. She’s a very interesting character but I question the plausibility of her actions and wasn’t entirely convinced by her authenticity.

Tabitha’s business idea made me laugh at first. She has a very pessimistic view of marriage and love in general, which clearly comes from her broken home life but her drive for revenge felt quite misplaced. I wasn’t sure why she was so hell-bent on proving to herself (and to the world presumably) that all marriages are loveless and all men cheat, purely because that was the case for her own parents. I couldn’t really understand why this was the approach she chose to take rather than simply learning from her parents’ mistakes.

The Things We Do To Our Friends was an interesting read. It has echoes of The Secret History and a twist that I didn’t see coming -although I’m not sure I liked it. Other than Clare, the characters really didn’t feel all that original and the plot in some very strange directions. I would have loved to have been able to have a greater attachment to the characters, so that my interest could have been held a bit better. I think dark academia lovers will lap it up though, as it has all the features of that sub-genre but for me, not a lot of the grip.

I wanted to love it… but I did like it.

Our narrator Clare is a student at the University of Edinburgh. Early in the story she meets the captivating Tabitha and her friends ‘The Shivers’. In a tale that unravels both the past and the present, we learn the lengths Clare will go to for her friends…

Although the writing was fantastic, Clare as a narrator was brilliant and allowed us to explore each character through her lens in such an interesting way. The story fell slightly flat for me. I wanted to know what happened but I didn’t find myself obsessively reaching and desperately turning the page to find out all the answers.

This is a bit like The Secret History meets Bunny. It is very well written and kept me hooked - wanting to know the underlying secret Clare is hiding - which is cleverly revealed bit by bit. It flowed in a way that left me gripped from start to finish - even though I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable! A good read about toxic university friendships taken to the extreme.

I love a dark academia novel (The Secret History etc) and, though the genre is very popular, this did not disappoint. It was subversive, bitchy, fun and incredibly compelling.

I am a bit divided about this book. When I sat down and got stuck in I enjoyed it but I also put it down a lot and did other things. It’s a tale of obsession and dependency. Clare is an art student in Edinburgh. She has a secret past and likes to keep to herself. Enter Tabitha, Ava and Imogen, three ladies who adopt Clare into their fold but with a hidden agenda, an agenda that Clare is drawn to with a ghoulish fascination.
The story seen totally through Clare’s eyes, is rather too drawn out for me. It reminded me in part of The Secret History, another book I found became tedious.

#TheThingsWeDoToOurFriends. #NetGalley

dnf at 25%.
love love psychological thrillers but i just could get into it. try to get the psychical copy from the library and give it an other try.

Dark, suspenseful, and utterly toxic. This book had me hooked from start to finish and each layer of the story felt darker and more sinister than the one before. A true page turner that hooks you in from the start and leaves you in awe of the twists and turns that happen throughout.

‘We were so special. (…) Where one of us ended and the other began - the boundaries were barely there any more. (…) Everyone was held together with bonds made stronger by juicy infatuations that waxed and waned. We played and dressed up and we flirted with each other almost as something to do. (…) But it was all a lie.’
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‘The things we do to our friends’ is a story about obsession - part psychological thriller, part a coming of age novel, it tells the story of Clare who enrols at the university in Edinburgh, running away from a messy past straight into a group of friends she’s trying so much to fit in. She eventually becomes the core of this group, but nothing is as it seems and things unravel in a way I didn’t expect. One of the elements I most liked from the novel is how art kind of sets the tone of the events - at first, Clare sees a copy of Klimt’s Judith and the Head of Holofernes in Tabitha’s apartment, but later on the painting is switched to a copy of Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes. In essence, both of the paintings depict Judith, a Jewish widow who seduces the Assyrian general and by killing him saves Israel from oppression, but the painting style is very different - Klimt’s version is much more focused on Judith’s beauty and the colours are quite bright, while Caravaggio’s version is focused on the act itself and the colours are much darker and violent. Same as with the paintings, the action is violent from the beginning, but hidden by a veil of righteousness until it’s too late to justify anything.
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I wouldn’t categorise the book as dark academia although it has some elements and it reminded me of ‘If we were villains’ a bit, but I think it’s much closer to a thriller.
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Have you read it?

I'm a huge fan of dark academia and I loved the Edinburgh setting here. The characters are engaging but for me it was missing the element that makes dark academia so special – the academia itself. Edinburgh and the university is very much a background element to the novel, and while I thought that it was really atmospheric and the city beautifully drawn, the plot itself was lacking for me – the characters themselves are well-formed, each engaging and unlikeable in their own way, but the pacing and plot of the novel wasn't there for me.

This book follows Clare, who has just started studying at Edinburgh University. She is trying to reinvent herself, and is determined to become friends with her classmate Tabitha, and Tablitha’s group of friends. However, Clare has a secret from her past that she wants to remain hidden.

From the first chapter, Darwent did a fantastic job of creating a dark and twisted atmosphere in her book. I was then quickly drawn into Clare’s life Edinburgh and was desperate to know where her story would go. I think that if you have ever struggled to fit in, you will sympathise with Clare, and I found myself doing this frequently in the initial chapters.

While each of the characters were very dislikable I, like Clare, was still intrigued and wanted to know more about them. I felt that each of the characters were well developed in their own way and despite a relatively slow pace I was engaged in the story.

What stood out most to me in this book was the rationalisation of the actions of the characters. As the book progresses, they slowly become more and more deranged. Dawent achieved a subtle fall into madness, that drew me in as a reader, and at points I found myself close to sympathising with their actions.

I thought this was a really strong debut and an enjoyable thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had a few problems with this book.

The first being that I felt the plot was not as built up as the general 'feel' of the book. I enjoy learning about the settings etc in a book, however I also need the plot to be built up as much, if not more. This balance needed to be adjusted before publication in my opinion. I did like the atmosphere of the book and the 'vibes' of it, but it just needed to also have the same building of the plot to hit the spot better.

I found that Clare throwing herself into a group of people that she knew nothing about (and who were fundamentally unlikeable) seemed strange to me and not necessarily something that people actually do. Or maybe they do do that, and it just doesn't personally resonate with me. I also found Clare to have a superiority complex and it just wound me up. I do understand that some characters are written to be unlikeable, but when the whole cast seem that way I find it hard to enjoy.

I also found the author did a lot of telling rather than showing. Telling us she had a violent temper rather than showing us examples of the temper coming through. This is one of my biggest pet peeves as a reader as it feels condescending and as if I am stupid and wouldn't be able to make the connection myself.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

The Things We Do To Our Friends is a story about toxic friendships, disturbing secrets, and insane obsessions. This book doesn't fall under my usual genres but I have to say that this is one brilliantly written book that will keep you and the edge of your seat until the very end!

The story development is incredible and will throw your predications off by a mile with each new chapter. It is a foreboding tale of manipulation that will have you questioning the moral compass of each character. This book has some of the most complex characters with layers and layers of personality. You'll feel sympathetic for a character and in the next moment you'll start hating them. This is the power of brilliance of Heather Darwent's writing. The atmospheric dark academia setting of Edinburgh gave the story more depth.

The story begins when Clare moves to Edinburg for studies for a fresh start. She finds herself a misfit. However, her need to belong to a clique is peaked when a mysterious group of people extends a hand of friendship to her. Clare's world turns upside down when she enters this toxic friendship that will make her confront the past she desperately wants to escape. The story is told at a great pace which links the rich past of each character to their current situations. Everyone has secrets, how far would you go to keep yours locked away? Read to find out!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to like this - in fact, love it. I read a review which compared it to The Cloisters, another campus novel published at a similar time - and Darwent's debut was the favoured of the two. Having not yet read The Cloisters, I can't comment. However, I must say I was disappointed with 'The Things We Do To Our Friends', which is a shame.
The novel begins with a flashback to a pretty horrific event in Clare's life, when she is living in France. It then switches to Edinburgh, where she goes to study, and what follows is her life there, particularly when she meets Tabitha and her friends. Tabitha, Imogen and Aby are close friends from school, along with Sam, who essentially are elitist - in a similar (but nowhere near as good) vein to Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History', one of my all-time favourite reads. Over a period of time, they recruit Clare to 'work' with them on Tabitha's plan - and what follows is the girls' lives, their crimes and exploits, in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
For me, the novel is clunky. The characters are hard to like, which I guess is part of the story - who would like people who do such awful things!? Above all, I don't think this is particularly well-edited and the aforementioned flashback at the beginning seems disjointed and 'thrown in' for good measure.
The story is quite well-executed, granted, but this read left me flat. A shame indeed, given its positive premise.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

This is an incredibly dark and toxic story. Throughout the book you know the main character is hiding something and you want to find out what it is while learning what she is taking part in during her time at Edinburgh. The twists throughout the book and the feminist undertones make this a fantastic book for 2023, more of this please!

The plot and novel had great potential although it wasn’t executed by Heather Darwent as I had hoped. Clare, a young women with a sinister secret, moves to Edinburgh to enrol in University. However, she finds it difficult to leave her past behind when she entangles herself in an enigmatic friendship group.

Let’s start with the positives first. The skill of Darwent was exhibited throughout the novel. I enjoyed the grotesque imagery that was created through metaphors and similes which gave a thrilling feel to the book. I also really liked the character of Clare, the protagonist. She was intriguing, difficult to understand, and most definitely unhinged. To be honest she was the reason why I got through the book as quickly as I did, as the plot and peripheral characters didn’t add much.

I completely understand that in some books, not much happens, but that doesn’t make if bad if it is driven by interesting characters. Bar Clare, the peripheral characters didn’t contribute much to the story. There was zero development from them and all throughout the novel they remained rather 2D. In fact, moments that were meant to surprise me as a reader and keep me engaged didn’t do that as I was just unsurprised by the actions of the characters which was a shame.

In terms of the genre of this story, I am unsure which category it fits into. It was marketed as a Dark Academia novel but I am unable to say if this was accurate considering I haven’t read any books from this genre before (The Secret History is on my list). If was was meant to be Dark Academia, I expected more detail about their time at University as this quickly disappeared after the start of the novel.

Overall it was a good read, but I could take it or leave it.

Ready to start a new life at university in Edinburgh, Clare finds herself drawn into the strange world of the beautiful and charismatic students. But as their friendship becomes more intense, Clare’s secrets threaten her future.

New to Edinburgh, and far from rich, Clare is looking to stay out of sight. And yet, when the rich girls on her course, Tabitha and Imogen, and their even more glamorous friend Ava, invite her into their world, she can’t help but follow. Quickly, Clare’s determination to keep a distance from their complicated friendship is weakened, and she finds herself dangerously close to a lifestyle she should have left behind.

With the intentions of neither Clare nor her friends – The Shiver – entirely clear, The Things We Do To Our Friends is an enjoyable and impeccably paced suspense, right to the sticky end. As the story unravels there are no many questions, dropped in in such a way that it’s never frustrating, just tantalising.

Just a note. For me, the first chapter, from the perspective of an older man watching the girls, is jarring in it’s messy misogamy, and nearly put me off. But with hindsight it is fantastically written, and yet another hint of things to come that drives the mystery of the story.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was great at building a dark, dank mysterious Edinburgh that we know from many tartan noir books. The building of the relationship between Clare and Tabitha and Tabitha's circle of friends was what I loved most about the book. It was gripping and kept me turning the page. Some parts were a little unbelievable, but hey, it's a novel! Overall I would recommend this book to friends. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

This book opens with a disturbing scene where as a reader I couldn't quite work out what has happened. This left me intrigued through out the book trying to work out how it fit in to the story.
After this we start by meeting Clare who is the narrator of the book also and flips between past and present. We know throughout that something quite bad had happened in France previously.
She goes to uni in Edinburgh and lives with a couple of girls who she feels aren't really her type of friends. After she gets a job in a bar and meets Finn and 'The Shiver' a clique consisting of Tabatha Imogen and Ava she starts to become almost a obsessed with her new friends. They set out on a money making scheme honey trapping men but all doesn't go to plan....

The topics of this book are friendship, family, trauma and power which were explored in detail.
I enjoyed the character building element of this book although I don't know if I ever liked any of the characters but found the thoughts and narration of the main character interesting especially further down the line when we start to realise why she is how she is.