Book Review: The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent

My Rating: 2.5⭐

The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent tells the story of our protagonist Clare from when she was a newly enrolled student in the University of Edinburgh History of Art degree embarking on a new life away from Hull where she lived with her grandmother. Viewing her move to Edinburgh as an opportunity to become a new person she promptly moves into a new flat with two other students, finds a job working in a bar befriending her boss, Finn and strikes an unlikely friendship with the charismatic Tabitha and Tabitha’s group of friends (a group of people Clare privately compares with a shiver of sharks, “The Shiver” for short) whom she is drawn to, curious about and eager to fit in with.

As the story progresses we see Clare being drawn into The Shiver and groomed to participate in an ambitious venture that will push them in a direction that spells nothing but trouble. Clare, for her part, has a past that she intends to keep hidden but apparently, her new friend(s) are privy to some disturbing information which they do not fail to leverage in persuading her to join them in their project. Can Clare withstand the pressures exerted by her new “friends”? How far will Clare go to fit in? How far is too far before she breaks?

The story is narrated in the first person by Clare (a complicated and unreliable narrator) in the present day. As she shares her experiences with The Shivers during her University days with snippets from her present life, we are given a window into her psyche and it is not a pleasant picture. She is by no means as unassuming or clueless as she initially projects and we see the workings of a twisted mind as she navigates through toxic (to put it mildly!) friendships and manipulation. As she shares episodes from her past, it is evident that it is only a matter of time before she shows her true colors leading to an ending that is somewhat predictable and inevitable.

The prose is elegant and the author does an impressive job in developing the main characters (each unlikable in her/his own way) but the narrative is relatively slow-paced and somewhat disjointed, slightly repetitive and rather long-drawn. It took a while for me to engage with the characters and the story, losing interest a little after the halfway mark. I did not find the story as compelling as I had hoped. I usually enjoy character-driven stories but in this case, I did not find the character interesting enough despite her psychopathic tendencies and there really wasn’t much mystery or thrill to keep me hooked to the story. Dark and atmospheric, The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent has a lot of promise but falls short in its execution.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.