The Things We Do to Our Friends: A Novel

The Things We Do to Our Friends is a physiological thriller set around a group of fringe college friends in Edinburgh, Scotland. At the outset Clare is new to the group and has recently reinvented herself after an unknown trauma during her teens. She chooses and has been chosen by a small group from the university. A group that seems much more focused on a something else, rather than their studies. I really wanted to like this novel but it just never got going enough to hold my interest. Clare’s past with *the episode* was always too vague and never enough of a carrot to keep me wondering how it played into the plot. Way too much of the story was telling and not showing. It constantly told how the characters felt rather than actually creating the feeling. Once the plot go to the sinister twists the action was only a few paragraphs after chapters and chapters of set up. Maybe the intent was a “slow burn” but the most I got was barely a simmer.