The Things We Do To Our Friends – An engrossing novel about strange and unwholesome friendships and friends

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Clare arrives at Edinburgh University determined to become someone new. She has spent her life on the outside, watching other people belong, and when Tabitha draws her in, it feels like deliverance. Tabitha is confident, rich, and magnetic, surrounded by friends who seem to move through the world without consequence. Clare wants what they have, and they seem willing to offer it.

In The Things We Do to Our Friends, belonging comes with conditions. The group’s charm is sharpened by secrecy, their generosity by control. As Clare settles into their orbit, admiration turns into dependence, and small compromises begin to carry heavier weight. What felt like reinvention starts to resemble erasure.

Set against the stone corridors and social hierarchies of Edinburgh, the novel traces how power moves through friendship, money, and silence. It is a slow tightening study of intimacy and manipulation, attentive to the desire to be chosen and the fear of being cast out. The Things We Do to Our Friends asks what we are willing to overlook to stay inside the circle, and how easily loyalty can be turned against us.