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I read We Do What We Do in the Dark, a book I have been intrigued by for a while. A story about Mallory, a college student who has an affair with an older female professor, this sounded like a taut and literary gem. While I think it was an accomplished novella, it didn't really do a lot for me – not as crisply written or incisive as I was hoping, and I wasn't very interested in the character of the professor. I liked the parts about Mallory's childhood much more.

Mallory starts college and is attracted to a much older woman, who also happens to be a professor. We see how their relationship came to be, through Mallory's childhood and teenage years, and then the impact of it in the future.
This was rather a claustrophobic book; we didn't see much outside of the relationship, which, somewhat weirdly, meant that the reader is kept at some distance from that relationship. I don't think that referring to 'the woman' all the time helped.

I'd give this 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.

Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if they’re glowing. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book, then write a detailed review about it that some people on GR will look at would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.

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Oh God, I never know what to do with litfic. I just think it’s hard to really engage meaningfully in a book you know you’re supposed to admire and be impressed by. I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t admire this, nor that I wasn’t impressed by it … it’s just y’know. It’s litfic? Honestly, I think I might just have genre writer’s resentment because litfic tends to position not as a genre (which it is) but as kind of unquestioned default for fiction in general. Because litfic is the white cishet man of genre fiction. Which I guess makes sense, because it’s mostly written by cishet white men.

In any case, We Do What We Do in The Dark (not to be confused with How Hight We Go in the Dark or, I guess, What We Do In The Shadows, though I would 100% read a version of this book that also contained vampires) is neither written by nor about a cishet white man which is probably why I was willing to read it at all. It’s heroine, Mallory, is a lonely lesbian whose childhood is overshadowed by her mother’s slow death from cancer and whose college years are dominated by a single relationship. Well, I say relationship, it’s more of an affair—with an older, married professor the text refers to only as “the woman.” This, in itself, is interesting because I can easily see a text, written by a different author about different things, where this was an act of power, control, objectification and dehumanisation. In WDWWDITD it gives “the woman” a sort of mythic resonance. It reflects both her power over Mallory and her ultimately unknowability to Mallory.

The book spans several time periods in Mallory’s life, though it moves through them non-chronologically, starting first at college, with her affair with the woman, then moving back to her adolescence, then to the aftermath of college, when the woman reappears in her life once more, and finally into the more distant future. While this structure feels transparently … litficcy, it does encourage us to understand on Mallory’s life thematically rather than causally (instead of just “her mother died and this left her so sad and rootless she had an ill-advised affair”). The book is relentlessly focused on Mallory’s interiority, it’s perspective claustrophobically confined to hers. I’m kind of a bit startled by all the reviews being like, “easy beach read” because, I mean, this is a story about grief and loneliness, the way they intersect with and shape love and desire. It’s a story about a relationship that, while it’s definitely consensual, should also make any reasonable person uncomfortable (as, I think it is meant to). And, yes, the prose has a simplicity to it but it’s deceptive simplicity:

“Mallory realized this was how the woman was: she at once withheld and invited. The woman fulfilled so many of Mallory’s wants but left so many wants unfulfilled that the feeling of wanting in and of itself became desirable. There was an untouchable intensity, or an intense untouchability, to keeping a secret, to having a continuous crush, that Mallory wanted never to lose.”


I mean, I don’t know. That isn’t really shouting relaxing summer afternoon to me? But that could just be just me.

I’m also growing increasingly concerned that I’ve written one of those reviews I really don’t like: like, where review writer clearly was resistant to the book on principle, but then grudgingly had to concede its merit. I do not want to be that arsehole. And at least WDWWDITD wasn’t about sad gay men dying alone in Florida.

So let me try again to be fairer: this is an intriguing, deftly written book that explores several extremely complicated subjects—the loss of a parent, a relationship with an unaddressably unequal power imbalance—with nuance and depth. On top of which, the fact that the relationship in question is sapphic offers new perspective on an old subject, confronts us with different questions, for example the fact that we tend to be more forgiving of age/experience disparities in queer relationships. Despite the fact that there’s academic connection between Mallory and the woman, it would be hard to avoid the potentially toxic and exploitative implications of their relationship if the woman was a man. But, as a queer woman, Mallory herself lacks the same cultural framework.

Speaking of Mallory’s identity, while the woman herself is very clear that she is not “like Mallory”, and pursues mainly relationships with men, in and out of matrimony, Mallory is gay goes on to have further relationships with woman and is understood to be gay by most people in her life, so even though it contributes to her sense of isolation it is not, in reality, a source of rejection or prejudice for her. I found this a subtle take on the impact of queerness of a life as lived, especially in a world where it’s not supposed to be a problem any more per se: which is to say, it’s both significant and non-significant for Mallory, and is yet another complicating factor in her relationship with the woman. On the one side we have age, experience, and straightness, all the trappings of a stable heteronormative existence. On the other, youth, inexperience, queerness, and—due to the loss of her mother—a breaking down of family dynamics and the traditional support structures we tend to take for granted.

I guess if I had to put labels on this book, I’d call its sensibility post-queer and post-metoo. Of course, given how things are going culturally at the moment—in the sense that we still can’t agree that sexual assault is bad—I’m not really sure we need exploitative/toxic/borderline abusive relationships further complicated. But, in other ways, perhaps we do: because when you’re fighting over basics you flatten everything to being the same thing.

Also WDWWDITD does end in a place of hope and optimism, essentially tearing down its own central conceit, to allow its heroine back into the light.

This was a fascinating read in many ways, an almost claustrophobic narrative at time that clung so tightly to the main character and her movement of self-discovery.

Mallory, our protagonist, is the kind of character that I think I often associate with a certain type of 'litfic man' - the man focused on himself and self-actualising through his relationships, especially with women. With Mallory we also get a narrow perspective, of how she imagined her lover, how everything impacts her. The lack of name for her lover is the prime example of this. She was not always likeable, but I did find her compulsive reading, and sometimes only too horribly, uncomfortably, close to home.

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for the ARC

I had zero expectations of this debut going into it and I really think that was for the best. I ended up going on a journey that visited themes of obsession, desire and infatuation, which certainly made for some interesting discoveries.

Mallory is a college freshman. With her mother not long dead, Mallory spots the woman in the gym and is immediately drawn in. Soon after, they are sleeping together and Mallory discovers that the woman is everything that she herself wants to be -successful, independent and enigmatic. Plunging into a solitary existence that both comforts and scares her, Mallory enters adulthood unsure of whether her affair changed her for the good or not and whether she needs to track the woman down and get some closure.

Although it was obviously a conscious decision on the author’s part, I couldn’t quite work out why the woman was unnamed. Mallory is so obsessed with her and yet we never really get to know the object of her desire. Perhaps it’s because it doesn’t matter to Mallory. Maybe she doesn’t even know it. Or is it simply a way of making the woman even more aloof and distant from us?

Mallory’s college roommate Joy offers up a rather bleak yet honest opinion on why some people sleep with people who they know to be attached. There were a few lines like this that made me stop and think, which is a definite indication of great writing. No doubt Michelle Hart has bags of talent, which is why I think this book will do well amongst reviewers.

In some ways, Mallory reminded me of a Sally Rooney heroine -self-deprecating and waif-like. Although I believed that she existed, I wasn’t terribly excited by her and I did find my attention waning in the parts where Mallory was alone and just thinking. Despite being a reader and wanting to pursue a career in literature, she only seemed to have any kind of passion when it involved the woman. I just wanted her to have more personality!

We Do What We Do In The Dark is a sexy, well-written literary novel about a young woman discovering how her past has shaped her and how that affects her adult relationships. I did enjoy it overall but I can’t really say why, which makes it a hard book to review. I think perhaps I appreciated it for its ideas and the writer’s skill but the plot and characters were pretty dull.

Mallory sees the woman for the first time at her college gym and is immediately transfixed. As a naturally reserved person who is now reeling from the loss of her mother, Mallory finds herself compelled by the woman's assurance, and longs to know her better. Despite the discovery that she is a professor at the college, Mallory finds herself falling into a complicated love affair with the woman, the stakes of which she never quite understands.
In the years that follow, Mallory must come to terms with how the relationship shaped her, for better or worse, and learn to become a part of the world that she sacrificed for the sake of a woman she never truly knew.
Characters are very well written, and I raced through this book. Gripping from the start

I found this to be a beautiful book. Which I sped through quickly. Half a story on grief and half a story on first love and longing.

i grew tired of the story referring to the character as 'the woman'. it did not make for an intriguing read and i found the chemistry between them contrived. the writing was annoyingly remote but also florid.

We Do What We Do In The Dark is a heart-rending and controversial Novel about 19 year old student, Mallory. Mallory embarks on a forbidden and ill-advised lesbian relationship with a married (to a man) middle aged professor. These two women have tempestuous and lurid relationship that is fuelled by obsessive desire, especially from Mallory. We are taken through Mallory's thoughts on the affair and how it impacted her life at differential moments. With past and present tense Narrative from Mallory's point of view. I can see this Novel not being for everybody, however I really enjoyed this. I found this to be a very intuitive and a captivating deep dive into the impulsiveness and vulnerability of adolescence, self reflection, hindsight and psychology behind affairs and the devastating effects. I really recommend this! The writing was superb and the pacing/narrative was well delivered. The title is as beautiful as the cover.

Somewhere between 3 - 3.5

At points this was brilliant and at other times I felt somewhat underwhelmed by how distant I felt from what was happening. A queer coming-of-age story, the novel is expertly crafted by the author in respect of when we switch time frames to head back to Mallory's younger years - this really helped convey her emotional state and explain her reaction to certain events in the narrative. I thought that it was an interesting narrative choice to only tell the story of her formative relationship from the main character's perspective, as this often raised more questions than it answered, but I'm almost certain this was Hart's intention. I'll definitely be checking out the author's next novel.

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart is a poignant novel about loneliness and loss, relationships, alienation and connections. My favourite section was the teenage Mallory.

Mallory has just started college and is captivated by an older woman she sees at the gym, who turns out to be a (married) professor. They quickly start up an affair that affects Mallory for years to come.

This is very sad, Mallory has experienced a lot of loss in her life - both her aunt and mother dying and her childhood best friend cutting off contact. The skipping between past, present and future did feel a bit clunky at times but it also felt very necessary. It's impossible not to root for Mallory and wish the best for her.

Content warnings: death of a parent, general medical content

Thanks to NetGalley and Headline for the opportunity to review this book!

We Do What We Do in the Dark is a novel about complicated longing and love, as a college student meets an unnamed woman. Mallory finds herself compelled by an older woman at her college gym, a woman who turns out to be a professor with an often absent husband, and they fall into a complicated love affair. Afterwards, Mallory must reflect on who she is now and how much of an impact the woman had on her.

This is the sort of novel that is focused on the protagonist and their internal life and growth, without a huge amount of plot. The narrative moves in almost a dreamlike way, occasionally flashing back from Mallory's time at college to explore her teenage years as her mother grew sick and died, and then following Mallory into later years to see the impact of her complex relationship with the unnamed woman. The lack of name might add to the dreamlike feel, as well as the suggestion that this is a secret Mallory keeps, particularly due to the age and power gap, even though the woman is never her actual professor.

I liked the writing of the book and the quirks of the characters, though I didn't quite feel fully engaged with it, and in general it didn't feel very memorable even as I was reading it. I felt both like I was meant to be drawn in and kept at arms length. I liked the focus on solitude as well as an intense relationship, and the importance of self-discovery, but nothing particularly stood out for me.

We Do What We Do In The Dark is told in third person and follows Mallory. This is more of a literary fiction story than a romance. Mallory is a college freshman who encounters a woman who is double her age in the gym. They soon meet and the woman is everything Mallory wants. The woman is never mentioned by name and had a relationship with an older man when she was young. This is a story of self discovery as Mallory must decide what she wants in life. This is a good story if you’re looking for a book about self discovery. If not really in that place right now in my own life so this book didn’t really have an emotional impact. The writing was good but I didn’t really like how the book was formatted as it felt disjointed. Overall queer people looking for a book on life and discovery would really enjoy this.