I love the interpersonal and social aspects of this book. It was a great commentary on the hidden violence that characterized so much of the last two centuries.

I wasn’t as keen on this book as a work of horror fiction, however. The slaughterhouse imagery and hauntings, such as the reappearing photo, weren’t totally convincingly kneaded back in to the main story. Those aspects didn’t fully come back together for me.

The exposition of the characters and the figuring of fashion, art, professionalism and stench were clear and adept.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced review copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I was very excited to start this one because of the horror part it and that being combined with fashion, I've never read anything like that (Fashion horror) before so that was interesting. Very spooky and a little gothic. I thought the premise was absolutely amazing, but the execution wasn't fully there. The characters were sometimes insufferable, and it felt like they could've been developed better. I do believe this book needs a trigger warning page. As I was reading it, I went back to check if there was a TW page that I missed. I think books that tackles dark topics like the ones in this book should come with a TWs.

[Blurb goes here]

Many people drink to enjoy themselves, but for Samara, it's a way to cope with the pain. A few years ago, her grandmother passed away, severing the last connection between Samara and her stubborn and sometimes difficult family.

Samara, a freelance writer, gained the attention of fashion designer Antonio Mota with her latest article about her grandmother's immigration journey and the hardships she faced.

The renowned designer has offered Samara a job in California as the head of PR. Her task is to craft a compelling story about Antonio's journey from his previous struggles to his current success. Antonio is highly respected in the fashion industry; however, nobody can hold a higher opinion of him than he does.

In her new apartment, Samara hears eerie voices and sounds at night. Could it be that she had one drink too many? Samara will be forced to confront her traumatic past as the story unravels.

Liliam Rivera's captivating prose grabs your attention from the first few pages and refuses to let go. She is a master of her craft, skillfully dropping hints without giving too much away. As the story progresses, the truth becomes apparent, resulting in a heart-wrenching experience.

Despite its veiled rawness, this book is a jewel.

I can't praise the award-winning author enough.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

I read the prologue of this book and was so excited to start this. Then I kept reading and was a little disappointed. I love the movie, Last Night in Soho, and was hoping this would make me feel a similar way. Unfortunately it did now. The good: this book definitely spooked me, and I enjoyed that aspect of the story immensely. The not so good: the characters. I just couldn’t stand any of the characters. It made for a wonky reading experience, the thrills made it feel like a page-turner, but then there would be a frustrating character moment and it would take me out of it.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

Samara is a young Latina freelance journalist who has just arrived in California to work for fashion designer Antonio Mota. Dazzled by her new position, Samara works hard to impress her new co-workers, but her new boss has a whiplash temper. Samaria is starting to drink too much and her smile is starting to crack at the edges. She's hearing disturbing things at night. She's seeing apparitions, hearing haunting music,and questioning her sanity. The worst assault of all on her senses is the reeking stench of the town slaughterhouse, where brown blood has always been sacrificed for white bread. Thanks to Net galley and the public for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. I absolutely loved the book. It was fast-paced a and entertaining while still bearing a heavy message.

I truly loved the message behind this book, it was just not executed enough for me personally. I felt like there was definitely potential but it was not there

I read an ARC of this book and really enjoyed it. This book explores some dark topics, like the exploitation of factory workers and some of the harsh realities of being a woman. The slow growth of the darkness haunting the main character was well done. There are some Spanish phrases and access to a translator app will be necessary for some. I also thought the ending was a bit abrupt, but enjoyed it overall.

I really wanted to like this, and I did not.

Samara frustrated the heck out of me. She was so busy being ‘not like other girls’ and ‘pick me’ that I just hated her. Her background should have resonated with me, but every time she put on her ‘white voice’ (her words), I wanted to scream.

I loved that the author set this in Vernon – and if you have a minute, I invite you to go down the internet rabbit hole on that city – but it wasn’t enough. The book starts slowly and, though it picks up pace, it become even more uncomfortable (in a bad way) as you descend into the lives of the miserable. I just wished it were more entertaining.

2.5 stars because I can see what was intended. Unfortunately, I found it unsuccessful.

• ARC via Publisher

Horror comes in many forms: ghosts, visions, noises, things that go bump in the night. It also comes in the form of racism, rape, abuse, assault, etc. Tiny Threads has it all. Samara, escapes from an unknown trauma and her stifling family in New Jersey, after the death of her dear Abuela (Grandmother) Lola. She accepts a job in marketing, in Vernon, California, for an older, mean-spirited, self-centered Latino designer, Antonio Mota. He is seeking to make a comeback producing runway shows. Samara is to get his name out, invite influencers and create the buzz within two months.

Samara, a Latina beauty, speaks in a white voice and her Jersey Latino voice as the situation warrants. She arrives in Vernon with a drinking problem that spirals out of control due to job stress and being awakened every night at 2 a.m. with strange noises and visions. Caffeine pills accompany his coffee and vodka breakfast. A less serious issue is her need to be liked by everyone. She is hurt by the cold reception of the seamstresses led by Delores. Her grandmother had been a seamstress in Vernon, prior to relocating to New Jersey, and was hoping to endear herself to the ladies. She also experienced the shifting winds of her colleagues as they curry favor from Antonio. A small beacon of hope is the handsome, rich Brandon and the sexual attraction she has.

Vernon was the home to many Latinos working in mills and the slaughterhouse which is still in existence and next to HQ. The story reeks from the stench of the slaughtered pigs and provides the stench of bodies being used to make the rich richer. The contrast between the pigs and the purchasers of these designer clothes is palpable .

The drinking and visions become so unbearable that Samara hardly sleeps. She even turns up the music and uses the bathtub for her bed. Her visions have her seeing strange treads in the designs spelling out the name Piedad. She scours the archives looking for clues. How horror imitates life is manifested in these pages.

The only disappointment for me was the abrupt ending. There was a tiny thread I needed tied, Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing House - Ballentine for this advance copy. All opinions are my own.

A twisty and almost uncomfortable horror novel, TINY THREADS stitches together a story of women and power, every stitch seeming inconsequential until they all come together to spell out the horrible truths of this book. When I first picked up this book, I had no idea where it was going and frankly didn’t fully realise until at least 20% into the story. Rivera paints an unsettling world that our protagonist enters, secrets buried so deeply they don’t come out until the end of the story. In many ways, it’s a slow kind of horror, and the more deeply horrific scenes are sparse, instead we have this slowly building unease that picks up as the story goes on. I do wish that the ending had been a little bit more fleshed out, but all in all this was a really solid horror debut and worth the read!

TINY THREADS combines the world of fashion with the history of an industrial California town under the slow creep of gentrification. From the beginning, Rivera uses the character’s senses (especially smell and sight) to create a world that just feels off. If I hadn’t known anything about this book going in and the prologue wasn’t present, the book almost seems like a typical piece of contemporary fiction about a woman with a new job. The interconnecting threads of the town and the people in it to each other and to Samara pulled ever tighter as the story continued, and almost every character’s complicity becomes a part of the villain of the story. The way that it’s all exposed and wrapped up was admittedly almost a little bit rushed for me, and the subtle play that encapsulates most of the story is much more blunt at the climax.

In some ways, this book plays into some common facets of horrors, while also carving out its own space. I think we have a protagonist who is part final girl and part something else, bringing in elements of race, gender, and class to make the horror of reality all the more present. It uses culture and fashion to tell an unnerving story that doesn’t quite end in a happily ever after, but an earned peace that ultimately feels more gratifying. If you’re a horror fan in any capacity, I’d recommend it!

What really got me about this story is that it was all so intricately we oven together. Each thread of the story came back around in a really neat way. It wasn't too complicated to where I felt losee in the end. I enjoyed that about it.

This novel follows Samara as she moves from New York to California, and shifts from a career in journalism to focusing on the fashion industry. I enjoyed the connection between history and current day, and how the fictional town of Vernon, is an interesting and complex character. There were parts I enjoyed and parts I felt dragged or sped to quickly. Although I initially liked the character of Samara, she began to lose her interesting qualities as she drank more and more. Although this reflects a realistic reaction to her situation, it was not as interesting to read vs a non numbed reaction to the situation. The book spent a lot of time building up to the center of the plot and then quickly fast forwarded to the ending, which left the reader hanging.

I couldn't stomach this one. I understood and respect the themes the author deals with in her work (racism, sexism, sexual assault, trauma) but they were too obvious to me in the work, and I found I couldn't deal with how they were presented.

It was good enough to keep me going for awhile but the main character's self-medicating by drinking and drugging too much got to me. Was looking for a more subtly written story and did not find it here. Unfortunately I can't give this one a positive overall review.

I really wanted a more satisfying ending. It ended pretty okay but I think I wanted more of a wrap up.

I felt empathetic towards the main character. I also though it documented systemic racism well.

I hope to read more from this author.

The description of this book was better than the actual book itself. I had really high hopes for this based on the description but had a very difficult time getting into it. When all is finally revealed at the end, I felt a bit disappointed and I'm not quite sure why. Samara leads us on this very confusing and very long journey of being visited by spectres of old who have suffered at the hands of men with the same mindset. It just feels like a very long drawn out old wives tale that tries to pluck at your ancestral heartstrings...but fails.

I was entranced by this book from the very beginning. Incredible writing. I was easily able to create a picture of Vernon in my head; the scenes came to life. There were a few things that were predictable, but it was necessary. Without giving anything away, the connection between our protagonist and the past felt a little disjointed.

I’m honestly unsure how to start this review. I’ll start by saying that I am extremely grateful for the opportunity provided by NetGalley, Random House - Ballantine, and Lilliam Rivera to read this book ahead of publication.

I’m struggling to try to find things that I liked about this book outside of the cover. The synopsis provided on NG was very interesting. I had the same thought as another reviewer that this was going to be the gothic horror sister to The Devil Wears Prada. ‘Twas not, in my honest opinion. It wasn’t even close. None of the characters were really likable, Samara the least of all. I did end up not entirely disliking Delores. I think she could have benefitted from better writing. Spoiler alert: that’s how I feel about this whole book.

I have never had more of a negative reaction to a leading character than Samara. I really wanted to like her. I did, I promise. But she was so... I don’t even know. Underwhelming doesn’t even begin to really describe it. I found it interesting that she was classed as the good girl out of her friend group, not including her drinking habits, but then flipped a 180 and was honestly the most insufferable version of herself. I think her character had potential, but she quickly became a try-hard, and I hate when authors default to that characterization. There are so many ways to present a female character as strong, independent, and attention grabbing without doing what was done with Samara.

This girl literally did not know when or how to stop talking, which kind of tracks for a journalist, I guess. I feel like they’re either quiet and attentive or they just bulldoze over everything and everyone, and can we guess which category I’m putting Samara in?

I also find it interesting that I disliked the character I was inherently supposed to like more than one of the kind-of villains. Regardless of Antonio’s villain status, he felt like he was written as one. Whether that was intentional by Rivera or not, who knows, I don’t. I haven’t seen any other reviews touch on Antonio much, honestly. Antonio was not a captivating character either by any means, but I strongly disliked the almost immediate tone change that came from him at the slightest wrongdoing from Samara. It’s so overwhelmingly high school, it was almost nauseating. Which honestly just turns right back into my intense dislike for how Samara acts and strives to be so far up Antonio’s ass she can see through his mouth when he speaks. Everything she does screams ‘I wasn’t given enough attention as a child and now I’m making it everyone’s problem’, and I don’t want to read any more FMC’s with this character build.

I wouldn’t really call Brandon a love interest, either. Samara is so unreliable in how she feels about him, that I feel like he shouldn’t have even been a focal point. I get the callbacks to her cousin through him, but Brandon felt like an afterthought. Almost like Abuela Lola’s story was created and there needed to be some other tie-in to the current timeline of the book. Did I like Brandon? No, I didn’t. Was his character done basic justice by being fully developed? Also no.

I didn’t like the references to modern day social media at all. I don’t see the point in name dropping apps or referencing real life trends, when they’re going to be severely outdated within two years (maybe even less time than that, with how quickly trends die and are forgotten). That’s just a blanket statement for any book ever put in a “modern” timeline. But when TikTok was mentioned, I wanted to throw my phone. I can say with a surprising level of certainty that this book was probably written with TikTok and virality in mind. Some of the word choices scream ‘an older millennial wrote this’ and not in a good way. I could not tell you the last time I heard someone say “like a boss” unironically, and reading it from the perspective of someone younger than me made me feel extremely old and, once again, like throwing my phone.

Also, I couldn’t not see the girl from The Ring every time I read the FMC’s name. I think that might have been the scariest thing about this book. Well... Actually, I think the scariest thing about this book was the amount of plot points that had their respective foundations laid and were quickly abandoned. The pacing was odd, like really odd. I probably could have skimmed the first 20 chapters and been fine with having read only the prologue and the last 20 chapters. I did skim the last five chapters though because I was so tired of waiting for something interesting to happen, that when it finally started getting interesting the book had, ironically enough, lost every single ounce of my interest.

My initial reaction after reading the little blurb about the author was ‘maybe stick to middle grade’. Which... in hindsight sounds very mean, but there wasn’t anything in this book outside of the triggering events and the sex/sex talk and drinking that was “adult” material. Everything felt extremely juvenile, and there were zero points where I was intrigued by what I was reading. While reading, I was left increasingly more confused after each chapter because nothing was really happening and the chapters themselves felt like incomplete thoughts.

Horror and thriller/mystery are my favorite genres, and this feels like a caricature of it. And I get the underlying tones and topics that the author was going for with this book, but it’s just so far off that I’m just baffled by everything. I wouldn’t even go as far to say that this is a supernatural thriller, because it feels like a mockery of one at this point. It feels like a fever dream. It’s been two days since I finished reading the book and I still can’t really tie down my thoughts on it. I’ll probably end up going back in and elaborating on this review after a little while, but I need to get it off my desk right now.

Giving this a 2/5 purely because NG and Goodreads don’t have the same rating system as Storygraph, unfortunately. To be completely honest, my gut wants me to give this a 1-star review. I’m not going to do that because while I definitively did not like the book, I can’t say that I disliked it enough to give it that low of a rating. It’s a solid 2.6. The ideas for a good book were there, and a default 1-star for writing a book.

Realistically, I can’t see myself recommending this book to anyone that I know, because they’ll more or less have the same issues with the book as I did. I think that this book could benefit from scrapping at least 10 chapters in the beginning and re-working it.

I would also strongly urge the author/publisher to include a trigger list in the beginning of the book. The triggering material is so abrupt, I would be, and am, genuinely concerned for anyone reading this, not knowing that SA/violent SA is who unfortunately experienced it. I’m pretty desensitized to a lot of stuff, but I was kind of taken aback by the carelessness in which these topics were brought up. It feels like they were used mainly for the shock factor aspect of horror. Which is a cheap trick and honestly, kind of disappointing considering the severity of battling them in the real world.

Thank you again to NetGalley, RH - Ballantine, and Lilliam Rivera for the opportunity to read Tiny Threads ahead of publishing. I look forward to receiving more opportunities in the future.

Great premise, but I had such a hard time connecting with the writing style. Also, the pacing was very slow in the beginning and the ending felt too rushed.

Samara needed to branch out after the death of a family member. There are things she doesn't want to remember. She needed to take control of her life. She moves across the country to a town rich with family history. She takes her dream job, but is it a dream or a nightmare? This book had me on edge for the majority of it. I was so engulfed in the story. The plot was so intriguing. I couldn't figure out what was happening and why. Several things are revealed. The author did an amazing job telling the story. The character development was incredible. There are triggers so proceed with caution. I definitely recommend this book.

I have basic Spanish-speaking skills, but I needed to have Google Translate open for a couple of passages to really understand the text. I'm sure that a reader with no Spanish-speaking ability could infer enough to make it through this novel, but I wanted to have a better understanding of what the narrator was experiencing. Overall, it was an okay read. The author uses great imagery to paint the scene. The first couple of paragraphs I thought, "Wow, she can write!" I did feel like there was a bit of a pacing issue. About 30% in I really wanted to stop reading because I didn't feel it was going anywhere. It finally picked up about 40% through. Lots of suspense and intrigue, though I finished with more questions than answers.