Sophie Littlefield

When a third person in three years goes missing, presumed dead, in Winston, California, budding fashion designer Clare Knight uses her gift of seeing visions of people's pasts while touching their clothing to seek the truth.

Hanging by a Thread

When a third person in three years goes missing, presumed dead, July Fourth weekend in Winston, California, sixteen-year-old budding fashion designer Clare Knight uses her gift of seeing visions of people's pasts while touching their clothing to seek thetruth, at risk of her own life.

Jessica Nottingham

If nothing else, I have to say that Sophie Littlefield's Hanging By A Thread gets points for being unique. Never before have I read a book with a premise exactly like this. Sure it has a lot of similar plot devices to most other YA paranormal, but it manages to shine a little brighter than the others. If only this book had been executed a little bit better, I know it would have become one of my favorites.

Let's start with the good. The mystery surrounding Clare's story is extremely interesting. Two years running, a local has died in a mysterious way on the 4th of July. Clare takes it upon herself to figure out exactly why. Something calls her to figure it all out. Lucky for her, she happens to have the power to see the past while touching clothes. Pretty intriguing right? I thought so too.

My biggest problem, honestly, was Clare herself. At first I was enamored with her love for vintage clothing and re-purposing old into new. However the further the book moved on, the more frustrated I became with her character. For some reason Clare seems to be drawn to the bad boy, but she never really knows why. She has a fairly sour outlook on the world, which I guess makes sense because of how she uses her powers. In fact, most everyone has some type of problem in this book. These are not a very happy set of characters. 

What made it the most difficult to get through this book though was how much Clare talks about fashion. I'm no fashionista, but I'm pretty sure a lot of that could have been left out and the book still would have been wonderful. I kept flipping between really enjoying this book, and wondering when it was going anywhere. The ending saved things considerably! But by then, I was already frustrated.

Being honest, Hanging By A Thread is by no means a badly written book. The concept is great, the writing is good, it's just that the execution didn't do it for me. If you are looking for a different type of paranormal, something that is unique, give this one a shot. It might be more your style than mine.

Hanging by a Thread

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