[7] She has also written for publications including The Sunday Times Magazine,[8] The Art Newspaper,[9] Artforum.com,[10] The New Yorker,[11] The Telegraph,[12] The Guardian,[13] and The New Statesman.
"[16][17] In The New York Times Book Review by Lucinda Rosenfeld states that Thornton's impassioned polemic makes a convincing case that "the derogatory way Western culture views breasts helps perpetuate the patriarchy.
"[18] The Library Journal review states: "Verdict: Required reading that expertly covers the ways in which social constructions, sexualization, and economic viability influence people's views of bodies, their own, and others.
[22] The New York Times' Karen Rosenberg said that Seven Days in the Art World (2008) "was reported and written in a heated market, but it is poised to endure as a work of sociology...[Thornton] pushes her well-chosen subjects to explore the questions 'What is an artist?'
'"[23] In the UK, Ben Lewis wrote in The Sunday Times that Seven Days was "a Robert Altmanesque panorama of...the most important cultural phenomenon of the last ten years".
"[25] András Szántó reviewed Seven Days in the Art World: "Underneath [the book's] glossy surface lurks a sociologist's concern for institutional narratives as well as the ethnographer's conviction that entire social structures can be apprehended in seemingly frivolous patterns of speech or dress.
"[28] Jackie Wullshlager of the Financial Times opined that Thornton is "skillfully nuanced" and "elevates gossip to sociology, writing with verve, insight and authenticity.
"[29] 33 Artists in 3 Acts received praise for its academic approach and "attention to detail and illustration of subtleties that bring her interviewees to life.... [Thornton's] flair for creating clear structures offer readers manageable points of access... without ever compromising on quality or content, or sounding pretentious.
[31][32][33][34] In 2010, she wrote an article about the Damien Hirst auction, "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever", which took place on the evening that Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008.