There’s a lot to love about “Portrait of a Thief”, namely the honest discussion about the experience of first generation Chinese Americans. Not only the diaspora that they wrestle with, but the pressures of being both Chinese and American, as well as making their families proud.

I think at times the story is too ambitious for what it’s setting out to do. But at the heart of it all, “Portrait of a Thief” is really about grappling with loss and expectations, and how people can move beyond those two emotions and become better for it.

This wasn’t a perfect book. The prose was a bit much at times, and the story got muddled with unnecessary repetition. But ambition should always be encouraged, no matter how reckless. Or in this case, how insane it was for an FBI agent’s son to really spend a whole book trying to hoodwink his father.

Thanks to Tiny Reparations Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book prior to publication. I've been eagerly anticipating books released from this new publisher, and Portrait of a Thief was my first and will not be my last title. I dipped in and out of this debut all week, and I could not stop thinking about the characters and ideas presented. It's a book about amateur, college-age art thieves who are trying to get 5 pieces of art that were looted from the Summer Palace in China and return them home. There's also a bit about protesting, justice, diaspora, colonialism, and how it feels to be a part of multiple cultures. This would be a great book club pick - there is SO much to discuss. The chapters are short and alternate POV, so the pages turn quickly, even though I had to slow down and process at many points. I am looking forward to more from Grace Li and Tiny Reparations Books.

Five Chinese-American college students are recruited by a huge Chinese corporation to recover artifacts on display at several international museums. The students are offered $50 million if they can complete the five thefts and return the five Zodiac animal heads looted from the Old Summer Palace more than 200 years ago. The students have no real theft experience, but all believe the artifacts should be returned to their home country and the $10 million each would change their lives significantly. This book was a whirlwind of planning, waiting, anticipating and hoping for the best outcome. It was tense and well written without a clue as to the final outcome..I loved it and I appreciate the sentiment of returning artifacts to the country of origin.

I got really excited about Portrait of a Thief when I first heard about it and was so happy when I saw I got approved for an ARC. Sadly my expectations were too high and this book disappointed me a lot.

The premise of this book sounded very promising but fell flat in many ways. Most things that happened felt so incredibly unrealistic that it had me rolling my eyes at everything that was happening. The heist part specifically was very flimsy, I definitely wanted more from that.

The writing started of beautiful but became so repetitive so fast that it had me bored after 20% into the book. I found myself skipping over sentences a lot, simply because it kept repeating.

I also felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters and I didn’t care at all what happened to them. The characters themselves had no chemistry between each other and I found their scenes to be quite boring. The romances as well felt very unnecessary and didn’t bring anything exciting to this already boring book.

One thing I did like about this book were the discussions about art and it’s history and ownership.

Overall this was a very disappointing read for me. The book had a lot of potential but failed to deliver on most fronts. I’m very sad I didn’t love this more.

i'm sorry but i just couldn't get myself to like this fkn book 😭😭 portrait of a thief is an introspective literary novel whose marketing team is parading it as a heist novel. the heist component itself was somehow unrealistic in its mundanity, with both google docs and a heist member's ability to painstakingly recreate intricate masterwork sculptures within a month (?!?!?!) being driving forces of the heists' throughline. but despite the its marketing, the hows of the heist was overall unimportant to the book's true focus: the main cast of characters and their individual relationships with each other and their cultural identities as chinese diaspora.

too bad the characters were one-note and boring. i appreciated the inclusion of a multifaceted diaspora experience, but tbh it's been less than a month since i finished reading this book and i couldn't tell you who any of them were! it was very hard to become attached or even to sympathize with any of them because their motivations were flimsy and unconvincing despite them being reiterated multiple times throughout hundreds of pages, often in the same way and without distinction from each other. about 60% when i read the line "Daniel Liang was dreaming about China," my gut reaction was to roll my eyes and think "of COURSE you're dreaming about china, that's your entire personality," and idk! i need more than that for me to enjoy reading a character-driven book!

the prose was another big disappointment. on the surface, grace d. li's writing is literary and image-inducing; the crew's first gathering in the beginning of the book was gorgeously rendered and left me with a warm, pink-orange afterimage of the shanghai skyline. but as the novel wore on, sentence structures and scenery descriptions and character motivations were repeated so many times it became stale and cumbersome to get through. the imagery of shanghai was reintroduced in irene's pov, then will's, then daniel's, then again but instead describing stockholm?? i need VARIETY!! this fkn book is less than 400 pages long but felt longer bc it was like i was reading the same 20 pages over and over again!

i'm so bummed i didn't enjoy portrait of a thief. as asian diaspora myself the pitch of this book was a breath of fresh air, yet i was ultimately disappointed by its execution. grace d. li is a good writer and has a lot of potential--hopefully this potential will be fully utilized in her next work because it definitely wasn't utilized here.

This was quite a nice debut novel! I really enjoyed the themes and rep presented in this, not to mention that it centers around the diaspora experience and manages to convey it in a very multi-faceted way. I think Portrait of a Thief does what it's meant to do quite well. Big kudos to Grace D. Li for showing the diversity of a single community!

That said, like many debut novels of this last year, I found the characters themselves to be a little lacklustre. Pretty disappointed that although we get to explore diaspora through a different lense with each character, we also didn't get enough substance for them to really snag my heart and make me actually care about them. I care about the cause they stand for, and what they wanted enough to follow through the plot (because the themes were great and who doesn't love a good heist story that says: "Screw you, colonizers!") and be engaged in what they were doing. But that was the extent of it. And as a person that enjoys dimensional characters, I found them to be a bit disappointing.

Still, I do recommend that more people read this. Especially if they like heist stories with a good dose of colonizer-squashing justice.

I really wanted to enjoyed this book, looking forwards to an "Oceans 11-esque" heist and plot line, but overall found it a tad hard to get through. The book follows the story of Chinese American college students that concoct a plan to steal five Chinese artifacts. I liked how the book was multi-POV, telling the connection these five students have to their Chinese heritage. However there are points where the storyline becomes slightly repetitive, if not hard to get through. Overall, the story had promise, but it wasn't exactly for me.

My overall rating for this debut novel is actually a 3.5. I really enjoyed this. The book follows 5 POVs, 5 members of a heist crew, all American, specifically Chinese american immigrants or descendants of immigrants. These college-aged kids, Will, his sister Irene, Daniel, Lily, and Alex, are hired by a Chinese corporation to steal Chinese art back from various museums in Europe and the United States. This art was all stolen from China centuries before.

The writing is beautiful and artistic and aesthetically very pleasing. The characters are well-developed and interesting, and the author did an amazing job showing the burden that these children carry as being part of the diaspora from China, and what it means to each character to be American but still be questioned about whether they belong, or where they belong.

As for the plot, while interesting, I think that is the weaker aspect of the novel. They plan these heists out in google docs!! google docs! Like one of the most unsecure applications available. They might as well have called the FBI directly and been like hey hello we're planning some felonies here. Also using zoom...anyway, I REALLY had to suspend my disbelief for those bits.

While this book is well written and is a fast read, it did read more like a script than a book to me and fell into some well=worn themes of the intelligent and/or rich escaping punishment. All in all, just not the book for me.

Unfortunately this book felt flat for me. I really wanted to love this book which has been compared to Oceans 11 but the heist completely fell flat. The fact that this group of amateurs was contacted by such a powerful company is laughable and the fact that they planned this heist via Zoom and Google Docs just took me out of the story.

At the beginning the prose was really beautiful and I kept highlighting parts I loved but it was repeated again and again and lost its shine. It was just way too repetitive.

I loved the characters however. They had such realistic backstories and I felt for all of them deeply. The only reason I kept reading was to find out more about these interesting people.

Overall, this was a tale that had so much potential but ultimately fell flat. I loved the characters but the prose was repetitive. This book just wasn't for me.

The premise was fantastic, but the prose and plot was so so so repetitive. Same character traits and situations reiterated in every single chapter. Everything bathed in a "golden" light.

This was an interesting story, but it was different than I expected. I was expecting clever strategies for the robberies and heists. While there was some of that, I enjoyed a different aspect of the story more. I loved how each chapter was a different narrative and point of view. The character study of each of the thieves was what got me for the story. I loved learning about each one and their history. The cultural aspect and background was intriguing.

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the show “White Collar,” which is (mostly) about a con man/thief who teams up with an FBI agent to solve art crimes. It was glamorous and fun, and this book, when I saw its description, reminded me so much of the show I loved. I mean, this book’s description references “Ocean’s Eleven” right off the bat and calls the book a “heist novel.”

And… this book isn’t that; in fact, I think it’s almost a disservice to call it a heist novel. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good book, and I truly enjoyed reading it. But I felt a little let down by its description and the way it’s been marketed. This is a book about homeland and birthrights, of past and future. It’s a book about who owns whose history — and what can be done to get it back where it ostensibly belongs. It’s a book about the diaspora, through the lens of five very different (and very interesting) characters. The heist is a tiny part of this book, and I wish I had known that going in.

You also have to suspend a good amount of disbelief when reading. You’re telling me that some horny college students without any experience are going to pull off arts heists in some of the most secure museums in the world — and they’re going to do so using Google Docs? I like to edit stories with mindless procedurals on in the background and can barely follow who has done what and how and why, yet I feel like I know more about getting away with a crime than these kids. Plus, there’s another crew introduced in the book that actually seems to be professional and well-funded and makes sense as a group to pull off these high-risk maneuvers; the instigator of the heists choosing these kids as their crew just looks puzzling in comparison. As much as I wish the heists hadn’t taken 0.2 seconds to read, I can’t really blame Grace D. Li for glossing over them, because I’m not sure there was actually much of a plan for them when she was writing this book.

But, if you can successfully roll with the idea that these five college students were chosen over pros, and you can see beyond the “heist novel” marketing, what you’ll find is a deeply intriguing and moving novel. Li’s novel is timely — the idea of Western museums displaying other countries’ history as a result of colonization and imperialism is being talked about frequently these days (see: the Parthenon marbles) — and the heart of this book is carried out well. The pacing is interesting, and I absolutely loved the way the characters were introduced and developed. They’re all interesting in their own way, as are their motivations for being involved in the heist, and I think the ensemble cast was a nice addition here. The writing is tight, but it’s also descriptive and elegant and interesting.

So no, this isn’t a heist novel. It’s a nuanced look at what “home” and “homeland” mean to five characters who come at it from five viewpoints. But in these pages is a beautiful story of longing, and there’s a powerful critique of Western societies that take and take and take. Li has written an interesting critique of the conquerors and the blood that was spilled to cause these ill-gotten spoils to be displayed in glass cases far, far away from where they belong. Because, overall, this book is about belonging. When I finished the novel, there was one line in particular that stuck with me: “It feels like home shouldn’t have to be this complicated.”

Special thanks to NetGalley, Dutton Books/Penguin Random House, and Grace D. Li for proving me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Who doesn’t love a good heist? Add in a collection of severely underqualified, perfectionist college students and priceless historical art? A recipe for one fantastic novel.

Li diverges from the usual art heists we’re used in media. Rather than stealing to sell, our band of thieves take back priceless Chinese art stolen by Western museums. But more than just a heist novel, Portrait of a Thief is a story about diaspora, and about immigrant identities. Each character has their own unique backgrounds that collectively represent a myriad of questions that immigrant young adults ask themselves. More than once, I found questions I’ve asked myself before written right there on the page.

Portrait of a Thief is almost melodious in its prose. There’s repetition in certain phrases, and I would be the first to admit it got clunky in places, but for the most part, it flowed well, creating connections between characters and scenes. But what really surprised me was the type of stakes in the book. Of course, there is the ever present threat of prison, but more than that, everything is very personal. It’s about parents and friendships and family. It’s about goals and beliefs. The arrest-threat pales in comparison, and there are positives and negatives to that.

I still highly recommend to anyone who’s looking for a fun, evocative heist novel.

Portrait of a Thief is, perhaps, one of the books with the best synopsis I've ever come across, and no matter how much this book disappointed me I still hope it will somehow miraculously change into something worthy of its concept.
Following a group of pretentious college students, Li managed to not only sink the book's amazing premise straight to the sixth circle of hell, but to make all the subject matters she chooses to tackle into a snoozefest. I feel happy for all the people this story will inevitably impact in a good way, but I must say I think we all should strive for quality over... whatever this is.
The stage is set: a prestigious Chinese company decides to ramdomly hire a group of twenty something year olds to organize a heist and steal back pieces of Chinese art European countries stole, instead of, maybe, I don't know, hire professionals? But it is not enough to be completely unprepared and frankly stupid (organizing the entire heist on Google fucking Docs, Zoom, and my personal favorite, Whatsapp, which I can safely say is not the cryptic steel-proof safe space they make it out to be, ask any of member of the Brazilian government and they will tell you) they have to be the dark academia, gloomy, depressed people of everyone's nightmare. Portrait of a Thief is not a heist story: it's a poorly written literary fiction novel. Which wouldn't necessarily bother me, if it'd decided to follow the set standard of literary fiction and include good character work.
Every character can be summed up to a single sentence. This is not inherently a bad thing, it's a common exercise they give you in writing classes, but it's supposed to be only that: an exercise. Instead, we get all of them repeating the same sentence about themselves and each other in every chapter. Will "likes beautiful things", and lily is running away from something, but never towards it, etc.
The writing style is one of the only good things in this novel, yet it is also driven to the ground by how unpolished the entire thing is. Endless descriptions of the sky, purple prose that forgoes the purple altogether in favor of bright fucking magenta, if you get what I mean.
I won't even bother trying to make sense of how the plot plays out, just know it is, you guessed it, stupid. But another thing: what is it with authors refusing the write down the word lesbian? It's 2022. If you can mention the COVID-19 pandemic, you can say a character is a lesbian.
All this to say, I am constantly blown away by mediocrity. To repeat myself, Portrait of a Thief could've been one of the best books of 2022. Instead it is doomed to reside in my biggest disappointment list.

[3.5/5 stars]

Sackler, Harvard's largest collection of Chinese art, was robbed. We follow a crew of Chinese American college students that plans to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures to Beijing: Will, part-time worker at Sackler Museum and art history student; Alex, a software engineer; Lily, street racer and mechanical engineer student; Daniel, son of an FBI agent pursuing medicine and Irene, a public policy student and Will's sister.

PORTRAIF OF A THIEF is beyond a heist novel - if you're expecting a story packed with action, this book might not live up to your expectations. To begin with, Li masterfully captures the complexity of identity and belonging. By centering around the first-generation children of immigrants, even regarding how different they are, the pages are filled with their yearn for something to hold on to while fearing not being enough to their parents and society. The characters are constantly searching for a way home, often claiming their identity amidst two cultures. There are plenty of American dreams and introspection, overly meditative that sometimes made me distracted. The tension and conspiracy between characters are real and absorbing. Some might dislike the siblings relationship (Will and Irene), finding it too spoiled; however I was compelled by its genuine essence and enjoyed reading about their troubled (nearly toxic) interaction.

Now the premise gave me Eastern-Ocean's eleven-through-the-Western-world vibes yet this novel didn't entirely deliver it. I thought that the heist was too easy and not nuanced enough and its execution didn't convince me. Some scenes actually felt absurd, verging on comedic. I did appreciate the reflection on Western colonization of art in museums, as well as the role of art (legacy) and artist, approached in a refreshing way.

Overall it is an uneven balance between art robbery and character development, focusing on the latter. My critique is that the characters don't have distinct voices, their diaspora stories often weaving together (what occasionally happens, doesn't it?). Also the pacing picks up after 30%. Finally, the ending is quite unpredictable although too convenient.

Inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, PORTRAIT OF A THIEF would make an interesting TV adaptation. Despite my complaints, the examination of being diaspora resonated with me and made this a thoughtful reading experience.

I'd like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a chance at reading this book.

I had big hopes for this book. I think the plot sounds amazing, as the objective. However, there is an idea that builds in your head and when you finally see the end product (read the end-product) you realize "yeah, I like what I built up in my head better'. Which seems to be a popular thing this year with me and ARCs.

I was expecting characters that felt real, tangible, each with their own voice and differences. I get their struggles, I do, I get them so much that it's repeated over... and over ... and over through the text. There is a huge disconnect between the characters and their current selves that it made them incredibly boring to read about.

I expected something edgier, something dangerous, something ... with a purpose. I just felt like these kids were way over their heads. I didn't understand why they were chosen to do what they were to do - besides them being Asian.

I apparently am not the only person who felt this way based on the reviews. Which is a shame, because I am all for a book about saying 'fuck you' to the establishment, especially to stealing from other cultures. This book wasn't it.

Portrait of a Thief swept me away. This multiple POV debut is full of heists and as someone who grew up watching the Oceans movies, I am a fan. But at the same time, what I ended up loving was the way Li examines identity. The ways people see pieces of us - Chinese or American. This grey space between which leaves us with a loss of belonging. This examination not only resonated with me, but I enjoyed the character evolution as they think of themselves.

It may begin with an itch for something else. A desire for change, because what drives a person to join a heist? But it quickly becomes about the weight of family dreams on our shoulders. The ways we swim in a world which judges us only on what they see. How it is to navigate a relationship with what marks us. All the pieces that seem like they will always be missing from our history and lives. In Portrait of a Thief, Li tells a story about the different ways each of us see one another. The images we see and the edges others bring out.

Will Chen is an art history student at Harvard. When a wealthy corporation in China seeks him out to help steal five sculptures that were looted from the Old Summer Palace in China hundreds of years earlier, he recruits his sister and three acquaintances/friends with various skill sets. None of these 21-year-old juniors’ talents include stealing priceless art from five different museums around the world, however.

The story is told from the points of view of these five different young men and women, all of whom are Chinese American. Some feel more Chinese than American, others know little about their immigrant parents’ heritage.

I liked all five characters and their relationships with each other, but there are parts of the novel that drag, which doesn’t give the novel that action-heist feel a reader might be looking for.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel, which RELEASES APRIL 5, 2022.

Will Chen’s plans change for his senior year at Harvard when an art theft of Chinese relics happens right in front of him. Will is quite surprised when one of the perpetrators drops him a card with an intriguing offer: help steal back previously looted Chinese sculptures from museums with dubious provenance for their exhibits. Will enlist his sister, Irene, who can talk her way in or out of anything studying as a public policy major at Duke. Irene’s roommate, Lily Wu, who majors in engineering and street racing crazy fast cars. Will’s best friend growing up, Daniel Liang, a premed major in California who is about to graduate as well. Daniel’s father just happens to be the foremost expect in tracking down Chinese art thieves. Alex Huang, an MIT dropout and Google software engineer, has the loosest connection to the group as she once briefly dated Will though they have stayed in touch. They need her primo hacking skills to pull of the impossible.

Each one of these five students is caught between two cultures: where do their loyalties lie, are they Chinese or American? They all have very traditional families who expect great things of their children, especially the oldest ones. Success is the be all end all putting pressure on each of the members of the crew because if they fail, their dreams and those of the families will end in disaster. Giving the group quite an incentive, if the art heists succeed, each person will walk away with ten million dollars.

Not surprisingly because of the ages and academic successes of this group, there is a lot of early bravado for their chances along with each members' mixed feelings about serving their families best interests and shared cultures. Once they start the process, reality sets in about exactly how difficult these burglaries are and how dire are consequences of getting caught. Each museum is in a different country so the planning takes military precision, but no matter how smart this elite crew thinks they are, so much can go wrong.

This complex and intense novel gives quite a bit of background on colonialism, the gray areas of Western museum Chinese art collections that are claimed to be from legitimate sources, and most importantly, what it is like for young people who are torn between two cultures, feeling at times they do not fit comfortably into either one. As all the participants are in their early twenties and on either just start or new to life on their own, this story has plenty of existential angst to go along with high tension, electrifying adventures.