This was a very well done and well rounded novel. I really enjoyed the characters and the development of the plot throughout.

A fun and cinematic heist novel with excellent characters and lots of passion. Coming-of-age as diasporic Chinese young adults explored from many different sides.

For many readers, international art heists and motley crews bring to mind capers such as Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows or Ally Carter’s Heist Society. So naturally, there’s an expectation there; promises of action-packed Ocean’s Eleven-style antics lingering beyond the first page.

Those coming-of-age crime sprees typically come on the cusp of high-octane conflict and slicing banter. But, Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li is not your typical heist adventure.

It’s aloof and polarizing. It mirrors the westernized culture of “civil” looting across a global playing field of righteousness. The novel’s purpose is not to entertain or toy with its readers but to enlighten us on the real criminals of the art world through thoughtful commentary. But like all the good heists, the thieves are the real masterpiece.

The book juggles multiple POVs, and the chorus of young voices never feels overwhelming. The joint struggle to feel at home when their identities are split between America and China drives this plot forward. The scenery of posh capital cities and European architecture come to life through their reflective accounts, calling on the whiplash of painful longing and whimsical wanderlust with every new chapter.

It’s easy to get lost in the dream-like narration of this exposition-heavy story, rather than irritated by the lack of action. Whether this book sucks you in with its depth or pushes you away with its convoluted storytelling, the heart of these troubled twenty-somethings comes through with a constant desire to be in each other’s gravitational pull. Will Chen’s crew may not have the skills of Ketterdam’s crooked criminals, but they have the camaraderie covered.

It is also refreshing to have a book following college students at such a prolific time in their lives. It’s rare to see our college years reflected so mundanely in adult fiction, but it is just as much a surprise to have a book tackle the high-strung emotions of diving into the workforce.

This coming-of-age tale wields its politically-charged topics of colonization and looting well. Yet, that difficult subject matter appeals to readers on a much more human level through fears of letting go after years of the education system controlling our every decision. Robbing the world’s most secure museums isn’t nearly as terrifying as having to be a person with a voice, to be the generation who challenges the world’s misconceptions. Yet, this caper leans into those fears, finding that haunting sweet spot through its double-edged exploration of freedom in our twenties.

Unfortunately, like the young criminals this story enlists, Portrait of a Thief is disappointingly under-equipped to tell a complete, satisfying tale of art theft.

Heists are hard, and writing about them is an even more complex undertaking. The book never entirely eclipses those weaknesses, often overshadowing the heist itself with inner monologues and avoidance. One could see the choice to focus on the people, not the task, as a clever move to lean into the character study Portrait of a Thief is comfortable being.

However, there comes a point when the lack of detail surrounding the robberies themselves gives the impression the story is slightly out of its depth, grasping at straws when it is forced to face the practical applications of a heist caper. In turn, action is brief and recounted in snippets, giving readers just enough to piece together how these extremely foolish kids managed to rob a high-security museum, or at least think they did.

Portrait of Thief will not outsmart its readers. It will, however, steal a part of your heart with its compelling explorations of art, history, and identity.

2.5

I think if I had gone in with different expectations, this book would have worked better for me.

It is fast-paced in the way I would want and expect a thriller/heist story to be; but, the actual heisting was ridiculously unrealistic. There was essentially no planning other than a Zoom watch party of Ocean's Eleven and yet they somehow pulled off multiple heists in several different countries. I will admit, that I appreciated the ending more than I thought I would.

What I think this book does best is function as an exploration of what it means to be Chinese American. Each of our five POVs have different experiences and a different relationship to their Chineseness and I really liked seeing how they differed. Though, I think I would have liked to see more distinction from Alex as details about her made it seem like her family was from Hong Kong rather than Mainland China. Also for a book that did such a good job exploring characters internally, I had a really hard time buying a lot of the character relationships.

While I do have my gripes, I admittedly flew through this book and enjoyed that it is a different sort of mystery/thriller than we usually see. I also think a lot of my issues come from this being a debut novel, so I look forward to seeing what Grace D. Li writes next.

This book is a wholesome waste of time. It has a marvelous plot, but was poorly developed. The wrirting is so bad, the characteres are so dumb. It's a no for me.

Great concept and well executed. I liked the fact that it was told from all of the main character's points of view.

I was intrigued by this story but couldn’t get into the book. We barely had any time with each of the characters, and in the time we did have, everything was repetitive; the characters said and thought the same things over and over again.

That being said, I saw Netflix already optioned this, and I think it'll make a great show! I'll definitely watch.

BOOK REVIEW

BOOK: Portrait of a Thief
AUTHOR: Grace D. Li
FORMAT: Physical
GENRE: Contemporary Fiction
PUB DATE: 4/5/22
RATING: 9/10
4.5 stars

Thank you so much @tinyrepbooks for sending me a #gifted finished copy of PORTRAIT OF A THIEF, out now!

MY THOUGHTS

I started this book when I was in a huge reading slump. It took me a little to get through it. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages, LOVING those few pages, but then picking something else up. It also didn’t help that I read it for a book club & was the only one who read it (hi ALBL, if anyone has since read and wants to chat LMK)!! Don’t let this be a testament to the quality of this book! I am OBSESSED!

This book is definitely marketed as a plot-driven, action-packed story about art museum heists around the world by 5 young adults. What we got instead was a powerful coming-of-age story of five Chinese-American individuals who are learning to find their identity in modern America without letting go of their Chinese roots, with a side of art museum heists. I absolutely loved the story for what it was. I’m definitely more of a character-driven reader so I was very pleasantly surprised. The writing was fantastic. I loved the set up of the chapters and the different POVs of all of the characters. The characters themselves were each so different but well-established in the plot, they each brought such unique traits and skills to the table. I loved how the story wrapped up and how we got closure for our five MCs. It really wrapped the book up nicely.

While some more heist would have been cool and made for some fun drama, I think I wanted more character development. With 5 POVs, it felt like we were only just scratching the surface with each of our characters when it all wrapped up. I wanted to know more! @gracedli , I’m ready to start discussing a sequel.

Definitely recommend this one! It was such a great read, especially reading it during #AAPIHeritageMonth in May.

I enjoyed the representation of characters from the Asian diaspora and the characters' struggles to find their identity as children of the diaspora. I also enjoyed that colonialism and western thief of art and culture from these east was addressed. However, I feel that the book was more focused on the character's internal struggles/dialogues and less on the art and "heist" aspect of the story. Both the themes of the story wanted to take center stage and their just wasn't enough room or development for the colonialism part of the book. Overall it is a solid read.

Portrait of a Thief was a great debut novel! I enjoyed the story and the representation of Asian characters.

I thought the book was enjoyable but a slight reach to Ocean's Eleven. I would say it more had to do with the characters and how they interacted with each other, then an actual heist.

There where things that did bother me, from how they communicate with each other and you know, a google doc. But I did enjoy what they did and I will recommend this book to everyone who asks.

The first thing you should know about Portrait of a Thief is that it is not a heist novel. Rather, this is a character-driven literary exploration of five Chinese-American college students grappling with the diaspora and their senses of identity, culture, and heritage.

If you came for the heists, you're going to be disappointed. There are a couple of heists in the book, yes, but they are not believable or at all thrilling. In fact, the entire heist aspect of this book really should only be viewed as a vehicle to tell the stories of the five central characters. Otherwise, you'll be left with big questions that the book never answers, and lots of plot holes.

But if you came for the characters, there will be a lot to unpack. Grace D. Li has created five fascinating, complex, sensitively-rendered central protagonists. It's unfortunate that they don't have a wider variety of perspectives and experiences, because they do all seem to grapple with the same internal conflicts. Nevertheless, through them, Li explores themes of home and belonging, cultural identity and heritage, the immigrant experience, and the impacts of colonization in interesting and thoughtful ways. She perfectly renders what it's like to be on the cusp of adulthood while also feeling the weightiness and obligations of parental and cultural expectations.

Portrait of a Thief does feel very much like a debut. There's a lot of repetition in both the prose and the thematic elements; it's a bit too earnest and over-written while also somewhat generalized in its observations. There's also the over-use of "all [something] and [something]" as a descriptive tool, which is a sentence structure that makes me cringe. But there is lots of potential here. Even with its imperfections, Portrait of a Thief is thought-provoking and impactful. Li is a writer with a strong voice and an important perspective, and if she writes another novel, I'll definitely read it.

"Everything lost, now found." Is it really a thief if the items were already stolen? Which crime is worse? The original or stealing it back and returning it to the rightful owners?

To say this book is Ocean’s Eleven meets Fast & Furious would be a great disservice. While Ocean's Eleven is referenced several times, it's more than that. It's about being a Chinese American who is still chief as only Chinese. It's about identity and belonging. In China, they’re too American. In America, they’re too Chinese. You don't belong anywhere and you feel you just can't win.

Will Chen, an art history major in his senior year at Harvard, gathers a team of students to pull off an impossible heist. The crew consists of Irene Chen, Will’s “I can do anything you can do better” sister, Daniel Liang, studying medicine, a Chinese immigrant whose father is an FBI agent and loyal friend from high school, Lily Wu who’s an engineer into illegal street racing, and Alex Huang, who quit MIT to work at Google and is the hacker who insists that she’s not a hacker. This completely inexperienced and unprofessional group of young adults is tasked to rob five museums across Europe and America to steal five sculptures taken from a colonial conquest of Beijing’s Summer Palace. Can they get away with it as they piecemeal their plans with no prior experience of this magnitude?

Thoroughly enjoyed this ebook. People always complain, that there was not enough character development. This book has one of the most developed character developments as I felt I truly understood who they were and in turn, understood myself and where I fit in. I too am a child of the diaspora. While some may complain there was not enough about the heist, the heist is the backdrop. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 4 out of 5 stars.

I received an e-arc in exchange for an honest review, so thank you to NetGalley, Grace D. Li, and Tiny Reparations Books for this great e-copy.

2.5 stars

Words cannot express how badly I wanted to like this book. It was one of my most anticipated releases of 2022, maybe even of all time; at one point, I could barely think about anything else out of excitement. Sadly, I was barely even 15% in before I knew I was going to be disappointed again, and I was.

Portrait of a Thief is an extremely ambitious debut novel; it promises something that is equal parts heist novel, exploration of Chinese-American identity, and discussion of colonialism through art. Needless to say, it definitely had the potential to become one of my favorite books of all time, but its execution is (to say the least) incredibly poor. Yeah, there are some things I liked, but they were mostly buried underneath an onslaught of massive problems that only became increasingly obvious as I continued reading. First of all, the heist part of this book is laughably horrible. The heists were extremely short and unrealistic, with hardly any suspense or action, and on top of that they were planned over Zoom and Google Docs (I'm no expert on robbing museums, of course, but I'm pretty sure there should be more top-secret, high stakes stuff than what was given here). Additionally, I have no clue why these characters were being chosen/allowed to carry out the heists in the first place; they're a bunch of random college students and clearly not professionals.

Speaking of the characters, I didn't dislike any of them, but they left a lot to be desired. They're likable enough, but they all seem to be defined by one or two traits that the author makes sure to rub in your face until you want to scream (alright, Irene has spent her whole life doing everything right, move on). There's an attempt made at making them complex that's kind of half-baked but occasionally succeeds; I think Daniel was one of the more well-written characters, considering I actually felt something during some of his scenes. There's also tons of important character relationships in this book: Will and Lily, Alex and Irene, Will and Irene, Will and Irene and Daniel, and Daniel and his dad, to name a few. I would have liked more development from these as well, but they were probably the parts of the book I liked the most.

Ultimately, my biggest issue with this book has to be with the writing. If you were to take individual quotes from this book and look at those alone, you would probably be amazed at the quality of the prose. However, while reading the actual book, the prose turns out to be incredibly repetitive and drags the whole thing down. It makes lines that would otherwise be heartbreaking seem melodramatic (though there are several lines I genuinely loved, despite this), and generally makes the book harder and harder to get through as you read. In some cases, the author uses the exact same phrase so many times that I began wondering if this book had ever seen an editor. There's "he was all lean lines and expressive hands" and "all shadows and the curve of a cheek" and "Irene was all sharp edges and a quick tongue" and "it had been all skyscrapers and neon lights" and so on. It got so exhausting to read and really did not help alleviate my other frustrations.

I think the author has tons of potential and believe that, with some changes, this book could have been incredible. Unfortunately, reading it felt more like a chore than the immersive experience I'd hoped for, and its few redeeming points weren't enough to save it in my eyes. I can only hope that the adaptation will be better.

Thanks to Penguin Group Dutton for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley.

3.5/5 (rounded up)

When I saw that Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li had the word heist in the synopsis, I knew I had to read it. I love reading books that involve heists or racing cars for that matter, and I loved that Li took some of her inspiration from the Ocean's movies and the Fast & Furious franchise to create this debut that is rooted in fact. I could easily tell that a ton of research went into writing this, and it was also pretty amazing to be fully immersed inside another culture through reading this story. I will say, while the heist might be a part of the book, there is really a lot more at play here than just that. I felt like the act of the heists themselves were a bit on the backburner while the thing that really shines through is each character and what they are facing in their own lives.

I didn't know anything about Chinese art before reading Portrait of a Thief, and it really was quite fascinating to learn about what happened to so much of it. I also loved this book on audio, and I don't think I could have asked for anyone better as narrators than Eunice Wong & Austin Ku. They really brought the story and the characters to life, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to both of them. I also saw that this is actually going to be a show on Netflix, and I think it is going to be truly incredible that way. There are quite a few parts that felt like something straight out of a movie, and it will be great to see all of the characters in the story brought to life onscreen. I think this was a really solid debut, and really only had a couple of issues with it. I do think it could have been shorter, and it dragged a bit for me towards the end when I thought it should have already been over. There were also a couple of things that left me feeling confused and like they didn't get explained properly. Other than that, this was a very informational and amazing story, and I can't wait to see what Li will write next.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The premise of this story was so strong and new. Unfortunately, it lacked believability in the characters and plot.

I wish I could give this book a 3.75, but that option is not available and I’m feeling generous…so here we are with 4 stars. I loved the concept of the book, although I had to keep reminding myself that it was written by a young adult due to all the ‘heist’ infeasible actions.

I went into this book knowing that it was a heist novel but was also touched emotionally by the way Grace Lin wrote about how 5 young Chinese Americans also felt that the object of their theft were 5 stolen priceless Chinese sculptures. Will Chen who is a senior at Harvard and an art history major is contacted after someone sees him swipe an item from the museum. He then puts together a crew that includes Irene Daniel Lily and Alex. It’s an interesting juxtaposition in that while they are committing actual crime by stealing these five sculptures there is also a sense that they are putting to rest wrong for many years ago. Grace manages to write this book in a way that you are so captivated by the actual highest in what it takes but at the same time your heart is constantly pulled in many directions. I could not put down the book because you become so involved in the story and the characters.This is such a well written book and I look forward to reading more by Grace Lin

i had mixed expectations for this book, and i can say i'm not disappointed. i didn't know how this book's plot was going to play out given the length, but from the beginning you're hooked on it.

li establishes an interesting group of protagonists and an fascinating plotline that keeps you wanting more. i will say there were times where i felt as though the prose was a bit excess, but i honestly loved the over-arching complexities of each character and their relationship with china/the diaspora that i kept reading.

the heist plotline fell somewhat flat to me, which is disappointing seeing as that's what reeled me in. i did love the characters, though, which is what kept me reading. the deeper meanings of this book hold strong and carry a powerful sort of message, one that's not often seen in ya books. a powerful debut!

Portrait of a Thief is a fun, high-stakes book about art heists undertaken by a group of young Chinese-Americans. The young twenty-something characters are offered $50 million dollars if they can obtain 5 priceless artifacts from different museums that were stolen from a Chinese palace in the 1800s. The story revolves around five characters, so it can be a little difficult to keep straight at times. They are all highly intelligent and successful, largely living their parents' dreams. I loved the discussion of who owns artifacts from other countries. The story is sometimes very glittery and flashy and entertaining. A perfect summer read if you're looking for a thought-provoking adventure.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Five Chinese American college students become justice-driven international art
thieves in this Ocean’s Eleven-ish heist novel. When he’s made an offer he can’t refuse,
MIT student Will Chen recruits four brilliant accomplices—all with looming midterms—
to fulfill an audacious goal: to break into art museums in five countries, in order to steal
back artifacts that were once wrongfully stolen from China. If they succeed, they’ll receive
a life-changing $50 million payout. The heist storyline crackles and pops, but Li crams in
plenty of substance alongside her flashy plot: an exploration of identity and belonging,
crushing familial expectations, desires, love, and calling, plus meaningful LGBTQ
representation and the seamless integration of pandemic realities. Word to the wise: This
reads more Hollywood than real life but see if you don’t enjoy the ride.