Name: ash (smokedshelves)'s review of Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li
Item: Portrait of a Thief
Rating: 3
Author: ash (smokedshelves)

Grace D Li

Ocean's Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now. Will Chen plans to steal them back. A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son that has always been his parents' American Dream. But when a shadowy Chinese corporation reaches out with an impossible--and illegal--job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine--or at least, the closest he can get. A conman: Irene Chen, Will's sister and a public policy major at Duke, who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering student who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they've cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down. Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars--and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they've dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen. With poetic language, a fun, commercial hook, and a plot that spans the Western world, Portrait of a Thief is both a cultural heist and an examination of the Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary critique of the lingering effects of colonialism that readers won't want to miss.

Portrait of a Thief

Rachael Bahr

Twenty years, and she had never called China hers. How could she when she had never been? She did not know its songs, its roads, its rivers. She did not know the terms of address for kin, the names of provinces, anything that she ought. All she knew was that her parents had left, and that they did not speak or what they had left behind.

She had never minded until now. Her parents had lived through the Cultural Revolution, had come to America looking to start anew. Their parents-her grandparents-had died before she was born, to famine or persecution or any of the countless tragedies that happened in a country in upheaval. Without family in China, with all their friends lost to time-Lily had never needed to ask her parents about why they hadnt taught her Chinese, why there were no summer trips to unknown provinces. Twenty years, and she was used to being asked where she was from, to giving an answer that felt like a lie. She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.

Every time I come back, he said, I recognize this country a little less.

Change, swift and inevitable. The country of so much of her childhood, of her father's stories, was not the same one she was in now. And yet she studied Chinese politics and Will studied Chinese art, both of them reaching for the country their parents had left behind.

Rina

Art was many things, but in the end it was a question asked: What do you want to be remembered for? At last, he had an answer. 

Art is power, just like everything else. And yet" Alex waited.

They were college students, young and brilliant and destined for greatness, and they did not fail.

Still, the light was soft, the room filled with warmth and laughter and possibility, and somehow--it didn't feel like they had done anything wrong at all.

Win as though youre used to it and lose as if you like it. -ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER

Emily Klo

She had made it seem like a small thing, but Will didn't think it was. To live without the weight of everything you were not-how could it ever be?

Kimmy Hobden

If she let herself be angry, her anger would spill over. It would burn her alive.

i didn’t need to be attacked like this at 9 in the morning 

How could he explain how it felt to know, with a terrible and unflinching certainty, that you were not enough for your dreams? There was so much he wanted, so much that would always be out of reach.

How could he explain how it felt to know, with a terrible and unflinching certainty, that you were not enough for your dreams?

"Art belongs to the creator," Will said, his voice soft, "not the conqueror. No matter what the law says, or what treaties are signed. For too long  museums have held on to art that isn't theirs to keep, bought more because they know they can."

"Damn," he said. "I hate personal growth."

fc ♡

dana

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

for a book about multiple heists i really wish there were, well... more heists.

ash (smokedshelves)

A pop song of a book. Is it like, going to make you cry or like call your best friend when you finish it? No. You aren’t waking your husband in tears at the end of this one. But you will laugh a bit and it is great for like when you just want to enjoy something for a little while and not worry about an emotional jump scare or like having to confront some deeper questions about existence. You can just be happy sometimes. 

Apiecalypse Jen

This book’s profound message is completely buried under melodrama and references to Galveston, TX.

Ally Perkins

The concept, characters, and story of this book were very compelling, but unfortunately I wasn’t in love with the writing itself. Technically, the writing is strong, but the author repeats the characters’ thoughts and motivations so many times that it began to feel redundant. It also suffers from a common symptom of books with multiple POVs; each character is given their own chapter to react and respond to whatever is happening in the plot, and it makes the story drag because we are reading about the same event 5 times.

I think if some of the exposition and internal monologuing had been trimmed, this book would have been perfect. 

Cloudface

The concept, characters, and story of this book were very compelling, but unfortunately I wasn’t in love with the writing itself. Technically, the writing is strong, but the author repeats the characters’ thoughts and motivations so many times that it began to feel redundant. It also suffers from a common symptom of books with multiple POVs; each character is given their own chapter to react and respond to whatever is happening in the plot, and it makes the story drag because we are reading about the same event 5 times.
I think if some of the exposition and internal monologuing had been trimmed, this book would have been perfect. 

Maria

it's a shame, as this was one of my most anticipated releases this year, but it just didn't hit the mark. i will admit somewhere halfway through i really just started skimming, but some of the plot points seemed nonsensical, as did the actions and behaviour of some of the characters. some of the actions really made me ask myself if there was some research put into this, because as a heist, none of this is even remotely believable.
the cover is absolutely gorgeous tho!

Grace D. Li

This was how things began: Boston on the cusp of fall, the Sackler Museum robbed of 23 pieces of priceless Chinese art. Even in this back room, dust catching the slant of golden, late-afternoon light, Will could hear the sirens. They sounded like a promise. Will Chen, a Chinese American art history student at Harvard, has spent most of his life learning about the West - its art, its culture, all that it has taken and called its own. He believes art belongs with its creators, so when a Chinese corporation offers him a (highly illegal) chance to reclaim five priceless sculptures, it's surprisingly easy to say yes. Will's crew, fellow students chosen out of his boundless optimism for their skills and loyalty, aren't exactly experienced criminals. Irene is a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything; Daneil is pre-med with steady hands and dreams of being a surgeon. Lily is an engineering student who races cars in her spare time; and Will is relying on Alex, an MIT dropout turned software engineer, to hack her way in and out of each museum they must rob. Each student has their own complicated relationship with China and the identities they've cultivated as Chinese Americans, but one thing soon becomes certain: they won't say no. Because if they succeed? They earn an unfathomable ten million each, and a chance to make history. If they fail, they lose everything . . . and the West wins again.

fatru tamzil

This was...complicated to rate and review. This was my most anticipated reads of 2022. I love heists, and I love heists that has purpose--not only to make money, but also to repatriate art back to the country. I know how museums, especially Western museums tends to forego ethics, and 'loots' other artifact from other cultures, of wars and taking belonging thay was never theirs to begin with. This was my expectation reading this book: to discuss art property and who they belonged to. 

And yet.... I was left disappointed. 

Let's start at the beggining, shall we? Will Chen received an invite by a thief, a card with a phone number inviting him. From then, the story unfold, impossible heists and a mission to take five Zodiac Head home to China, where it belongs. 

Let's start with what I love: I love the discussion of the Asian-American experience, how the author build each characters with their own struggles and stories of the American Dream. I personally really loved Daniel and Alex's narratives; how Daniel tried to be the good son, how Alex had to give up everything for her family, even her dreams. I also love how this book discuss the issue of repatriation and where art belongs, the hypocrisy that is the Western museum industry and how they got a lot of things looted, and yet turning a blind eyes to it. 

Despite loving Daniel and Alex's narratives, I actually loves Irene's character the most. I love mean girls, I love unlikeable characters, and Irene hit those sweet spots of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss for me. I see some of criticsm of the romance, but I like the romance, the enemies-to-lovers arc that befall Irene and Alex, the sapphics. The writing style is beautiful and easy to read, and it was addicting to read at times. Melancholic. Till 50% I can't stop reading. 

The not so good, that makes this 2 stars instead of 5, was what many other reviewers stated already: the heists, most importantly, the planning of the heists. I know that they are college students, but they are college studenys of Ivy League, and I think knew better than to plot heists, of important museums, on Zoom calls. 

Zoom calls. That can be easily tracked to them. The application that was suspected of privacy issues, and the one that can be hacked so easy it sprouted the term zoom-bombing? If anything planning in this age of technology you either planned on something that was encrypted or do the paper and pencils method instead. Burn the note. It's easier and way more untraceable than zoom calls. 

Another aspect of the heist: getaway from the customs. Probably because I have read an actual museum employee got held by a custom because he was concealing gold items inside a keyboard case (and he was a museum employee with official letters from the museum.) That a bronze statue was not held down because of a fake paper was....unbelieveable. That did not make sense. Moreover it was not a carry-on bag but a baggage. You're transporting an artefact inside a baggage. 

That they were not caught sooner was lucky, really. That Daniel's dad did not suspect them sooner was a proof of how much he trusted them and see them as his own children, as 'you're family so i'll let you off hook'. 

Another one, a minor annoyance: Irene was a public policy student, and in the earlier narrative, it was seen that she seems to doubted whether she wants to do it 'for China'--that China itself had takes and takes and takes, and yet readily help Will whose motives is 'for China'. I knew that history was complicated, there was not one side and it certainly is not black-and-white, but for someone who is so 'socially concious', to have so little resistance of the narratives? I actually expected more of her musings. It would've been interesting. 

I actually liked the ending. Stories like this must ends with hope, and the ending is hopeful so I loved it. I just wished there are more explorations of the narratives it promised to brings, because this has potentials to be a really good book examining really important topics.

reading this felt like coming home. i felt seen, known, understood, and there were times when i had to put the book down and catch my breath because it resurfaced feelings that i didn't want to think about. alex was probably the most relatable (for obvious reasons), but daniel, too, in his relationship with his father. grace d. li really treated all the relationships--familial, romantic, whatever the term is for the tenuous ties you have to the places you have known--with a gentle nuance that made them feel real.   

some parts of the book did feel repetitive, a lot of rehashing, reused phrases and words. but that's what it feels like, being chinese-american, being a member of that diaspora in your own way--something that lingers, inescapable. there are only so many ways to describe the exact flavor of it for yourself. i also personally was not a fan of the romance--in a book about a crew, where all of them found a little bit of themselves in the others--it detracted a little.   

a bit flashy, a lot of fun, but underneath it all: stories that i needed to read.

✧˖°.

reading this felt like coming home. i felt seen, known, understood, and there were times when i had to put the book down and catch my breath because it resurfaced feelings that i didn't want to think about. alex was probably the most relatable (for obvious reasons), but daniel, too, in his relationship with his father. grace d. li really treated all the relationships--familial, romantic, whatever the term is for the tenuous ties you have to the places you have known--with a gentle nuance that made them feel real.   

some parts of the book did feel repetitive, a lot of rehashing, reused phrases and words. but that's what it feels like, being chinese-american, being a member of that diaspora in your own way--something that lingers, inescapable. there are only so many ways to describe the exact flavor of it for yourself. i also personally was not a fan of the romance--in a book about a crew, where all of them found a little bit of themselves in the others--it detracted a little.   

a bit flashy, a lot of fun, but underneath it all: stories that i needed to read.

nuélle

I think the author was trying to make Irene into some #girlboss character but just ended up making her completely insufferable. the "heist" was abandoned half way and I basically lost interest there on top of that they were using fucking google docs and whatsapp to plan it like wtf????? 
anyway ig my expectations were too high, but i LOVED daniel's character and would do anything for him <33

chloé

had high expectations for this but it really wasn't as good as it could have been. very redundant and too much at times. the relationships felt rushed. kinda disappointed overall :/

5 young Ivy League students get roped into stealing 5 pieces of art from China.

The book handles a lot of ethics surrounding of art and how museums have “acquired” their art. I love we get a backstory of why the five are involved and what it is like to feel other.

Parts of it were a smidge repetitive but all in all a really fun book. Great for art lovers.

Suzanne

5 young Ivy League students get roped into stealing 5 pieces of art from China.

The book handles a lot of ethics surrounding of art and how museums have “acquired” their art. I love we get a backstory of why the five are involved and what it is like to feel other.

Parts of it were a smidge repetitive but all in all a really fun book. Great for art lovers.

Teeeeeesha

Five students try to pull off five heists to get art back to China. Each one has a complicated relationship with their country and each other and yet this relationship's so beautiful and worth it.

I appreciate and loved the author’s inspection and exploration of identity, ancestry and it’s relation to modern day museums and their alleged objection to be “beacon of knowledge and culture” whilst showcasing precious monuments from an era of brutal colonization.

However, this message has been repeated over and over throughout the course of the book and by the later half of it you kind of get tired listening to the same sentiments again.

The characters were fun and I loved the group dynamic worked without sacrificing each character’s individual storyline. Are they the most memorable band of thieves? No.

Jawahir M

This isn’t the adrenaline rushed Ocean’s Eleven, but it’s still good.

I appreciate and loved the author’s inspection and exploration of identity, ancestry and it’s relation to modern day museums and their alleged objection to be “beacon of knowledge and culture” whilst showcasing precious monuments from an era of brutal colonization.

However, this message has been repeated over and over throughout the course of the book and by the later half of it you kind of get tired listening to the same sentiments again.

The characters were fun and I loved the group dynamic worked without sacrificing each character’s individual storyline. Are they the most memorable band of thieves? No.

Jamieson

I am obsessed with this book but in a bad way like... what was going on? The concept was great but the writing and general execution let it down soo badly. The writing was a convoluted mess, you could tell the author wanted to be poetic but isn't a Good Writer so she just recycled the same cliche, overwrought cliches that didn't say anything. The pacing was odd, there was no stakes... and its about heists? there should be NOTHING BUT STAKES. 

sorry but just.... no

Fun to read an Asian American heist story! I loved the tie-ins of art and cultural identity. I had a couple pet peeves (Irene always having a "slow, pleased smile" and sentences that started off "and it went like this: ..." But overall, I thought the characters were fun and just developed enough. It's pretty unbelievable if you go into the book wanting everything to sound realistic, if you can suspend your disbelief, you'll get to enjoy a Chinese-American jet setting Fast & Furious with college students.

Katelyn Caillouet

super interesting concept, not much happened and moral quandaries were more in relation to personal life ("how will this risk my place at university") vs national/geopolitical ("identities as American/Chineese vs Chinese American") 

Minnie Mazuera

oberon vortigern

I took a long time trying to get into the story, before deciding that despite the appealing premise, this was not just for me at all. 

I think my expectations were too high for this, but I would have loved a deeper exploration of the Chinese diaspora identity and struggles. I noticed that past their surface differences, all the characters are basically the same in their identities and struggles, which was disappointing, as the Chinese diaspora is massive and comes in several waves. It would have been nice to see the differences in the Chinese diaspora and their conflicts.

Will, Irene, Daniel, Lilly, and my personal favourite Alex are caught up in this situation where they accepted the offer to conduct 5 heists. The goal is to bring back all 5 zodiac heads that were stolen from China and their reward would be $50 million dollars. I loved that this novel included different perspectives about their Chinese-American identity. Each one of these students seem very educated, going to Harvard, Duke, or MIT. However, this was my problem with it, all of these characters have bright futures in-front of them and I find it a bit hard at times to believe that all of them would be willing to risk that. In addition, I think at times we lose the plot and it became less about the heist and more about their connection with China, and it seemed a bit repetitive. I wish the pace was a tad bit faster. I felt that the relationships that we seen at the end Lilly and Will, and Alex and Irene, were a bit predictable. I believe this book needed more of the heist factor. 

Ruthie C

tina

when i heard about the premise of portrait of a thief, it became one of my most anticipated releases in 2022. so when i started reading the arc, i went into it with good expectations thinking that it was going to be one of my favorites. unfortunately, that wasn't what happened. 

let's start with things that i did like: i really like the fact that the story centers around diaspora and how the author explored and delivered this theme through the different experiences of the 5 main characters, who are all children of immigrants. it was nice to see how each of their diaspora experiences were reflected in their motivations, perspectives, and personalities. though i never became attached to these characters, i enjoyed reading each of their points of view, and despite the fact that all 5 of them get a pov chapter, it was not difficult to follow through and it gave us readers a better insight on each of them. however, out of the 5 characters i did only feel that only 1 character had an interesting and compelling arc and the others just felt very flat, one dimensional, and limited only to the roles that they had in the heist. on the other hand, the dynamic and relationship that they had with one another was still written well and entertaining to read about. the discussion about how stolen art is just another tool for colonizers to exert their power was also very thought-provoking, though i did find it to be surface level and repetitive because it is never elaborated more and examined in depth. but then again, what little discussion provided still made for an intriguing read. another thing i liked was how easily i could relate to these characters. i could deeply understand that feeling of uncertainty they had at their early 20s, how lost they feel sometimes, and the constant questioning they had about what their life is/ what it is going to be. this is perhaps the aspect of the book that made me feel a strong connection with the characters. 

now onto the parts that i did not like: first of all, the WRITING. i'm not one to be selective about the writing style in a book, because i usually can get behind any as long as i love the characters and/or the story. but my god the writing here bothered me so much i wanted to rip my hair off. the same lines constructed into different sentences were constantly being used, and at first it didn't bother me that much, but at some point in the book it became so irritating to read the same thing over and over and over again. the number of times the sky was described and how a certain character "was not a hacker" actually drove me insane and made the reading experience worse for me, especially because once i started noticing the repetitive lines, i could not overlook them anymore no matter how much i tried. what's more is that i found a lot of the things that happened in this book to be ridiculously unbelievable to the point where some things just did not make sense anymore. (view spoiler)[ an example of this was how easy it was for them to pull off a heist despite how reckless their plans were. and the only reason they got caught was because one of the character's father was in the investigating team and he was able to recognize their voices. it was just absurd to me how they kept outsmarting the police and the authorities despite the fact that their plans were so dumb, and at times, illogical. (hide spoiler)] also, i expected a lot more from the heist plot but it was literally so unexciting and it ended up being just underwhelming. there was not a single moment where i could feel how high the stakes were despite how many times we were told about how the characters' futures were on the line, no scenes that had me on the edge of my seat feeling anxious for what happens next. when the heists started, they ended so quickly it didn't feel like it really happened. i just wanted more of it. i wanted the thrill and the action that i'd usually find in a heist plot, but sadly, i never got that. lastly, some of the characters' reasons for agreeing to the heist were just not convincing enough. i kept waiting for a moment or a scene to understand more about why certain characters were so eager to do the heist and risk their entire lives for it, but their reasons remained insubstantial thus it made for a weak characterization. 

this really could've been such a great book if only some aspects were done better. i guess i did set high expectations for it and it's partly my fault that i ended up a bit disappointed. nonetheless, overall this was still an okay read and i think people would still be able to enjoy it for what it is.

A fun heist story about stealing back stolen art - but what I really loved was the moments where these Chinese American characters spoke about identity and not knowing where they belong, and how to feel about claiming a history or a heritage that doesn’t feel like it belongs to them. 

3.75 stars, rounded up. This book was a delight, especially for a debut novel! Concept was great, but for me, some of the characters fell flat as well as their actions. I feel like there was so much going on in such a short amount of time that I couldn't really connect to any of them, and often found myself skimming because there was just so. much. going. on. 

(Bre)anne✨

TW to be added later

3.75 stars, rounded up. This book was a delight, especially for a debut novel! Concept was great, but for me, some of the characters fell flat as well as their actions. I feel like there was so much going on in such a short amount of time that I couldn't really connect to any of them, and often found myself skimming because there was just so. much. going. on. 

Claudia Ganea

"What's wrong with wanting everything?"
"Nothing, as long as you know how to get it."

This book was so, so much fun!! While it definitely had its issues, I found the cast of characters very easy to connect to, the plot just the right mixture of grounded in real-life experiences and this-only-happens-in-movies, and the action and intrigue very compelling!

(view spoiler)[What I adored: the exploration of Chinese-American identity and diaspora, the feelings of never being enough for your parents' dreams and expectations for you, the found family (the found family, you guys, our 5 protags bring so much out of each other and have such an amazing dynamic together!!!!), Alex and Irene (because I'm me and I'm gay), Lily's character who is one of the coolest women I've had the pleasure of reading about... and so much more. As unrealistic as robbing museums can feel, this book constantly had me on the edge of my seat, wondering how they'll pull all this off and how the next heist will end up. I was also pleasantly surprised by the ending, which was very smart and very fulfilling!

What I didn't like as much, and what everyone seems to be pointing out: the repetitiveness of the writing. This didn't bother me that much, though, because overall the book is stunningly lyrical and beautifully crafted - it just suffers from overuse of reoccurring phrases. By the end, I turned it into a game and was laughing out loud every time I came across an instance of the word "possibility" 😅

All in all, this was an amazing debut, and I do very much look forward to everything else that Grace will write in the future!!
 (hide spoiler)]

i almost didn't finish this book because alex's initial chapter is so completely unrealistic

there are several points where it's just so hard to suspend my disbelief (choosing to wear a smartwatch to a heist?) and several points where it just feels very diaspora-cringe (not chinese enough/not american enough, love through cut fruit, etc)

Joyce

i almost didn't finish this book because alex's initial chapter is so completely unrealistic

there are several points where it's just so hard to suspend my disbelief (choosing to wear a smartwatch to a heist?) and several points where it just feels very diaspora-cringe (not chinese enough/not american enough, love through cut fruit, etc)

ending felt also extremely unsatisfying

Cheri McElroy

Five college students given the opportunity of a lifetime: pull of some art heists and get rich. Really rich. What could possibly go wrong?

This book isn’t really about the heists, although I enjoyed that and how things wrapped up. It’s about these five Chinese Americans and their stories. About having a foot in two cultures but not thinking you belong in either one.

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li