A review by knlipke
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

adventurous hopeful tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Baby driver x Chinese art/culture


Portrait of a Thief is a wonderful novel about 5 college students who are offered a huge task… one that involves 50 million dollars: they have to steal Chinese art that has been away from the home country for hundreds of years. Will they be able to pull off stealing from art museums 5 times over?

I really loved this story. As a debut novel, Portrait of a Thief is great. The characters were loveable. The plot line is fascinating and a excellent idea. I loved the subtle romance story lines. The story was more about a sense of belonging in your ancestry than art thievery; wanting to create your own story within your history.

However, I felt that I couldn’t connect with the characters on a level beyond superficial. There wasn’t a lot of character interaction besides talking and planning of the heists. Since there were multiple POV’s, it felt that feelings and thoughts were repeated. Other things were repeated as well, such as selected sayings (“There was this…”, “And yet-there was this too.”). I also wanted to read more about their heist and the strategy of pulling it off.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The idea story and themes were just amazing the entire time. It moved a little slowly, but I loved persevering, if not for the characters and wanting to know the outcome.
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