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

adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

As the debate about returning artworks and artifacts to their rightful owners/countries is an extremely popular talking point in the art world today, Portrait of a Thief is more current than ever. The novel centers around five college students who are hired by a private Chinese art collector to steal artwork from various museums around the world and return them to China. The book is set up to be a *great* movie or show and already happens to be in the works with Netflix. That said, the book fell pretty flat for me and I was irked by the over-romanticism of the Bay Area…I get picky about how people write about where I grew up. 
 
While I didn’t find the stakes high enough for these college kids (what student doesn’t want money?), Portrait of a Thief is a quick read with short chapters that are easy to inhale. Although it was easy to finish in a couple of sittings, I found a lot of the information about the characters to be repetitive and didn’t allow the characters to grow or develop. I ended up skimming the book towards the end only to encounter a dull ending that leaves readers with an unsatisfied experience. All and all, I was looking for some more action and a bit less description of the Bay Area’s rolling, golden hills and furniture-less apartments.
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