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

adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

for a debut, this book was grand and ambitious. i loved grace d. li’s writing style, it’s beautiful and coherent. i was surprised that this book was short considering it has a heist plotline with five different complex characters. suffice to say, the author did make it work. however, it felt lacking to me. the heist scenes felt so rushed, the action scenes are always cut short - i feel like i was missing out on something big even when i was reading the heist scenes. li focused more on the thoughts of the characters and gave less room for the actual action scenes. it feels like i’m barely catching up on all the things that are happening because they’re all going by so fast. she builds up scenes that are worth anticipating for only for me to come out dissatisfied at the end. moreover, for a book that has politics as the pillar of the main plotline, the discussion of politics seemed light and lazy, as if the author just brought out the “bringing back what’s ours” notion and went along with it — it is very difficult to discuss extensive politics in a 300-page novel, least of all in a debut but she tried, i’ll give her that.

the domestic ending was the saving grace of this book for me, apart from the characters. i did not feel severely attached to the characters but i love how li gave such details to their backgrounds to give them depth. i liked alex and irene the best and i love that they’re both queer serving enemies to lovers (plus points for that). 

was this a good book? no. but it was definitely something!
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