In a snapshot, Portrait of a Thief sounds mesmerizing: we’re following a group of Chinese American college students attempting to pull off five heists, reclaiming pieces of stolen art - and becoming millionaires in the process. Unfortunately, it fell quite flat compared to its initial pitch.

 

There are five characters, and chapters alternate viewpoints: each student is grappling with diaspora in their own way. Generally, this was where the book shone. Li captured painful feelings of belongingness, home, societal pressure, living up to familial expectations, and so much more. And at a first glance, each character had a very distinct voice and way of relating to their culture. 

 

However, while I felt like I could rattle off facts about each of the characters, I didn’t get to know any of them well enough. The repetitive nature of the writing and chapters made it so each character grappled with the same problem each time we circled back to their POV, and nothing changed or evolved. Every character could be described in a single sentence, and that sentence wouldn’t change over the course of the book.

 

There were some wonderfully written moments, but so many phrases were overused that I found myself having to force my attention back to the page. The pacing was often excruciatingly slow (which would be forgivable save for the repetition issue), and the heists and setup were distractingly unbelievable. 

 

Look, I’m always down for a fun adventure. But honestly - who would ask five random kids to pull off heists at famous museums around the world? Who would take that personal & financial risk and genuinely believe they would succeed?

 

After the initial pitch, we veer into even more laughable territory. It’s straight up magic. I know nothing about how to break into a museum, hack a security system, or fix up a car in order to win a street race. But the writing of the action scenes were so unbelievable that I wasn’t able to forgive my misgivings and immerse myself in the fun. Probably because it wasn’t really fun (the stakes never felt that high) and it just made no sense. For any readers out there looking to plan an extravagant heist: probably don’t use Zoom and Google Docs??

 

And to zoom out and look at the bigger picture theme of art history and colonialism … I found this quite weak. Beyond saying that art is powerful and restoring looted art to its country is good (like … yes, of course), the conversation was shallow and again, very repetitive. We didn’t really get any details about the art itself, which, uh, seems like it should have been important? 

 

Overall, while I loved the idea of Portrait of a Thief, I found the execution to be lacking. 

 

I’d love to hear more from Li in the future on the parts that rang true: the diaspora experience of young Chinese American students. 

 

CW: racism, colonization, death of parent (before the story begins), cultural appropriation, grief, xenophobia, alcohol, terminal illness, classism