“All those looted 'pieces of art are still in Western museums. Of the twelve zodiac heads that made up the fountain, only seven are in China. The other five are scattered throughout the Western world. We have asked for them back over and over, only to be told they are no longer ours.'

Five students decide to steal back five of these looted items in act to return cultural property.

When I heard Portrait of a Thief being described as Oceans Eleven meets Farewell, I was excited to see how such a mash up translates. To be honest, in my opinion not that good. I loved that this book discusses important themes as grief, friendship, family and repatriation of artworks and how this affects, in this case, Chinese Americans.
But this is clearly a debut as the characters feel somewhat flat, the romantic relationships come out of nowhere and the heist isn’t the main focus. Rather, this book is mainly character driven. And although that’s completely fine, it isn’t what I expected at all. However the themes the characters discuss is the strongest bit of the book. It points out how difficult it can be to grow up bicultural and long for a different culture, but never have a sense of belonging. With this said, this book is definitely worth reading if you are looking for the difficulties of growing up bicultural or as a Chinese American, but if you are in search of a thrilling heist you might want to look further.