I love heist stories, I love art history, I love the idea of stealing back looted art, I love character-driven stories, I love stories about making connections and forming relationships and having hope in the face of uncertain odds… Yeah, no, this book had it all and I loved it and I’m putting it on my to buy list because I want to own it and bookmark the heck out of it.

On that note, my e-book download has literally so many highlights and notes. It’s rare if I make more than a small handful, if any, notes in a book, because I tend to get so immersed I just don’t even think about it. If I mark up a book, it’s either really bad and I’m just writing “what” and “???” everywhere, OR it’s really good and I keep reading these lines that just strike me and I absolutely need to save them. This one is the latter. It’s written so beautifully. I know the definition of “prose” is basically just text without meter, but for whatever reason the word gives me the connotation of text written in an artful and beautiful way, where it feels every word is intentional and careful and has so much impact. Anyway, this book is that. It’s written so artfully, and with this aching, longing, hopeful tone that makes it feel like a love letter or like a dead of night, sitting on the roof in the dark kind of whispered conversation, where you feel too vulnerable and raw. 

The storyline is great. The planning scenes are great, the way the heist gets put together is great, the action scenes are great. It definitely scratches my itch for typical montage-y heist stories (my not-at-all-guilty pleasure). This group of college kids, planning an impossible crime by watching heist movies, sharing notes over Zoom and Google Docs (because how else are college kids going to do a group project?), and trying to figure out how to fit into their assigned typical heist roles, was perfect for this story. The exploration into each of them and their reasons for doing this, along with their connections within the group, felt really well done and thoroughly explained. At some points the descriptions for characterization felt a touch repetitive and redundant, but I think it was necessary in order for the reader to recontextualize certain characters after reading from the perspective of other characters. After all, one of my favorite things about this book (second to the writing style) is how the characters interact and how they see each other, how they both pull towards and push away from each other. “Portrait” in the title made me hopeful for some great characterization, and I wasn’t disappointed.

While I think the resolution came up maybe a bit too quickly, it was still a satisfying ending. You might need to suspend your disbelief a little bit for certain events throughout, but I think that’s the case for pretty much any heist story I’ve ever consumed, so. And anyway, I didn’t feel distracted by anything while reading. Overall, I’m simply in awe of Li for how she wrote this book, for evoking this tone and for putting words together the way she did. For telling this story in this way, for crafting a fun heist story along with a serious reflection on colonialism and art looting and the excuses from museums. For making it all fit together seamlessly, and for the truly beautiful way this book felt to read.

Thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for the ARC!