Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

★★★★

In a somewhat improbable premise, five college-aged Chinese Americans agree to commit a series of art heists.

For about the first third of the book, it felt like the heist was contrived to simply be the means by which these characters would come together. The pacing was slow and deliberate, each character engaging in much introspection and self-analysis as they looked to justify their decision to join the crew. As children of immigrants, each with their own unique experiences, they examined their familial relationships and self-identities, tried to understand their place in the Chinese diaspora and make sense of their uncertain futures. The weight of immigrant dreams and unresolved sense of self hung over almost every conversation, action, and interaction.

When the first heist finally started to come together, a healthy dose of suspended disbelief was necessary. Here we had a young adult crew, all somewhere on the stereotypical Asian child-of-immigrants predetermined path to success (e.g., elite school, pre-med or engineering, etc.), with little to no relevant criminal experience (except what one happened to conveniently pick up as the son of the FBI expert on Chinese art theft), planning a heist in 4 weeks while also holding down their full-time studies or job. The main characters being on the precipice of change positioned them well for so much self-reflection, but maybe the story would have been a little more believable if they were all just a bit older.

Still, seeing the first heist come together was a satisfying development. The pace picked up, though the book never quite became a page-turner for me. About halfway through, an unexpected twist finally hooked me and got me wondering how things would end.

I found it difficult to become fully immersed in the book because I was constantly distracted by the author's writing style. The prose leaned into the art theme, was excessively descriptive and poetic with careful attention being paid to the way light or darkness fell into a room, or on someone's face, or over a city, with colors of gold and red or gray. The author relied heavily on this: a set-up employing the word "this", followed by a colon, followed by some kind of revelatory statement.

Yet, I gave this book 4 stars. It resonated with me in a very personal way that does not often happen. I enjoyed the main characters and their changing relationships; each of them felt like someone I could have known in college, and in them I recognized pieces of myself and my Chinese American community growing up. And it wasn't just the complicated identity stuff that I found relatable, but also the casual references to boba and dumplings. Also, Chinese characters were dropped in-line with English text, not just the pinyin romanization but actual Chinese characters! The representation just felt amazing.