There’s an entire romance subplot that arises out of this, which I thought was kind of corny and forced, but more on that later. Some of them know each other a little too well beforehand, others are complete strangers. The premise of Portrait of a Thief is a fun one: a group of Chinese Americans, all around the same age (college), are brought together to steal back certain artifacts from the world’s most prestigious museums. Let’s dig into why.Ĭhinese American students and friends decide to steal back Chinese art for a lot of money. Before we get into the review, I must confess I wasn’t into this book as much as I expected. Books that have shorter chapters tend to go by a lot quicker I find, so it went as fast as I expected it to be. I ended up reading the entire book in the span of an hour and a half, which isn’t bad because I thought it was a pretty straightforward and simple read. So I checked it out at the library way after it was actually released. But then I completely forgot about this book until one day I was really bored and diving deep into my Goodreads on what to read next.

I say one of my strengths as a writer is keeping my pulse on the writing industry as a whole, as I like to see what’s being published. And, me being the nosy person I am that likes to keep tabs on the publishing industry’s trends, knew I had to read this once I saw some streaming platform bought the rights to it.

For awhile, before the slow death of writing Twitter as we knew it before, I found myself seeing this book and author all over my timeline.

Grace li portrait of a thief