Portrait of a Thief: A Novel

"At its core, Portrait of a Thief is a fun, frenetic heist novel. Readers follow five young Chinese Americans who are forcibly taking back what colonialism stole – specifically, five Chinese sculptures – from Western museums. Amid the heists, though, we watch these characters grapple with the weight of expectation specific to being part of immigrant families, and the unmoored loneliness of not feeling Chinese enough or American enough. Although the genre is a familiar one, Li establishes the stakes in a way that feels more relatable than stealing a necklace at the Met Gala ever could."