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jjkmanga's reviews
871 reviews
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
2.5
This managed to be a book on art heists that was also not at all about art heists. It’s somehow the main plot of the story while also not really being the point of it at all. No, this is a book about diaspora children and how their experiences vary from person to person. It’s about the grief and anger and loss that one experiences when they don’t feel like they fit into either world they’re from. It is not about art heists.
Well, I went into this expecting that, so here we are. This book was so? Like the plot wasn’t even really important, I suppose. I mean, these idiots planned to rob the most high-security museums in the world on a Google Doc. They whatsapp’ed that shit. None of them are even really qualified to do anything. Alex isn’t a professional hacker (something which she states in every single chapter in case you forgot). She’s some chick Will picked up who does machine learning but SOMEHOW she hacks these places. Irene is insufferable and almost gets them caught like 30 times. Will literally doesn’t do a single thing except complain that nobody is taking this seriously. Lily was there. I love Daniel so I won’t even mention him in this but you get my point.
These characters didn’t feel fleshed out enough, and maybe it was the fact that they all got their own POV in a 300-ish page book, but I don’t know them. I know their experiences as diaspora children, which is what I think this book does best. I know how they feel about their identity. I don’t know anything else. I feel like this book could have easily been about less characters and focused more on them as people rather than having a whole crew each with their own very different lives we don’t really get to see.
I don’t know. As a diaspora kid I really understood and sympathized with Daniel, mostly because I relayed to him the most. I felt how he felt and I got his actions. I think the book might have been too ambitious for how short it was and what it was capable of doing with so many characters and experiences.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
Well, I went into this expecting that, so here we are. This book was so? Like the plot wasn’t even really important, I suppose. I mean, these idiots planned to rob the most high-security museums in the world on a Google Doc. They whatsapp’ed that shit. None of them are even really qualified to do anything. Alex isn’t a professional hacker (something which she states in every single chapter in case you forgot). She’s some chick Will picked up who does machine learning but SOMEHOW she hacks these places. Irene is insufferable and almost gets them caught like 30 times. Will literally doesn’t do a single thing except complain that nobody is taking this seriously. Lily was there. I love Daniel so I won’t even mention him in this but you get my point.
These characters didn’t feel fleshed out enough, and maybe it was the fact that they all got their own POV in a 300-ish page book, but I don’t know them. I know their experiences as diaspora children, which is what I think this book does best. I know how they feel about their identity. I don’t know anything else. I feel like this book could have easily been about less characters and focused more on them as people rather than having a whole crew each with their own very different lives we don’t really get to see.
I don’t know. As a diaspora kid I really understood and sympathized with Daniel, mostly because I relayed to him the most. I felt how he felt and I got his actions. I think the book might have been too ambitious for how short it was and what it was capable of doing with so many characters and experiences.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
4.0
The author tries really hard to make me want Geralt with Yennefer even though Dandelion is RIGHT THERE and is the absolute perfect man