4th DNF of 2022
This was how things began: Boston on the cusp of fall, the Sackler Museum robbed of 23 pieces of priceless Chinese art. Even in this back room, dust catching the slant of golden, late-afternoon light, Will could hear the sirens. They sounded like a promise.
Will Chen, a Chinese American art history student at Harvard, has spent most of his life learning about the West – its art, its culture, all that it has taken and called its own. He believes art belongs with its creators, so when a Chinese corporation offers him a (highly illegal) chance to reclaim five priceless sculptures, it’s surprisingly easy to say yes.
Will’s crew, fellow students chosen out of his boundless optimism for their skills and loyalty, aren’t exactly experienced criminals. Irene is a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything; Daniel is pre-med with steady hands and dreams of being a surgeon. Lily is an engineering student who races cars in her spare time; and Will is relying on Alex, an MIT dropout turned software engineer, to hack her way in and out of each museum they must rob.
Each student has their own complicated relationship with China and the identities they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but one thing soon becomes certain: they won’t say no.
Because if they succeed? They earn an unfathomable ten million each, and a chance to make history. If they fail, they lose everything . . . and the West wins again.
CW: Colonisation, racism, death of a parent, grief,
Rating
DNF @74%
Review
This book was one of my most anticipated books for 2022. Sadly, it wasn’t for me, so I prefer to DNF it at 74%. The main problem was my high expectations for it, even if I tried not to have any.
First, it was more a character-driven book than a mix or plot-driven one. The focus point is more on the characters’ psychology, like what it means for them to do the thievery and what it means to be Chinese-American. You dive so deep into their thoughts that even just their different relationship and their roles in their families are subjects reached. In the beginning, I liked it a lot, but at some point, it was redundant.
I didn’t particularly like the characters except for Daniel. He was my favourite in the team, and as he has a complex story, I was engrossed in his parts. I wouldn’t have minded only having his point of view. I was sad to not have more chapters with Lily’s and Alex’s povs; I quite like them and would have wanted to know them more. The only problem I had with the characters was Will and especially Irene. I understand why Will had this amount of chapters, but I wasn’t interested in this character at all. For Irene, I simply didn’t like her and didn’t understand her from the beginning to the end.
Lastly, I didn’t believe in the thievery. First, the chapters are too short to feel the tension the characters can feel in this situation. Second, the way they organise it is a little strange like they are on Google Docs and at the same time, they use some encrypted elements. I was why not, until a point where I was no, I can’t anymore, who will forget that.
The DNF was just before the last part of the book. All the reasons before made me choose to do it, but I also have at this point the feeling that I had finished the book. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like your brain is “I have all the information from this book”, even if it’s not true.
Just a last point, it’s not because I DNF this book that it’s a bad book; it wasn’t just for me. However, this book talks about an important subject: the one of how art in museums is acquired and that it is sometimes sketchy.
Liz.
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