Annotate with Me: Portrait of a Thief

Hi, besties! As I am fully in my annotations era, I thought it would be fun to start a new post series called Annotate with Me. In this series, I’ll be highlighting one of the books that I’ve recently annotated, show you what supplies I used, share photos of my annotations and discuss some of the things I chose to highlight and comment on throughout the book. Since we just wrapped up our read of Grace D. Li’s Portrait of a Thief for TeaTimeReads, I figured this would be the perfect book to start with!

I absolutely loved Portrait of a Thief! The first time I read it, I was about five pages in and knew that I would be annotating it at some point, then we chose it for our August TeaTimeReads pick and thought it was the perfect time to annotate.

When I annotate, I always match my tabs to the book cover. I love color coordination in general, so it just makes sense to me that I would do the same when I annotate! The topics that I choose to focus on for annotations will vary by book, but I always have tabs for the main characters, characterization — which typically includes tabbing for motivation, aspirations, etc —, love (if it’s a romance novel), and a tab for favorite moments/quotes. For Portrait of a Thief, since the main component of the book is culture/identity, I added a tab for that, and although there’s an element of romance, the book focuses more on relationship dynamics — both platonic and romantic — so I switched out my typical “love” category for that.

I also like to match my highlighter and sticky notes to the book cover. So, for Portrait, I used a Tombow marker to highlight which actually seemed a lot lighter when I did a sample swatch but turned out to be darker when I was highlighting in the book. However, it didn’t really bother me as it still fits the vibe! When it comes to pens, I actually use a variety depending on what it is that I’m writing. For notes that I write directly on the page, I usually use Micron pens and typically use the 02 (0.30mm) pen. For longer thoughts and analysis on the post-its, I use the Sharpie Fine Tip, and then with doodles, I use a basic ballpoint pen (not pictured) because it doesn’t bleed through the pages. I also like to use different pens so that I don’t wear out my pens too quickly because I tend to write a lot!

Currently, I’m obsessed with the Monolike Color post-its — did I buy every color set available? Yes, I did. While I love writing directly on my books, sometimes my thoughts are too long to write directly on the page, or I don’t have enough room in the margins, hence the post-it notes! I like having the option of using the smaller or larger post-its, and the larger ones really come in handy when I start heavily analyzing text, which I do very often! I don’t have any rhyme or reason as to which color option I use at a time, I mostly just decide based on how I’m feeling at that moment since the color palette already matches the book.

When it comes to highlighting vs. underlining, I do both and it mostly depends on my mood/the vibe that I’m going for —- I just go with whatever I’m feeling at the moment. Sometimes my pages look like Alexis Rose highlighting her economics textbook, and sometimes I just highlight one or two things. Sometimes I write all over the page, and sometimes it’s completely covered in post-it notes with my rambling thoughts. My annotations, like me, can be a bit chaotic!

This scene between Lily and Irene in chapter 10 is one of my favorites in the entire book, and probably the scene that I think about the most. This entire scene just really resonated with me —- in fact, the first time I read it, I cried because of how much I could relate to it and Lily. 

In this portion, I highlighted the sections that I felt connected to and explained why in the post-it notes — it really is more about me personally than it is about the book but that’s something that I think is so wonderful about literature and about annotating. Literature can help you process events in your life, or feelings you have but don’t know how to deal with because you see a character going through the same thing.

The lines that really stuck out to me in this section and that I chose to highlight were the following:

“Twenty years and she had never called China hers. How could she when she had never been? She did not know its songs, its roads, its rivers. She did not know the terms of address for kin, the names of provinces, anything she ought. All she knew was that her parents had left, and that they did not speak of what they had left behind”

I believe I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but I’m a second-generation Filipino-American. My grandmother immigrated to the US before my mother was born, and my mother hasn’t even been to the Philippines, she doesn’t fluently speak Tagalog — only certain words and phrases, and I understand even less. While I felt more connected to my Filipino culture when my grandmother was alive, I’ve never felt fully connected to that part of me and for the longest time, I struggled with identifying as Filipino for the exact reasons that Lily struggles with her Chinese heritage. How do I claim something, and call it mine, when there is so much that I don’t know?

“She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.”

This line always really resonates with me, as I’m sure it does for many other people. For me, I’ve always felt that struggle — most of the time I don’t feel Filipino enough, and it doesn’t help that there are others who believe the same and feel that it’s their place to point it out to me. I remember once when I was in college, a (white) guy asked me what my ethnicity is (which is not better than the dreaded “where are you from?” question, although this was probably just another way for him to ask it), and when I told him that I’m Irish, French, and Filipino, he looked at me and said, “You’re not Filipino.” This happened years ago, and I will never forget it because it caters to that little nagging voice in my head that says “you’re not enough”. While, yes, I have more Irish and French in my lineage than I do Filipino, it doesn’t negate the fact that I am Filipino. My grandmother was born and raised in the Philippines, but for some people, because I was not born there, I will never be enough. 

And that’s why the following dialogue between Lily and Irene means so much to me. Irene telling Lily that China is hers, all she has to do is claim it, felt so validating and it felt like Irene was telling me the same thing. 

Daniel and his father have such an interesting dynamic, which I talked a little bit about in our discussion questions post. There are many scenes between the two that I highlighted and commented on, but this bit really stuck out to me. Just like Lily struggles to call China hers, Daniel struggles to call America his. I think that’s partially because he spent the first twelve years of his life in Beijing, but also because their move to America led to this rift between him and his father. The whole reason why they moved to America was so that Daniel’s mother could receive care from the best doctors and hopefully save her life. America represented hope for Daniel, and that hope disappeared right before his eyes.

Her death caused a rift between Daniel and his father, which makes sense. When there’s a death of a loved one and families are consumed by grief it can either bring them closer or pull them apart, unfortunately for Daniel and his father, it pulled them apart. I can’t imagine how difficult that was for Daniel, who was just a child, dealing with the loss of his mother, being in a new country, and not having the support that he needed because his father was also lost in grief. That grief continued to fester until it became the third member in the house, taking his mother’s place. Daniel’s struggle to call America home makes complete sense. How can he call this place home when this is where his family fell apart?

It’s understandable that Daniel would start to be reckless just for the sake of being reckless as it was a way for his father to give him the attention that he craves. It’s why he listened to Will and stole the bronze coin from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, it’s why he agrees to join the heist — he wants to be connected to his father, and this is how he gets his attention.

It meant a lot to me that Grace D. Li didn’t tell just one diaspora experience, and that she showed how everyone relates differently to their culture and identity — even siblings like Will and Irene. 

Though it was marketed as such, Portrait of a Thief is so much more than a heist novel. It’s a novel about home and family, culture and identity, and finding yourself and embracing who you are. Everyone has a different journey to that, and I think that was portrayed so well throughout the book. I also really loved that even if characters outside of the five of them tried to invalidate their connection to China, it was made very clear that they have the right to claim China as theirs because it’s part of who they are. 

I could’ve chosen to write these notes in really any part of the book, but the line that really stuck with me on this page and made me take note of the various diaspora experiences was,

 “And so: Alex carried history with her. Where her family had come from, where there was left to go”

Because it’s true. No matter where you were born, no matter how many cultural traditions you continue, no matter what happens in your life or where you go, you carry that history with you. That’s such a great through line for the book and it’s great to see for Lily and Alex especially, how their connection to China and their culture grows as the book goes on. Personally, this book helped solidify that notion for me, and I am very appreciative of that fact.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my annotation process, and reading through some of my thoughts and emotions while reading Portrait of a Thief. If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts and any annotations if you have some! You can also connect with me on my main bookstagram @readbycait or my annotations-specific bookstagram @caitannotates — I’ll be sharing annotations of Portrait and other books on both accounts!