Book Review: The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
Rating: 3/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
👋🏾 Happy Wednesday! In this newsletter, you’ll find…
📚An unfiltered book review
📝 A thought-provoking journal prompt
🎙An audio version of this review
You can read a synopsis of the book plot here because I won’t copy and paste from elsewhere.
Publisher: Knopft
My Thoughts
Sometimes I read a book and have an unpopular opinion and this is one of those times. Last year, after hearing a review of this book as one of the year's best books, I immediately added it to my cart. This was one of my trusted sources for book recommendations, so I didn’t even read the book synopsis, I just blind purchased.
When the story began, I was excited because narrative non-fiction is a favorite of mine. The type of non-fiction that reads like fiction because the story has a point of view that is somewhat unreal. In the Art Thief, we follow the crimes of Breitwieser: an obsessed art thief who never stole for money but instead for the sport? Maybe.
That’s one of the flaws of this book. The author is clearly in awe of the sheer volume of Breitwieser’s crimes. He is fascinated by the skill and audacity of the crimes themselves. Plus, a bit in awe of the woman who helped with these crimes and the relationship that is maintained despite her lack of obsession with art.
The author spends a lot of time detailing several thefts, the skill behind them, and the series of events that led to the capture of Breitwieser. A few times the author tries to give us information about the psychology of the thief and the complicated relationship maintained throughout this crime spree.
Unfortunately, the author doesn’t delve deep enough or take any particular point of view. Thus, the throughline necessary to make that a secondary plot is not strong enough to sustain throughout the story. The author just didn’t show enough knowledge about the psychology behind the thief nor about the relationship with Kristine to go into any real depth.
Instead, I was left fatigued with the amount of detail shared about each crime. This is echoed once we get to the big confrontation with the police. The author doesn’t have enough factual insight into how the police were able to catch Breitwieser and gain a confession. The viewpoint is very one-sided for non-fiction, and so the main tension point in the overall storyline left me wanting and annoyed.
I sat through so much detail about stealing the art, about the role of Kristine, and how the various places he stole from just weren’t equipped with great security. To then suddenly neglect details when it came to the capture of Breitwieser and the dissolution of his relationship made me question why the author didn’t wait until they could gather information from more sources before publishing.
This read actually took me a couple of months to finish because half of the way through I put the book down since I was tired of getting detail after detail about the thefts. The storyline seemed to be stagnant, but I was determined to see if this book could live up to the hype. In my opinion, it did not.
Journal Prompt: What’s the last book you Did Not Finish? And Why?
Books I DNF are typically what send me spiraling toward a reading slump. Why? Because I am stubborn and try several times to keep reading though I know I’m not either in the mood or generally not enjoying what I’m reading.
My answer: I recently went on vacation and took the latest from James McBride, the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, along for enjoyment. During this vacation, I planned to sit poolside and spend a full day at the beach, so I purposefully took a longer read by an author whose works I know I enjoy.
This was a mistake. I can’t say that McBride’s works are beach reads. He builds characters and a story at a steady pace. The historical fiction mixed in with his creative plots is what I enjoy most about his works. However, those elements are exactly what doesn’t make The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store a beach read. It’s not mindless.
I did begin the book and enjoyed the first 100 pages, so I plan to finish at some point. Although I’m a moody reader, I’m also a person who doesn’t like to leave a potentially good book staring at me for too long, so I wouldn’t call this a DNF… but instead a DNF right now. Instead, I’m saving this one for a cozy and rainy Spring afternoon.