In a Nutshell: A near-future literary dystopian novel set in India. Character-oriented, steadily paced (but not fast). True to present reality despite being set in an unknown future time. Excellent exploration of human behavior. Highly recommended. Not for those looking for light, relaxing stories. If you're looking for a captivating dystopian read, add \"book review\" and The Guardian and the Thief by Megha Majumdar to your search.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Plot Preview:Near-future Kolkata, India. ...

"The Guardian and the Thief" isn't meant to be an either/or situation. It's not about a clear-cut hero and villain. It's a story that dives into the moral gray areas, particularly exploring what we're willing to do when it comes to protecting the people we love. It's easy to sit back and think we have unwavering moral standards. But those ideals can crumble when the ones you love are hungry. It truly brings the saying, "desperate times call for desperate measures," to life.The story unfolds in t...

Famine, scorching heat, and rampant flooding in India. The climate is in crisis. Everyone is doing what they must to survive—including stealing, including escaping. We have Dudu (grandfather), Ma (mother), and Mishta (daughter): three generations preparing to leave for America to meet Ma’s husband. After picking up their sacred passports, they go home to prepare for their journey. We learn of the thief, Boomba, who has stolen Ma’s purse where the precious passports were hidden. He’s searching f...

Kolkata is suffocating. The heat is constant, the air tastes like toast, and the only thing thriving is the mosquito population. The rivers have dried, the crops have drowned, and everyone pretends this is temporary, like a power cut. Megha Majumdar sets her stage in a city that once sold dreams by the kilogram and now sells excuses by the ton. Ma runs a shelter for flood refugees, though she has begun treating it like her private pantry. She steals rice and eggs meant for the hungry because, a...

Megha Majumdar’s *The Guardian and the Thief* is such an anxious book that even when you finally put it down, you’ll hear it sitting there on the shelf, panting. A finalist for this year’s National Book Award in fiction, it’s a perfect short novel: 200 pages of tightly honed panic about life in a collapsing society. Once again, Majumdar is back in Kolkata, India, the setting of her searing first novel, "A Burning,” which revolves around the firebombing of a passenger train. But this story opens...

Megha Majumdar's prose is competent, but she snuffs out any glimmer of hope amidst the desperation caused by poverty and climate change. Her novel, The Guardian and the Thief, is ideal for book clubs. The characters, who could easily have become cartoonish opposites, are instead painted in shades of gray, giving readers a chance to be surprised by their own deeply human empathy. Majumdar telegraphs her punches right from the title. Who's the guardian? Who's the thief? Both protagonists, at the s...

This is a powerful story of desperation that turns guardians into thieves—a desperation born from hunger, from relentless heat, and from the primal need to feed and protect your family. Set in India in the near future, Megha Majumdar's extraordinary novel, *The Guardian and the Thief*, follows characters driven to survive, clinging to hope when all seems lost, and desperately wanting to believe in a future, even when their reality is overwhelmingly bleak. The narrative is intense and gut-wrenchi...

Real Rating: 4.75* out of fiveTime's The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 selectionOne of Lit Hub’s 43 Favorite Books of 2025!A New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2025 selectionThe Publisher Says: FINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD (Winner announced 19 November 2025) • FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • Megha Majumdar’s electrifying new novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller A Burning—longlisted for the National Book Award—is a piercing and propulsive tour de force.In a near-fu...

4.5 StarsThis one was tough… tough to read and… well, that ending hit hard.Megha Majumdar paints such a devastating picture of life in India, ravaged by climate change and crippling food shortages. We follow Ma, her father Dadu, and her two-year-old daughter as they struggle to survive in the weeks leading up to their flight to America. They're set to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he’s secured a job and an apartment after being approved for a "climate visa."Then there's Boomba,...

Adapting Morals “All Ma needed to do was survive these seven days.” The opening chapter establishes a desperate countdown for Ma, who has struggled to protect her family from the dire conditions of famine and flooding in Kolkata, India. She holds climate visas that will allow her, along with her two-year-old daughter, Mishti, and her father, Dadu, to join her husband in Dearborn, Michigan. That early statement, though, serves as a stark, foreboding clue that the week ahead will be anything but...