A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar

Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025--San Antonio

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar is not an easy book to read.  I could only tolerate reading a few pages a day.  Why?  Because like so many books set in India, there are new hardships ready to befall on every character around every corner.  It is a very depressing book--one set a few decades into the future in Kolkata.  Global warming has become so severe that seas have heated to much to maintain fish and are rising and flooding the land, crops cannot be grown because temperatures are so high and because the soil is deteriorating from salt water flooding and regular water is so scarce that there is barely enough to drink, people are eating artificial manufactured food with no taste and even it is scarce, scammers and thieves are everywhere, and people who can get a climate refugee visa to join relatives living elsewhere are leaving (but citizens elsewhere are starting to rebel against the issuing of these visas.  With the turn of every page, life for the central characters keeps getting worse and worse.  The book was a finalist for the National Book Award this year.  It is well written and quite realistic in terms of what life is like in general in India (as I have observed it for months at a time over 6 visits).  But a "good" book can be a miserable one to read, and that is what this one was for me.  My inner turmoil caused by reading it causes me to feel that it merits a rating of 2 stars out of 5.  Because it is well written, I will raise my overall rating to a generous 4 stars out of 5.