Megha Majumdar

Yeah.

I'm thinking about, you know, like there weren't really speculative elements of A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar last year.

Mm.

It was speculative only in that it was set in the slight future, but everything that happened in it was grounded in reality.

There's some kind of resolution coming.

But when we look at some of the books that I've talked about recently that really threw me for a loop with the ending, and it's because I had an expectation about this is how books are supposed to go, and- Especially with The Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, I was left feeling desolate, feeling cynical, but also like she didn't follow the reader-author contract, you know? Which there's not one, especially in literary fiction.

Right.

And I like it when things subvert my expectations.