The 2025 Kirkus Prize Finalists for Fiction

"Desai’s trust in her own process pays off, as vignettes of just a page or two... intersect with the novel’s central obsessions—love, family, writing, the role of the U.S. in the Indian imagination, the dangers faced by a woman on her own—and come to a perfectly satisfying close. A masterpiece."— Kirkus Reviews

"It’s easy to marvel at Flournoy’s precision with character, the heart of the novel, but it’s the book’s hard look at social and political realities that give it its teeth... Elegant and unsettling, this novel evades the expected at every turn." — Kirkus Reviews

"Goodman writes with fluid beauty, deep empathy, and an emotional undertow that pulls you in and holds you from the first page to the last.

Goodman’s sweeping page-turner is at once historical and modern, intimate and epic, personal and powerful." — Kirkus Reviews

"An electrifying depiction of dignity and morality under siege. . . . With gorgeous writing and the pacing of a thriller, A Guardian and a Thief transports the reader to a world ravaged by drought, burning heat, and severe food scarcity. . . . The way Majumdar manages to connect all the storylines with a resolution that unfolds both globally and in one small living room is genius."— Kirkus Reviews

"Perhaps not since Nathan Hill's The Nix (2016) have we seen a debut as hugely ambitious as this one, pulling out all the stops to tell a unique version of the American story. . . Swings for the fences, makes it at least to third. Franzen/Roth/Irving comparisons earned and deserved."— Kirkus Reviews

"István is a fascinating character... An emotionally acute study of manliness." — Kirkus Reviews