Aug 9

Aug 9 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

About the book

Author: Kiran Desai
Publisher: Hogarth

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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My Review

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny from Hogarth in July. Kiran Desai is a former Booker Prize winner, so I started Sonia and Sunny early on the chance that it might be longlisted this year (which it was!). I’m so glad I did; this is masterful writing and an epic, beautiful story.

It’s worth noting that this book won’t be for everyone, and timing/mood will also be important. It’s a slow-paced, aching, intimate, sweeping 700-page book that takes its time, and so must you. If you wait until you are in the mood for it and let it just be what it is, you will enjoy it. If you spend the whole time impatient or rushing or wishing it were something it’s not, you will not.

You should also know that the title has it right, but the marketing around it is a bit misleading — while there is a budding relationship between the two main characters that drives many of the events, the book much more about loneliness and family dynamics than it is any kind of traditional love story. We spend just as much time with Sonia and Sunny’s family members as we do with them, because the book is not just about them — it’s about emigration and generational evolution and internalized racism and so much more.

Finally, a little pre-rant: People will say this book could/should have been shorter. To that, I say those are your personal preferences talking, not a valid assessment of whether the author was successful, if you consider success to be the author achieving what they set out to. Because Desai knew exactly what she was doing; if Sonia and Sunny were not this long, then it would not be the book it is, the book she wanted to write. And if that sounds like something you can get on board with, I think you will love this book as much as I did.