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The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Fiction (2025)SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • 2025 KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2025 • TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 • Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Globe and Mail • New York Times • The New Yorker • The Washington Post • Financial Times • Barnes & Noble • Amazon Editors • Kirkus • The Telegraph • Lit Hub • Daily Mail • The Observer • The Guardian • Harper’s Bazaar
A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss
“A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.” —Ann Patchett
“Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.” —Khaled Hosseini
“Vast and immersive. . . . No detail, large or small, seems to escape Desai’s attention, every character (in a huge cast) feels fully realized, and the writing moves with consummate fluency between an array of philosophical, comic, earnest, emotional, and uncanny.” —2025 Booker Prize Jury
“Desai exceeds the expectations of a literary novel, weaving a multitude of characters, storylines and incisive ideas into a single cohesive masterpiece.” —The Globe and Mail
When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.
Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss
“A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.” —Ann Patchett
“Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.” —Khaled Hosseini
“Vast and immersive. . . . No detail, large or small, seems to escape Desai’s attention, every character (in a huge cast) feels fully realized, and the writing moves with consummate fluency between an array of philosophical, comic, earnest, emotional, and uncanny.” —2025 Booker Prize Jury
“Desai exceeds the expectations of a literary novel, weaving a multitude of characters, storylines and incisive ideas into a single cohesive masterpiece.” —The Globe and Mail
When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.
Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
645 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 23, 2025
8216 people are currently reading
79850 people want to read
About the author
Kiran Desai
13 books1,219 followersKiran Desai is an Indian author who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. She is the daughter of the noted author Anita Desai.
Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), gained accolades from notable figures including Salman Rushdie, and went on to receive the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.
Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), gained accolades from notable figures including Salman Rushdie, and went on to receive the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,391 reviews
October 16, 2025
I really thought I’d love this book, but I came away hating it, which is a shame because it started out so strong. I think the author tried to do far too much and lost control of the material. While I appreciated the richness of the many ideas explored, I grew increasingly frustrated as the book went on and on.
What began as a vibrant, intelligent family saga ballooned into something overwhelming and exasperating. It felt like Desai had too many stories she wanted to tell, too many ideas she tried to chase down, and in trying to pull them all together, the narrative completely fell apart.
Late in the novel, one of the main characters is writing and touches on what I think Desai was attempting with this book: “If she continued to write multiple narratives until the truth of something she wrote became apparent—whatever the multiple narratives might be labeled by others: surrealist, realist, orientalist, fable, folktale, nightmare, daydream, myth, satire, kitsch, pain, pleasure, loss, fulfillment, tragedy, comedy—wouldn’t every story become equivalent to every other story? If the center did not hold, maybe it should not hold. Maybe anytime you centered a story, it was a false centering. Maybe when reality shifted shape, a writer should let it shift.”
Unfortunately, the execution here is unsuccessful. The many digressions and tonal shifts pile up to the point of completely obscuring the narrative, while also flanderizing the characters and making them cartoonishly annoying and deeply unpleasant to spend time with.
I admire the ambition, but this missed the mark in almost every way for me. The novel overstays its welcome and collapses under the weight of its own excess. I think there is an amazing book hidden inside The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, and I wish I could have read that instead. I finished it feeling very disappointed, wishing Desai had trusted the strength of her story without all of the extra clutter.
What began as a vibrant, intelligent family saga ballooned into something overwhelming and exasperating. It felt like Desai had too many stories she wanted to tell, too many ideas she tried to chase down, and in trying to pull them all together, the narrative completely fell apart.
Late in the novel, one of the main characters is writing and touches on what I think Desai was attempting with this book: “If she continued to write multiple narratives until the truth of something she wrote became apparent—whatever the multiple narratives might be labeled by others: surrealist, realist, orientalist, fable, folktale, nightmare, daydream, myth, satire, kitsch, pain, pleasure, loss, fulfillment, tragedy, comedy—wouldn’t every story become equivalent to every other story? If the center did not hold, maybe it should not hold. Maybe anytime you centered a story, it was a false centering. Maybe when reality shifted shape, a writer should let it shift.”
Unfortunately, the execution here is unsuccessful. The many digressions and tonal shifts pile up to the point of completely obscuring the narrative, while also flanderizing the characters and making them cartoonishly annoying and deeply unpleasant to spend time with.
I admire the ambition, but this missed the mark in almost every way for me. The novel overstays its welcome and collapses under the weight of its own excess. I think there is an amazing book hidden inside The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, and I wish I could have read that instead. I finished it feeling very disappointed, wishing Desai had trusted the strength of her story without all of the extra clutter.
December 24, 2025
A must read for Autumn/Winter 2025!😊
“Sunny broke the silence between himself and Babita by accusing Babita of bringing him up in such a Westernised manner that he’d always be a foreigner in his own country,”
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a powerful novel.. This is the story of two individuals and their search for identity and belonging.
Booker prize 2025 nominated and understandably so; this is a book rich in wonderful prose and narrative delights: a family saga ; a tale of the deep binds between parents and children; an essay on identity and race ; an exploration of cultural differences ; a journey across continents to ultimately find love and meaning.
Sonia and Sunny come from India and have competed their education in the USA : Sonia finds herself working in a gallery where she encounters and enigmatic and highly coercive artist who leads her into a crisis of identity and entrapment. She returns to India her she is torn between supporting each parent whilst trying to determine who she is.
Sonny works as a journalist but cannot achieve the success he dreams of- he continually questions and explores the role aspirations and exploitations of the migrant population in New York. The desire to escape and follow his own path - not becoming another person of colour fighting for identity. But still the pull of family cannot release him to feel free - his mother who continually tries to control and put emotional expectations upon him is always in the background.
Both Sonia and Sunny are lost and lonely …their paths cross but it isn’t the envisaged resolution for them both to find peace- one family has recommended a marriage between them. Yet the fragile connections between families mean they enter each others lives,
The stories of both characters ( set between the mid 1990s and early 2000s ) reflects the story of millions who cross the planet “ to improve “ their lot: the aspirations and pseudo snobbery of parents for their young to escape and “ become something “ in the USA so they can boast to family and friends. It is the family / parental stories that are equally as important in this book. At times they drive you to despair and you feel the pressure upon the two protagonists but the book raises questions to the reader as to how we “ judge others “ without cultural awareness and historical understanding of a period and ancestral demand. .
Kiran Desai has written another incredible novel - a gap of 19 years since the Booker winning The Inheritance of Loss.
This novel certainly deserves the plaudits it will receive and is a book that you need to discuss with friends / fellow readers.
A six hundred and fifty page read that doesn’t slow down for a moment and continually challenges us to question how we reflect upon our own lives and connections ( since the smart phone and Covid - loneliness is now a global epidemic ) and value and respect choices and reasons made by all people who make a move for one country to another or one continent to another and search for how to belong and not lose their true identity.
Much will be written about this book and a wait of 19 years certainly was worth it . This review only slightly touches the messages in this epic tome.
Superb !!! Powerful and worthy of attention ! The lives of Sonia and Sunny will stay with you long after competing this book
Quotes:
“He looked at himself in the mirror. He was a brown man who might have been of several nationalities, or in-between nationalities, or no nationality. An anonymous brown man of no importance.”
“ For just a few days I wanted to forget I’m a Third Worlder who must worry about other Third-Worlders.”
“Like myself, many seekers come to India and don’t know what they are searching for. They became a mirror to the country they have arrived in, and in the eyes of the people they meet, they find a mirror to themselves.”
Thank you to Penguin books and NetGalley for the advance copy
“Sunny broke the silence between himself and Babita by accusing Babita of bringing him up in such a Westernised manner that he’d always be a foreigner in his own country,”
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a powerful novel.. This is the story of two individuals and their search for identity and belonging.
Booker prize 2025 nominated and understandably so; this is a book rich in wonderful prose and narrative delights: a family saga ; a tale of the deep binds between parents and children; an essay on identity and race ; an exploration of cultural differences ; a journey across continents to ultimately find love and meaning.
Sonia and Sunny come from India and have competed their education in the USA : Sonia finds herself working in a gallery where she encounters and enigmatic and highly coercive artist who leads her into a crisis of identity and entrapment. She returns to India her she is torn between supporting each parent whilst trying to determine who she is.
Sonny works as a journalist but cannot achieve the success he dreams of- he continually questions and explores the role aspirations and exploitations of the migrant population in New York. The desire to escape and follow his own path - not becoming another person of colour fighting for identity. But still the pull of family cannot release him to feel free - his mother who continually tries to control and put emotional expectations upon him is always in the background.
Both Sonia and Sunny are lost and lonely …their paths cross but it isn’t the envisaged resolution for them both to find peace- one family has recommended a marriage between them. Yet the fragile connections between families mean they enter each others lives,
The stories of both characters ( set between the mid 1990s and early 2000s ) reflects the story of millions who cross the planet “ to improve “ their lot: the aspirations and pseudo snobbery of parents for their young to escape and “ become something “ in the USA so they can boast to family and friends. It is the family / parental stories that are equally as important in this book. At times they drive you to despair and you feel the pressure upon the two protagonists but the book raises questions to the reader as to how we “ judge others “ without cultural awareness and historical understanding of a period and ancestral demand. .
Kiran Desai has written another incredible novel - a gap of 19 years since the Booker winning The Inheritance of Loss.
This novel certainly deserves the plaudits it will receive and is a book that you need to discuss with friends / fellow readers.
A six hundred and fifty page read that doesn’t slow down for a moment and continually challenges us to question how we reflect upon our own lives and connections ( since the smart phone and Covid - loneliness is now a global epidemic ) and value and respect choices and reasons made by all people who make a move for one country to another or one continent to another and search for how to belong and not lose their true identity.
Much will be written about this book and a wait of 19 years certainly was worth it . This review only slightly touches the messages in this epic tome.
Superb !!! Powerful and worthy of attention ! The lives of Sonia and Sunny will stay with you long after competing this book
Quotes:
“He looked at himself in the mirror. He was a brown man who might have been of several nationalities, or in-between nationalities, or no nationality. An anonymous brown man of no importance.”
“ For just a few days I wanted to forget I’m a Third Worlder who must worry about other Third-Worlders.”
“Like myself, many seekers come to India and don’t know what they are searching for. They became a mirror to the country they have arrived in, and in the eyes of the people they meet, they find a mirror to themselves.”
Thank you to Penguin books and NetGalley for the advance copy
July 12, 2025
It's difficult to summarize what this book is truly about because it's so full of ideas. At its core are the two title characters, but along with them come family members that flesh out the narrative, as it moves from the mid-90s to early 2000s across India, the U.S., Italy, and Mexico. It traces the lives of characters searching-- for what? Connection? Purpose? Identity? Love? All of the above, and more. This is a meandering story, one that takes you on a journey and focuses on the development of very vivid and engaging characters. It explores themes of colonialism, globalization, art, storytelling, the legacies of trauma. It doesn't give simple answers. It devolves at times into the surreal. It causes you to question reality and how we view the events that happen to us differently than others may see them. Not everything is answered or explained, just like life. But it's a journey worth taking by a writer who is clearly skilled, ambitious and inventive!
Want to read
December 30, 2024More like the loneliness of me and myself for not having this book in my hands yet.
September 19, 2025
tl;dr this most anticipated literary return is an unwieldy mess of ideas, characters, and family; every word feels spontaneously wrought, and perhaps to Desai, too precious to edit
“I’m lonely and miserable,” says Sonia’s abusive partner for the first half of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. The book is not just about “loneliness”, nor is it solely centered around “Sonia” nor “Sunny”; it’s about a lot of things, mainly the weight of time on family, on individuals, on relationships. It’s a family saga, it’s a romance, a comedy, a “magical realist fable”, it’s… too much.
Much of the book’s marketing made much hullabaloo over the return of Kiran Desai. Loneliness is her first book in nearly 20 years since winning the Booker Prize for The Inheritance of Loss, a novel that I just happened to pick up right before Loneliness was shortlisted. All this to say: I don’t have that context for Kiran Desai going for me, seeing that I was most likely reading Where the Red Fern Grows or something at the time she won the Booker.
In fact, Loneliness is my introduction to Desai; given its length, the wealth of blurbs on the back and jacket flaps, and overall hype for this release, please understand that my expectations were quite high.
We don’t meet Sonia or Sunny for quite some time, but we do meet their family. Desai dispenses information on a careless whim: we learn a lot about Mina Foi, we learn a lot about some missing jewels, we learn about a contentious kebab recipe. There was something distinct about Desai’s prose that I was picking up on. It didn’t quite have the reckless loquaciousness of Rushdie, rather it seemed to occupy some sort of uncanny space between Rushdie and just enough. Reading Desai gave me the impression that the prose was spontaneously generated, like a ‘great idea’ had at 2am, and not proofread afterwards.
What I’m saying is: it’s quite awkward to read. It’s the kind of prose that asks questions as it narrates, interrupts itself, chops up its own rhythm. The narration also embraces lists, lists, lists: lists of people, of foods and arts and artists, cultural thises and thats, and all kinds of things. I distinctly remember reviewers criticizing last year’s Booker Prize winner for Too Many Lists, but for me, that novel’s use of lists felt expansive, expanding, cascading, cosmic. Plus, it was a short work. Here, Desai’s lists, lists, lists give the impression of Padding The Word Count.
And that’s just the syntax. I got to this phrase and had to tell everyone I knew about it:
Uhhh, unhatched, as in like an egg, like bird? Birds, which have cloacas? Perhaps this is a play on cloak/cloaca? I guess birds were mentioned (at the end of a list, of course) as being part of this setting, but…
Loneliness is a hot mess. For many, many, many pages we’re treated to an oddly paced progression through time and geography. I hate saying that something is too long, but the many POVs that we’re offered in a book titled after two (2) characters diluted the story rather than bolstering it. The march of time in this novel feels like watching a slow sludge. The most interesting character, oddly enough, is literally anyone other than Sonia or Sunny. Sunny’s friend Satya, Sonia’s “gay and Filipino!” dorm-mate Armando, Mina Foi… I would have loved stories about them. Sonia and Sunny are quite frustrating to watch on their own, let alone interact, and their journey together didn’t feel like it was growing or changing in a meaningful way, certainly not to sustain nearly 700 pages.
The reality of reading something in a prize context is that disparate works of fiction unfortunately are somewhat coerced into “Being In Conversation”. In my opinion, the 2025 Booker longlist contains works that tackle what Desai attempts to with Loneliness, but in a much more effective (not to mention concise) manner. Namely, Flashlight: the idea of “global loneliness” and how it affects family is so much more cogent and affecting in that novel. As for musings on the power of writing, I found Endling and (unpopularly) One Boat more compelling. I even found the central relationship of The South more absorbing to read about than that of Sonia and Sunny, and that’s just the first in a series.
The blurb on Goodreads describes this novel as "spellbinding". The spell was entangle and I spent all 700 pages wanting out of it. I wish I could say it hurts to be disappointed by a novel like this, but I was so unaffected by Desai’s try-hard prose, the bloated focus, the sludgy progression, and boring characters that I can’t even say I felt much of anything. Not loneliness, but emptiness.
“I’m lonely and miserable,” says Sonia’s abusive partner for the first half of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. The book is not just about “loneliness”, nor is it solely centered around “Sonia” nor “Sunny”; it’s about a lot of things, mainly the weight of time on family, on individuals, on relationships. It’s a family saga, it’s a romance, a comedy, a “magical realist fable”, it’s… too much.
Much of the book’s marketing made much hullabaloo over the return of Kiran Desai. Loneliness is her first book in nearly 20 years since winning the Booker Prize for The Inheritance of Loss, a novel that I just happened to pick up right before Loneliness was shortlisted. All this to say: I don’t have that context for Kiran Desai going for me, seeing that I was most likely reading Where the Red Fern Grows or something at the time she won the Booker.
In fact, Loneliness is my introduction to Desai; given its length, the wealth of blurbs on the back and jacket flaps, and overall hype for this release, please understand that my expectations were quite high.
We don’t meet Sonia or Sunny for quite some time, but we do meet their family. Desai dispenses information on a careless whim: we learn a lot about Mina Foi, we learn a lot about some missing jewels, we learn about a contentious kebab recipe. There was something distinct about Desai’s prose that I was picking up on. It didn’t quite have the reckless loquaciousness of Rushdie, rather it seemed to occupy some sort of uncanny space between Rushdie and just enough. Reading Desai gave me the impression that the prose was spontaneously generated, like a ‘great idea’ had at 2am, and not proofread afterwards.
What I’m saying is: it’s quite awkward to read. It’s the kind of prose that asks questions as it narrates, interrupts itself, chops up its own rhythm. The narration also embraces lists, lists, lists: lists of people, of foods and arts and artists, cultural thises and thats, and all kinds of things. I distinctly remember reviewers criticizing last year’s Booker Prize winner for Too Many Lists, but for me, that novel’s use of lists felt expansive, expanding, cascading, cosmic. Plus, it was a short work. Here, Desai’s lists, lists, lists give the impression of Padding The Word Count.
And that’s just the syntax. I got to this phrase and had to tell everyone I knew about it:
The unhatched sun remained distant in its cloaca of smog… (183)
Uhhh, unhatched, as in like an egg, like bird? Birds, which have cloacas? Perhaps this is a play on cloak/cloaca? I guess birds were mentioned (at the end of a list, of course) as being part of this setting, but…
Loneliness is a hot mess. For many, many, many pages we’re treated to an oddly paced progression through time and geography. I hate saying that something is too long, but the many POVs that we’re offered in a book titled after two (2) characters diluted the story rather than bolstering it. The march of time in this novel feels like watching a slow sludge. The most interesting character, oddly enough, is literally anyone other than Sonia or Sunny. Sunny’s friend Satya, Sonia’s “gay and Filipino!” dorm-mate Armando, Mina Foi… I would have loved stories about them. Sonia and Sunny are quite frustrating to watch on their own, let alone interact, and their journey together didn’t feel like it was growing or changing in a meaningful way, certainly not to sustain nearly 700 pages.
The reality of reading something in a prize context is that disparate works of fiction unfortunately are somewhat coerced into “Being In Conversation”. In my opinion, the 2025 Booker longlist contains works that tackle what Desai attempts to with Loneliness, but in a much more effective (not to mention concise) manner. Namely, Flashlight: the idea of “global loneliness” and how it affects family is so much more cogent and affecting in that novel. As for musings on the power of writing, I found Endling and (unpopularly) One Boat more compelling. I even found the central relationship of The South more absorbing to read about than that of Sonia and Sunny, and that’s just the first in a series.
The blurb on Goodreads describes this novel as "spellbinding". The spell was entangle and I spent all 700 pages wanting out of it. I wish I could say it hurts to be disappointed by a novel like this, but I was so unaffected by Desai’s try-hard prose, the bloated focus, the sludgy progression, and boring characters that I can’t even say I felt much of anything. Not loneliness, but emptiness.
November 29, 2025
A sprawling family saga that reflects on what it means to grow up and be an emigré and immigrant. There is a lot to love about ut it is also plodding at times and the resolution feels very obvious and overly sweet to me
All the best people are lonely
Booker shortlisted, big and sprawling, I found this book by Kiran Desai enjoyable to read but not very propulsive in terms of picking it up, and it took me two months, with many, many books in between, to plow through.
Focusing on lonely Sonia in Vermont, America, with her family in Allahabad, and Sunny, a journalist with aspirations to go to America, a lot happens during the novel. Abusive artist boyfriends, misfortune, corruption, violence, attempted rape and aging parents. In 75 chapters every male/female relationship seems fraught, except for a gay man showing up in a resort (is this international Grindr story early 2000s featuring Darius in chapter 69 not incongruous with the timeline of the advent of internet?) and becoming a friend to Sonia near the end of the book. International travel and kids abroad are used as status symbols in petty conflicts while poverty, court cases, family feuds and bad investments lurk at home. The vicious gossip in the community is captured in cruel detail.
Still this is not a grim or bleak book for the most part; even if circumstances and people are imperfect it shows the strife for a better existence and the trouble in defining this. Also, how it comments on the precarious life and lack of agency of the servant class is oblique but heartbreaking.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a massive coming of age story, but I did right down near the end: Is this just a very long romcom, which even though the commentary on what it means to be Indian and American and ghost hounds, is an uneasy feeling that crept up to me.
Not to say that the self hate of emigrés, the allure of the West but also the lack of support and a place, the immigrant experience all are not exceptionally well done. Sonia and her abusive crazy dependent artist boyfriend gets tiring quite fast I must say, and the end of the novel is just too parsimonious for my taste, too convenient in a sense. To be fair, the commentary on people ignoring clear incompatibility due to family wealth or in rebellion against their parents or just a belief in love is interesting, and brings some pragmatism into the story. Goa sounds absolutely amazing, I have put it on my bucket list based on this book, the symmetric anxiety of Sonia and Sunny in chapter 39 is so well done, the unmoored feeling as one is moving into middle age and needs to take care of parents who are aging as well, is so well portrayed.
But overall I expected more tightness and propulsion, everyone meets everyone in a way that feels constructed to me, and I just wanted more from a proclaimed Magnus Opus from a Booker prize winner.
Quotes:
It was essential to remain close to those who caused you harm, so that the ghost of guilt might breathe through their dreams, that their guilt might slowly mature to its fullest potential.
A man who was weak once will be weak again, a man who betrayed once will betray again.
What you write you do not become?
Savings had impoverished their existence
Get out of neighbourhood you bourgeois motherfucker
If you were a worthy Indian, you became an American
He made her unashamed
Don’t contradict me
Don’t deny me
A possessive person always seems illiberal
In being unknown you might yet transform into something more interesting
Guilt is like yeast
Without people one is nothing
You yourself feel a cheat when you find out your father cheated on you.
All the best people are lonely
You are an outsider pretending to be an insider
He felt far enough that his previous life couldn’t reach out to cause him pain.
Western psychology is no match for an Indian family
A ghost dog reappears
A story unheard might as well be a story untrue
If you are corrupt you are doomed and if you are not corrupt you are doomed.
Happiness is for other people
The law of misfortune which stated that those who had been harmed would be further harmed.
Because hell hath no fury like a man that is not the centre of attention
The river of love runs in strange directions
There are other sorrows in this life than love
They might have wanted to save each other, but they could only save themselves.
You can’t be on holiday alone - insane how people are constantly monitored in this world
I want to be free and not scared. She thought this was perhaps also a way to consider death, free, safe, without the trap of being female.
It can’t be simple to be a muslim immigrant in Germany.
I went from one set of problems to another set of problems he said laughing.
The delightful freedom of non-threatening male company
While Sunny didn’t believe in God he did believe in the devil
The more famous I become, the less I belong to myself
If he is alone he doesn’t exist
If you don’t have love, you don’t properly exist
All the best people are lonely
Booker shortlisted, big and sprawling, I found this book by Kiran Desai enjoyable to read but not very propulsive in terms of picking it up, and it took me two months, with many, many books in between, to plow through.
Focusing on lonely Sonia in Vermont, America, with her family in Allahabad, and Sunny, a journalist with aspirations to go to America, a lot happens during the novel. Abusive artist boyfriends, misfortune, corruption, violence, attempted rape and aging parents. In 75 chapters every male/female relationship seems fraught, except for a gay man showing up in a resort (is this international Grindr story early 2000s featuring Darius in chapter 69 not incongruous with the timeline of the advent of internet?) and becoming a friend to Sonia near the end of the book. International travel and kids abroad are used as status symbols in petty conflicts while poverty, court cases, family feuds and bad investments lurk at home. The vicious gossip in the community is captured in cruel detail.
Still this is not a grim or bleak book for the most part; even if circumstances and people are imperfect it shows the strife for a better existence and the trouble in defining this. Also, how it comments on the precarious life and lack of agency of the servant class is oblique but heartbreaking.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a massive coming of age story, but I did right down near the end: Is this just a very long romcom, which even though the commentary on what it means to be Indian and American and ghost hounds, is an uneasy feeling that crept up to me.
Not to say that the self hate of emigrés, the allure of the West but also the lack of support and a place, the immigrant experience all are not exceptionally well done. Sonia and her abusive crazy dependent artist boyfriend gets tiring quite fast I must say, and the end of the novel is just too parsimonious for my taste, too convenient in a sense. To be fair, the commentary on people ignoring clear incompatibility due to family wealth or in rebellion against their parents or just a belief in love is interesting, and brings some pragmatism into the story. Goa sounds absolutely amazing, I have put it on my bucket list based on this book, the symmetric anxiety of Sonia and Sunny in chapter 39 is so well done, the unmoored feeling as one is moving into middle age and needs to take care of parents who are aging as well, is so well portrayed.
But overall I expected more tightness and propulsion, everyone meets everyone in a way that feels constructed to me, and I just wanted more from a proclaimed Magnus Opus from a Booker prize winner.
Quotes:
It was essential to remain close to those who caused you harm, so that the ghost of guilt might breathe through their dreams, that their guilt might slowly mature to its fullest potential.
A man who was weak once will be weak again, a man who betrayed once will betray again.
What you write you do not become?
Savings had impoverished their existence
Get out of neighbourhood you bourgeois motherfucker
If you were a worthy Indian, you became an American
He made her unashamed
Don’t contradict me
Don’t deny me
A possessive person always seems illiberal
In being unknown you might yet transform into something more interesting
Guilt is like yeast
Without people one is nothing
You yourself feel a cheat when you find out your father cheated on you.
All the best people are lonely
You are an outsider pretending to be an insider
He felt far enough that his previous life couldn’t reach out to cause him pain.
Western psychology is no match for an Indian family
A ghost dog reappears
A story unheard might as well be a story untrue
If you are corrupt you are doomed and if you are not corrupt you are doomed.
Happiness is for other people
The law of misfortune which stated that those who had been harmed would be further harmed.
Because hell hath no fury like a man that is not the centre of attention
The river of love runs in strange directions
There are other sorrows in this life than love
They might have wanted to save each other, but they could only save themselves.
You can’t be on holiday alone - insane how people are constantly monitored in this world
I want to be free and not scared. She thought this was perhaps also a way to consider death, free, safe, without the trap of being female.
It can’t be simple to be a muslim immigrant in Germany.
I went from one set of problems to another set of problems he said laughing.
The delightful freedom of non-threatening male company
While Sunny didn’t believe in God he did believe in the devil
The more famous I become, the less I belong to myself
If he is alone he doesn’t exist
If you don’t have love, you don’t properly exist
September 4, 2025
3.5, rounded down. #12 of the 2025 Booker longlist for me to have read.
Thanx to Netgalley, Random House/Hogarth and the author for the privilege of an ARC one month prior to publication.
First off, the positives: Desai certainly can write, and her prose is always a pleasure to read. Her characters are also quite well-defined and although sometimes bordering upon certain stereotypes of South Asian literature/film, they can also be a lot of fun with which to spend time.
Although the titular characters sometimes come off as rather bland, Sonia's father, Manav/Papa, and particularly Sunny's mother, Babita Bhatia (LOVE that name!), are really wonderful creations, as are many of the subsidiary characters (the eBook does NOT contain the genealogical charts that the print copies have, which MIGHT have made the going a mite easier - but the Kindle search feature allowed me to backtrack when necessary to figure out who was who!).
What didn't work for me was the somewhat meandering storyline, which goes off on several different tangents, many of which didn't seem to connect either thematically or narratively to the main thread. At nearly 700 pages, I thought it could have used a LOT of judicious pruning, and such jettisoning of the non-essentials would have made the remainder stronger.
But mostly I NEVER get along well with magical realism, and this contains a surfeit of such that I just couldn't really wrap my head around, especially the ubiquitous 'ghost hound' - so essentially, it's a question of 'It's not you - it's me!' Still, I think this has a very good chance of making the shortlist and might even garner the author her second Booker in only three published works.
Yet again, I wouldn't place it anywhere near the top tier of Indian lit, such as A Suitable Boy, Manil Suri's Hindi Goddesses trilogy, A Fine Balance, The Covenant of Water, or The Raj Quartet (not an Indian author, I know, but still one of the best!) Or even Midnight's Children, which also suffers from the curse of magical realism!
PS: the cover illustration looks very similar to that used for the Booker-winning The Luminaries - coincidence? Or sly subliminal ploy for garnering Booker votes? :-)
Thanx to Netgalley, Random House/Hogarth and the author for the privilege of an ARC one month prior to publication.
First off, the positives: Desai certainly can write, and her prose is always a pleasure to read. Her characters are also quite well-defined and although sometimes bordering upon certain stereotypes of South Asian literature/film, they can also be a lot of fun with which to spend time.
Although the titular characters sometimes come off as rather bland, Sonia's father, Manav/Papa, and particularly Sunny's mother, Babita Bhatia (LOVE that name!), are really wonderful creations, as are many of the subsidiary characters (the eBook does NOT contain the genealogical charts that the print copies have, which MIGHT have made the going a mite easier - but the Kindle search feature allowed me to backtrack when necessary to figure out who was who!).
What didn't work for me was the somewhat meandering storyline, which goes off on several different tangents, many of which didn't seem to connect either thematically or narratively to the main thread. At nearly 700 pages, I thought it could have used a LOT of judicious pruning, and such jettisoning of the non-essentials would have made the remainder stronger.
But mostly I NEVER get along well with magical realism, and this contains a surfeit of such that I just couldn't really wrap my head around, especially the ubiquitous 'ghost hound' - so essentially, it's a question of 'It's not you - it's me!' Still, I think this has a very good chance of making the shortlist and might even garner the author her second Booker in only three published works.
Yet again, I wouldn't place it anywhere near the top tier of Indian lit, such as A Suitable Boy, Manil Suri's Hindi Goddesses trilogy, A Fine Balance, The Covenant of Water, or The Raj Quartet (not an Indian author, I know, but still one of the best!) Or even Midnight's Children, which also suffers from the curse of magical realism!
PS: the cover illustration looks very similar to that used for the Booker-winning The Luminaries - coincidence? Or sly subliminal ploy for garnering Booker votes? :-)
November 22, 2025
It's wonderful to plunge into a novel of nearly 700 pages, confident that you will have hours in which to become part of the book's world, to absorb luscious descriptions, and to really get to know a small universe of characters.
"The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" has its flaws (mainly in narrative tone and too-cute magical realism), but it delivers that rich reading experience that's been so rare since the great novels of the 19th century.
For instance, the book digs deep into what it really means to be lonely--and deeper and deeper still, unwrapping layers of pain, confusion, regret, and anger from many points of view. It's not only the two title characters who are lonely; almost everyone in this novel suffers from being alone (except Sonia's mother and Sunny's aunt, who are happy to find solitude).
The plot is engrossing and even, in the last 50 or so pages, almost as page-turning as a thriller. (Do you think you can predict whether or not Sonia and Sunny will end up together? Maybe, but there are narrative twists that I think will surprise everyone.)
The writing richly explores the geography and food of, not only India, but also Venice, Vermont, New York City, and Mexico. The descriptions are so vivid that at times I was hungry; at other times, I wanted to angrily scratch at nonexistent mosquito bites.
Beyond all those storytelling virtues, the book also explores -- gently, occasionally, with more curiosity than anger -- what it means to be a nonwhite in a world ruled by Western whites. For instance, I had never before realized how nonAmericans might view the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. (Far differently from how I, living in New York City, saw it.)
However, from the start, I was annoyed by the book's narrative tone, which often seemed underlain by a smug cuteness. As I kept reading, I thought that it might be a cultural difference. Are the repeated refrains supposed to evoke the age-old manner of reciting narratives via poetry: "in her four-poster bed under a canopy crocheted by a nun...her guest-room bed under a canopy crocheted by a widow."
I also admit that my complaint is a personal quirk: I'm grounded in real-realism. I don't do the magical kind, and this book relies too much for my taste on a ghost dog, a sense of omnipresent eyes, and a powerful amulet.
But overall, this was a rare and engrossing reading experience.
"The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" has its flaws (mainly in narrative tone and too-cute magical realism), but it delivers that rich reading experience that's been so rare since the great novels of the 19th century.
For instance, the book digs deep into what it really means to be lonely--and deeper and deeper still, unwrapping layers of pain, confusion, regret, and anger from many points of view. It's not only the two title characters who are lonely; almost everyone in this novel suffers from being alone (except Sonia's mother and Sunny's aunt, who are happy to find solitude).
The plot is engrossing and even, in the last 50 or so pages, almost as page-turning as a thriller. (Do you think you can predict whether or not Sonia and Sunny will end up together? Maybe, but there are narrative twists that I think will surprise everyone.)
The writing richly explores the geography and food of, not only India, but also Venice, Vermont, New York City, and Mexico. The descriptions are so vivid that at times I was hungry; at other times, I wanted to angrily scratch at nonexistent mosquito bites.
Beyond all those storytelling virtues, the book also explores -- gently, occasionally, with more curiosity than anger -- what it means to be a nonwhite in a world ruled by Western whites. For instance, I had never before realized how nonAmericans might view the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. (Far differently from how I, living in New York City, saw it.)
However, from the start, I was annoyed by the book's narrative tone, which often seemed underlain by a smug cuteness. As I kept reading, I thought that it might be a cultural difference. Are the repeated refrains supposed to evoke the age-old manner of reciting narratives via poetry: "in her four-poster bed under a canopy crocheted by a nun...her guest-room bed under a canopy crocheted by a widow."
I also admit that my complaint is a personal quirk: I'm grounded in real-realism. I don't do the magical kind, and this book relies too much for my taste on a ghost dog, a sense of omnipresent eyes, and a powerful amulet.
But overall, this was a rare and engrossing reading experience.
October 27, 2025
An expansive, immersive Bildungsroman nearly 20 years in the making. Desai obviously spent that time gathering stories, living through many highs and lows of her own, and exploring foundational concepts like Love, Family, Cultural Identify, and Self-Determination. She investigates heady matters like religious devotion, mysticism, guilt/innocence, good/evil, and the power of Art to elevate, destroy, or transform both artist and muse. And she appears to be particularly fascinated by what happens to a narrative when the usual boundaries between dichotomies are dissolved. The length of this novel is obvious from the start; the depth is more subtly, gradually delivered.
A mighty achievement and, perhaps, this year's Booker Prize winner.
4.5 stars
A mighty achievement and, perhaps, this year's Booker Prize winner.
4.5 stars
October 19, 2025
Sometimes less really is more. With a bit of tighter editing, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny could’ve been a solid five-star read for me. The writing’s gorgeous, and I loved the themes of identity, migration, and loneliness. But it’s a long book, and after a while the uneven pacing, too many characters and points of view, and all the extra tangents started to drag it down. By the end, it just felt a bit bloated and all over the place.
October 15, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
This was a tome. At almost 700 pages I went into this thinking it would be a long, deep-diving read. It was.
Two Indian main characters from India move to the USA to become Indian-Americans while going to university. They long to live the American dream. Yet, no one told them how it will feel to be a minority in a dominating nation, such as America. In a country full of culture and ambition , it is easy to get lost in the shuffle, (especially in New York.) We journey with them throughout their young lives. Loneliness leads them to poor decisions, an abusive partner and unfulfillment. Above all this, is the expectations from their Indian families. The pressure to succeed and do well. But what does it mean to belong?
The writer also takes us on the journey of what trauma looks like. The healing one must go through to become free of past mistakes.
I felt a little uneducated reading this book. I had to google, Ghandi, the Partision, and lots of Indian verbiage. This was fine because I learnt a great deal while reading. I mostly struggled with the middle section of the book. It was a bit cumbersome. Mostly, I never fully engaged in the main characters, but found the secondary characters more entertaining (and there were alot.). Very helpful to have the genealogical chart at the beginning of the book.
As an immigrant myself, I could easily understand how you feel torn between two places and easily feel pulled. Two homes if you will. I applaud the author for that alone.
I just think it could have been shorter and perhaps I would have found it more engaging.
Let it be known this author can write beautifully. I won’t be surprised if she wins the 2025 Booker prize.
“Well, it’s true you should travel when you’re young, when travel can change your life.”
“There are worse things than loneliness. It can mean abiding peace. It can mean understanding your happiness backward.”
This was a tome. At almost 700 pages I went into this thinking it would be a long, deep-diving read. It was.
Two Indian main characters from India move to the USA to become Indian-Americans while going to university. They long to live the American dream. Yet, no one told them how it will feel to be a minority in a dominating nation, such as America. In a country full of culture and ambition , it is easy to get lost in the shuffle, (especially in New York.) We journey with them throughout their young lives. Loneliness leads them to poor decisions, an abusive partner and unfulfillment. Above all this, is the expectations from their Indian families. The pressure to succeed and do well. But what does it mean to belong?
The writer also takes us on the journey of what trauma looks like. The healing one must go through to become free of past mistakes.
I felt a little uneducated reading this book. I had to google, Ghandi, the Partision, and lots of Indian verbiage. This was fine because I learnt a great deal while reading. I mostly struggled with the middle section of the book. It was a bit cumbersome. Mostly, I never fully engaged in the main characters, but found the secondary characters more entertaining (and there were alot.). Very helpful to have the genealogical chart at the beginning of the book.
As an immigrant myself, I could easily understand how you feel torn between two places and easily feel pulled. Two homes if you will. I applaud the author for that alone.
I just think it could have been shorter and perhaps I would have found it more engaging.
Let it be known this author can write beautifully. I won’t be surprised if she wins the 2025 Booker prize.
“Well, it’s true you should travel when you’re young, when travel can change your life.”
“There are worse things than loneliness. It can mean abiding peace. It can mean understanding your happiness backward.”
August 10, 2025
As I was reading this one, my constant thought was that of my father whom I lost at a young age. I do not know why or how or for what purpose - he was all pervasive during this read and its been 25 years since he passed. I think when books do that to you - move something within you, you know it is more than just a good read.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a book set in the 90s, early 2000s even (time is very fluid in this one), and yet it fits right in today's time. It is about loneliness of course, but in that it is also about the comfort we seek, the ennui that settles deep within us, and what we do with it – it wasn’t about Sonia and Sunny and their families alone. At some point the novel became about me as a person and how I feel.
Kiran Desai’s writing unsettles you and strangely enough also is comforting. Her sentences make you want to get under the shower, to clean your room, to take a walk – in all the mundanity and the daily business of living – there is solace in her characters – they are the same as you after all.
Sonia and Sunny and their families strangely became mine for the week this one stayed with me, and continue to do so. The protagonists live out their lives quietly – sometimes also frantically – with the others on the sidelines – Sonia’s single aunt who must decide what to do with her life, to Sunny’s mother who struggles with what the society thinks of her, to the food that gets to play a huge part in this one – and not to forget all the travel – with alienation being one of the themes.
I am all over the place with this one – because there are so many thoughts in my head. The book is a delight – it takes from you like any other literary fiction read, and gives you so much more. The search for happiness is heartbreaking – each character in their own way aimless and looking on hopelessly for the horizon in sight.
Both are lonely in America – each lonelier in his or her way – they are set up to meet, which doesn’t take place – only for Sunny to find his way back to Sonia, and what happens in their lives constitutes the novel.
Desai’s language is lucid, on point, heartbreaking (yes this word is perhaps overused but makes so much sense for this book), and encompasses India – captured beautifully as it was 30 years ago – an India perhaps that was in itself searching for some kind of fulfilment.
Kiran Desai’s book is about life on the periphery – about privilege and the lack of it, of intimacy and it not being there, of masculinity and what it does and what it doesn’t allow you to be – fragile, vulnerable, and expressive.
Sunny and Sonia’s lives are most ordinary and yet they aren’t. From one city to another – from one urban space to another, Desai gets to the core of the current times as well – because nothing really has changed – everything is pretty much the same, except for the advent of technology.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a marvel, a book that is about our lives – fragmented, lost, aimless, and also mostly gullible, always looking for more, finding less, and ultimately just hoping to rest awhile.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a book set in the 90s, early 2000s even (time is very fluid in this one), and yet it fits right in today's time. It is about loneliness of course, but in that it is also about the comfort we seek, the ennui that settles deep within us, and what we do with it – it wasn’t about Sonia and Sunny and their families alone. At some point the novel became about me as a person and how I feel.
Kiran Desai’s writing unsettles you and strangely enough also is comforting. Her sentences make you want to get under the shower, to clean your room, to take a walk – in all the mundanity and the daily business of living – there is solace in her characters – they are the same as you after all.
Sonia and Sunny and their families strangely became mine for the week this one stayed with me, and continue to do so. The protagonists live out their lives quietly – sometimes also frantically – with the others on the sidelines – Sonia’s single aunt who must decide what to do with her life, to Sunny’s mother who struggles with what the society thinks of her, to the food that gets to play a huge part in this one – and not to forget all the travel – with alienation being one of the themes.
I am all over the place with this one – because there are so many thoughts in my head. The book is a delight – it takes from you like any other literary fiction read, and gives you so much more. The search for happiness is heartbreaking – each character in their own way aimless and looking on hopelessly for the horizon in sight.
Both are lonely in America – each lonelier in his or her way – they are set up to meet, which doesn’t take place – only for Sunny to find his way back to Sonia, and what happens in their lives constitutes the novel.
Desai’s language is lucid, on point, heartbreaking (yes this word is perhaps overused but makes so much sense for this book), and encompasses India – captured beautifully as it was 30 years ago – an India perhaps that was in itself searching for some kind of fulfilment.
Kiran Desai’s book is about life on the periphery – about privilege and the lack of it, of intimacy and it not being there, of masculinity and what it does and what it doesn’t allow you to be – fragile, vulnerable, and expressive.
Sunny and Sonia’s lives are most ordinary and yet they aren’t. From one city to another – from one urban space to another, Desai gets to the core of the current times as well – because nothing really has changed – everything is pretty much the same, except for the advent of technology.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a marvel, a book that is about our lives – fragmented, lost, aimless, and also mostly gullible, always looking for more, finding less, and ultimately just hoping to rest awhile.
November 7, 2025
Šta je Istok Zapadu, a šta je Zapad Istoku? Kako oni ali i mi, vidimo i gledamo jedni na druge? Šta mislimo, na primer, kada za neku kulturu kažemo da je egzotična? Pada mi na pamet televizijski momenat, gde se šaljivo konstatuje kako se kineska hrana u Kini verovatno samo zove hrana. Primera radi, nije li pojam magijskog realizma, koji je skovao jedan Nemac za potrebe slikarstva, obilato korišten da bi se "objasnila" književnost naroda Južne Amerike i Azije - tačnije, smestila u kalupe i termine prihvatljive za dimenzije evropske i američke interpretacije?
Danas se stereotipima uglavnom pripisuje negativna konotacija. Globalizam, praćen večitom fluktuacijom stanovništva i mešanjem kultura, rezultirao je smešom čija reaktivnost, u zavisnosti od tumačenja i usađenih/usvojenih bojazni onog ko tumači, neretko ima za posledicu postavljanje barijera između onih koji dele jedan prostor u istom vremenu. Dakle stereotipi, od strane mnogih dušebrižnika proglašeni kao uvredljivi, ipak dolaze od nekud - najčešće iz kutaka kulture koji oslikavaju najveći deo i navika i naravi svakog naroda.
Dvoje mladih ljudi se prvi put sreće u noćnom vozu. Znaju se iz priče, iz neuspelog pokušaja dogovorenog braka koji ih je samo razdvojio. U njihovom međusobnom pogledu leži lek za sve razlike i kontradikcije, svo zamešateljstvo, sve nesporazume. No, dalji put do srećnog kraja, kako to biva kod svakog susreta naravi, otežeće sami sebi.
Ako poslušate neki intervju Kiran Desai, razumećete koliko njeno pisanje odražava njenu blagu narav i plemenit duh. Ona uzima mnoge elemente indijskog folklora i američkog načina života, strukturu klasičnog romana i poletnost narodnih verovanja, stavlja ih u veliki lonac i pušta da se krčkaju na skoro sedam stotina stranica. "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" se prostire od Indije do SAD i prati dva porodična stabla. Poput recepta prenošenog sa kolena na koleno, iz kulture u kulturu i sa kontinenta na kontinent, gde svaka generacija dodaje neki sastojak kao lični pečat i svedočanstvo postojanja, roman Kiran Desai je ogromna i neodoljivo nesavršena kompozicija. Istorija i samosvest, identitet i klišei, kuhinja i tradicija, egzil i osećaj doma razlivaju se poput boja na svili. Gubimo se u spletu svih okolnosti, bez želje da nas pronađu.
Porodica je sve - izvor svakog uspeha i prosperiteta ali i mnogih nedaća. Istovremeno je pogon koji gura u svet ali i gravitacija koja nas često i sebično, čuva samo za sebe. U tom međuprostoru svako lebdi i sve dok ne pronađe sebe i sopstveno "ja" ima stalnog pratioca savremenog čoveka - dobru staru usamljenost. Ona okupira, izaziva mučninu, strah i paranoju, tera na kompromis i molitvu. Ako se sa njom dovoljno dugo živi, postaje inherentan deo strujanja bića, mehanizam preživljavanja i odbrane, pa kada na scenu stupi momenat za suživot i sreću, čovek se teško odriče te usamljenosti, jer ona je ipak do tada bila sve što ima.
Ima tu još pregršt detalja, "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" će tek proći kroz podrobnu analizu i sud vremena. Ali nesporno je, kroz sve oluje i okeane, mi kao čitaoci se na kraju iskrcavamo pobedonosno. A ta prava i velika ljubav, za kojom se traga preko gora, mora i kontinenata, ispostavlja se da najčešće živi našoj ulici.
Danas se stereotipima uglavnom pripisuje negativna konotacija. Globalizam, praćen večitom fluktuacijom stanovništva i mešanjem kultura, rezultirao je smešom čija reaktivnost, u zavisnosti od tumačenja i usađenih/usvojenih bojazni onog ko tumači, neretko ima za posledicu postavljanje barijera između onih koji dele jedan prostor u istom vremenu. Dakle stereotipi, od strane mnogih dušebrižnika proglašeni kao uvredljivi, ipak dolaze od nekud - najčešće iz kutaka kulture koji oslikavaju najveći deo i navika i naravi svakog naroda.
Dvoje mladih ljudi se prvi put sreće u noćnom vozu. Znaju se iz priče, iz neuspelog pokušaja dogovorenog braka koji ih je samo razdvojio. U njihovom međusobnom pogledu leži lek za sve razlike i kontradikcije, svo zamešateljstvo, sve nesporazume. No, dalji put do srećnog kraja, kako to biva kod svakog susreta naravi, otežeće sami sebi.
Ako poslušate neki intervju Kiran Desai, razumećete koliko njeno pisanje odražava njenu blagu narav i plemenit duh. Ona uzima mnoge elemente indijskog folklora i američkog načina života, strukturu klasičnog romana i poletnost narodnih verovanja, stavlja ih u veliki lonac i pušta da se krčkaju na skoro sedam stotina stranica. "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" se prostire od Indije do SAD i prati dva porodična stabla. Poput recepta prenošenog sa kolena na koleno, iz kulture u kulturu i sa kontinenta na kontinent, gde svaka generacija dodaje neki sastojak kao lični pečat i svedočanstvo postojanja, roman Kiran Desai je ogromna i neodoljivo nesavršena kompozicija. Istorija i samosvest, identitet i klišei, kuhinja i tradicija, egzil i osećaj doma razlivaju se poput boja na svili. Gubimo se u spletu svih okolnosti, bez želje da nas pronađu.
Porodica je sve - izvor svakog uspeha i prosperiteta ali i mnogih nedaća. Istovremeno je pogon koji gura u svet ali i gravitacija koja nas često i sebično, čuva samo za sebe. U tom međuprostoru svako lebdi i sve dok ne pronađe sebe i sopstveno "ja" ima stalnog pratioca savremenog čoveka - dobru staru usamljenost. Ona okupira, izaziva mučninu, strah i paranoju, tera na kompromis i molitvu. Ako se sa njom dovoljno dugo živi, postaje inherentan deo strujanja bića, mehanizam preživljavanja i odbrane, pa kada na scenu stupi momenat za suživot i sreću, čovek se teško odriče te usamljenosti, jer ona je ipak do tada bila sve što ima.
Ima tu još pregršt detalja, "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" će tek proći kroz podrobnu analizu i sud vremena. Ali nesporno je, kroz sve oluje i okeane, mi kao čitaoci se na kraju iskrcavamo pobedonosno. A ta prava i velika ljubav, za kojom se traga preko gora, mora i kontinenata, ispostavlja se da najčešće živi našoj ulici.
July 12, 2025
Thanks to hogarth books for the gifted arc
This is one of those novels that somehow both feels like an epic, with its multiple timelines and long list of characters, and manages to be this cozy little intimate thing. I never felt lost and I cared about all the characters no matter how small a role they played. It also does this funny time thing where you’re grounded at the start but as the action expands continents, time feels contracted until something specific happens and you're finally rooted down. What I’m trying to say is that Desai worked some sort of magic in these 700 pages - how did I finish this so fast? How did this not drag at any moment? Spoiler alert: it’s the brilliant writing that swept me away.
Some things that went through my mind while reading:
-ooo we’re getting tons of backstory and seeing how everyone is connected, even tangentially
Bee Sting vibes
-wait, this is about how immigrant identities and their thoughts on home and family change in their new country
Very The Anthropologists
-oh! This is about the act of writing and making art. (Giving Collected Works at times) Who’s allowed to write what? How do you represent your culture to the Western eye?
I love how the plot starts off a little bit absurd (is this all really for a kebab recipe?!), that everything that is listed as “do not write” is what Desai ultimately writes, how it starts off as a campus novel in Vermont then eventually turns into magical realism via NYC, India, and Mexico. This book is also about how we carry and are intertwined with history - our family’s and our country’s. How we carry grief for those who’ve passed, for who we will never be, for lost relationships, for our changing homes. It’s also about how we constantly misunderstand each other, and often ourselves, which can create fear and suspicion that holds us down and can keep us apart. It pokes fun at every generation and at East and West equally. It’s a book that makes you wait nearly 300 pages for the titled characters to meet! It's about displacement and solitude.
So yes, it’s an epic, a comedy, a love story, and a romance.
It’s simply stunning.
This is one of those novels that somehow both feels like an epic, with its multiple timelines and long list of characters, and manages to be this cozy little intimate thing. I never felt lost and I cared about all the characters no matter how small a role they played. It also does this funny time thing where you’re grounded at the start but as the action expands continents, time feels contracted until something specific happens and you're finally rooted down. What I’m trying to say is that Desai worked some sort of magic in these 700 pages - how did I finish this so fast? How did this not drag at any moment? Spoiler alert: it’s the brilliant writing that swept me away.
Some things that went through my mind while reading:
-ooo we’re getting tons of backstory and seeing how everyone is connected, even tangentially
Bee Sting vibes
-wait, this is about how immigrant identities and their thoughts on home and family change in their new country
Very The Anthropologists
-oh! This is about the act of writing and making art. (Giving Collected Works at times) Who’s allowed to write what? How do you represent your culture to the Western eye?
I love how the plot starts off a little bit absurd (is this all really for a kebab recipe?!), that everything that is listed as “do not write” is what Desai ultimately writes, how it starts off as a campus novel in Vermont then eventually turns into magical realism via NYC, India, and Mexico. This book is also about how we carry and are intertwined with history - our family’s and our country’s. How we carry grief for those who’ve passed, for who we will never be, for lost relationships, for our changing homes. It’s also about how we constantly misunderstand each other, and often ourselves, which can create fear and suspicion that holds us down and can keep us apart. It pokes fun at every generation and at East and West equally. It’s a book that makes you wait nearly 300 pages for the titled characters to meet! It's about displacement and solitude.
So yes, it’s an epic, a comedy, a love story, and a romance.
It’s simply stunning.
October 27, 2025
One of these stars is for me for having listened to it all.
Sonia and Sunny are two young writers who both struggle with relationships for some reason probably related to their parents, who are all pretty hopeless as role models. They get together then split up.
I'm sorry to sound so unenthusiastic but the book irritated me no end. It was a really ordinary story held together with just about every trope/news item from the past 20 years.
We had mummy issues (Sunny), coercive control/older man issues (Sonia), professional jealousy (Sunny), low self-esteem (Sonia), parental issues (both), racism, sexism, misogyny, narcissism, arranged marriages, love marriages, cancer, dementia etc etc. Throw a shed load of magical realism in to bring it all together with some ghostly apparitions, mysticism, myths and legends, amulets and religion as well as 9/11 and you've pretty much got 600+ pages.
My therapist would have told them to go and do some physical labour or find a hobby that engrossed them rather than going round and round in their heads overthinking absolutely everything.
The narration by Snetha Mathan was beautiful. One star is for that. I'd award more but someone would think I liked the book, which got the last star.
Sonia and Sunny are two young writers who both struggle with relationships for some reason probably related to their parents, who are all pretty hopeless as role models. They get together then split up.
I'm sorry to sound so unenthusiastic but the book irritated me no end. It was a really ordinary story held together with just about every trope/news item from the past 20 years.
We had mummy issues (Sunny), coercive control/older man issues (Sonia), professional jealousy (Sunny), low self-esteem (Sonia), parental issues (both), racism, sexism, misogyny, narcissism, arranged marriages, love marriages, cancer, dementia etc etc. Throw a shed load of magical realism in to bring it all together with some ghostly apparitions, mysticism, myths and legends, amulets and religion as well as 9/11 and you've pretty much got 600+ pages.
My therapist would have told them to go and do some physical labour or find a hobby that engrossed them rather than going round and round in their heads overthinking absolutely everything.
The narration by Snetha Mathan was beautiful. One star is for that. I'd award more but someone would think I liked the book, which got the last star.
October 8, 2025
i feel like this could've been a couple hundred pages shorter but still beautiful
July 30, 2025
I wanted to love this, and I do love the themes and story and the ways it shifts, but the writing and dialogue felt so aware of itself that I can't fully love this
November 2, 2025
3.5 stars
On the shortlist for the 2025 Booker Prize
Sonia, a student living in the United States, calls home to her family in India and shares of her deep sense of loneliness. Their solution is to reach out to Sunny, the grandson of a family friend, to explore the possibility of an arranged marriage. At the time, Sonia had started a relationship with an older white artist—eccentric, insecure, and openly racist—while Sunny, also in the U.S., is in his own relationship but keeps it hidden from his family.
Desai’s novel unfolds over about 5 years, from the late ‘90s to sometime after 9/11, moving between New York, India, Mexico, and Italy. Through the intertwined lives of Sonia, Sunny, their families, and their circle of friends, the book explores so many themes: cultural identity, immigration and alienation, family expectations, colonial legacies, and the tension between tradition and modernity. Above all, it lingers on the profound loneliness that often accompanies the immigrant experience.
I began listening to the audiobook but found the narrator’s soft, soothing tone too calming to keep me engaged, so I switched to the Kindle version. Reading the words on the page worked much better for me, and the family tree at the beginning was especially helpful for keeping track of everyone.
Desai’s writing is ambitious and wildly imaginative. I genuinely enjoyed the overall tone and learned quite a bit along the way. Her prose is something special—mesmerizing. (For fun, I searched “kebabs” on Kindle—turns out it’s mentioned 62 times here). I sometimes found myself a bit taken back by the frequent detours, historical digressions and side stories that interrupted the flow of the main narrative. By the time I circled back, I’d often lost the thread. Maybe that’s just my ADD, but the novel’s nearly 700 pages occasionally felt heavy and meandering.
They both return to their homeland of India where they finally meet, and it’s easy to guess that romance eventually blossoms between Sonia and Sunny. They make for an unconventional pair, and I couldn’t help rooting for them—even though, deep down, they seem mismatched from the start.
Verdict: Ambitious, layered, and thematically rich, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny captures the ache of being far from home, even though the story sometimes wanders off course.
On the shortlist for the 2025 Booker Prize
Sonia, a student living in the United States, calls home to her family in India and shares of her deep sense of loneliness. Their solution is to reach out to Sunny, the grandson of a family friend, to explore the possibility of an arranged marriage. At the time, Sonia had started a relationship with an older white artist—eccentric, insecure, and openly racist—while Sunny, also in the U.S., is in his own relationship but keeps it hidden from his family.
Desai’s novel unfolds over about 5 years, from the late ‘90s to sometime after 9/11, moving between New York, India, Mexico, and Italy. Through the intertwined lives of Sonia, Sunny, their families, and their circle of friends, the book explores so many themes: cultural identity, immigration and alienation, family expectations, colonial legacies, and the tension between tradition and modernity. Above all, it lingers on the profound loneliness that often accompanies the immigrant experience.
I began listening to the audiobook but found the narrator’s soft, soothing tone too calming to keep me engaged, so I switched to the Kindle version. Reading the words on the page worked much better for me, and the family tree at the beginning was especially helpful for keeping track of everyone.
Desai’s writing is ambitious and wildly imaginative. I genuinely enjoyed the overall tone and learned quite a bit along the way. Her prose is something special—mesmerizing. (For fun, I searched “kebabs” on Kindle—turns out it’s mentioned 62 times here). I sometimes found myself a bit taken back by the frequent detours, historical digressions and side stories that interrupted the flow of the main narrative. By the time I circled back, I’d often lost the thread. Maybe that’s just my ADD, but the novel’s nearly 700 pages occasionally felt heavy and meandering.
They both return to their homeland of India where they finally meet, and it’s easy to guess that romance eventually blossoms between Sonia and Sunny. They make for an unconventional pair, and I couldn’t help rooting for them—even though, deep down, they seem mismatched from the start.
Verdict: Ambitious, layered, and thematically rich, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny captures the ache of being far from home, even though the story sometimes wanders off course.
November 1, 2025
Omg, I finally finally finished. I felt like I was reading this book forever.
The first quarter of the book, where we meet Sonia and Sunny was very good. Their lives are unfulfilling, each in a different way. Sonia is in a toxic relationship. Sunny has a difficult and overly possessive mother that seems to interfere with his happiness at every turn.
Unfortunately, after the stage is set, this book just went off the rails for me. We meet too many superfluous characters and worse, the settings keep changing over and over, necessitating endless, boring description. Worse yet, it's set around the time of 9/11, and it's not like that's an enhancement. It feels almost dated and yet not quite at the level of historical fiction either. The character development proceeds at the absolute slowest pace. I almost didn't even care about the two protagonists for at least half the book.
But then, in a very surprising turn of events (for me), the ending . . .and when I say ending I mean the last 5-8% or so re-gains the form of the beginning. And it's beautiful.
So yeah, to me, this book needed a major edit. There's absolutely a 5 star book in here about loneliness and disaffection from family and cultural clashes and most of all about, love. But, I really didn't have the patience to dig through the many, many words and descriptions and oh, did I mention unnecessary magical realism, to find it.
Let's just say - - probably a good book, but so not for me. But with that I did finish the entire longlist of nominees for The Booker Prize. Go get it, Audition!
The first quarter of the book, where we meet Sonia and Sunny was very good. Their lives are unfulfilling, each in a different way. Sonia is in a toxic relationship. Sunny has a difficult and overly possessive mother that seems to interfere with his happiness at every turn.
Unfortunately, after the stage is set, this book just went off the rails for me. We meet too many superfluous characters and worse, the settings keep changing over and over, necessitating endless, boring description. Worse yet, it's set around the time of 9/11, and it's not like that's an enhancement. It feels almost dated and yet not quite at the level of historical fiction either. The character development proceeds at the absolute slowest pace. I almost didn't even care about the two protagonists for at least half the book.
But then, in a very surprising turn of events (for me), the ending . . .and when I say ending I mean the last 5-8% or so re-gains the form of the beginning. And it's beautiful.
So yeah, to me, this book needed a major edit. There's absolutely a 5 star book in here about loneliness and disaffection from family and cultural clashes and most of all about, love. But, I really didn't have the patience to dig through the many, many words and descriptions and oh, did I mention unnecessary magical realism, to find it.
Let's just say - - probably a good book, but so not for me. But with that I did finish the entire longlist of nominees for The Booker Prize. Go get it, Audition!
December 2, 2025
I was hoping for an immersive, character led Indian novel and this was everything I hoped for and more.
It had all the old fashioned values and dilemmas of India of the past with youth sent abroad for their education, isolated from their home culture and influences, benefiting from and coping with the effect of the western education and so-called freedoms, while trying to find their place in the world.
At the same time there are generational threads and mystical elements that disturb the equilibrium, there are parasitic entities, the need for growth, surrender and for everyone to deal with their situation in order for any kind of balance to be regained.
Loved all of it, did not want it to end, but the ending was perfect.
Review
The Loneliness of Winter in a Foreign Country
In this modern day Indian family chronicle, we meet aspiring novelist, freelance writer Sonia in the snowy mountains of Vermont, and Sunny a struggling journalist now in New York.
Unable to return home during the holidays, having been in America for three years and not returned to India for two, Sonia complains to her family.
In Vermont working on campus in the library over the two month winter closure, with two foreign students, one day she encounters a much older man Ilan de Toorjen Foss, who invites her to dine, promises to find an internship for her. He takes something from her that becomes one of the core threads of the story, the thing that will bring Sonia and Sunny’s fates full circle.
Her colleagues in the library are suspicious.
The Jealous Confused Girlfriend
When Sunny’s American girlfriend Ulla opens a letter from his mother with a photo of Sonia inside, he tries to downplay the foreign custom it refers to. She is suspicious.
Sunny avoids answering his mother’s calls and now his girlfriend suspects this custom might be the real reason he is reluctant to tell his family about their relationship. He finds it increasingly difficult to navigate his relationship, discovering there are as many pressures and expectations, with little understanding of the rules. He seeks an escape.
An Arranged Marriage? Not Likely!
Neither Sonia or Sunny are thinking about marriage according to the cultural traditions of their parents generation; they are too swept up dealing with their current circumstances. The letters they received were a response to a letter in India, sent from one family to the other, suggesting a match, inferring but never outright stating, a kind of favour that might balance out an old grievance these families had faced a decade ago, after an investment turned sour.
The intended match fizzles out without Sonia or Sunny meeting, neither are interested, both already in romantic connections they are attached to but not entirely happy in.
However their paths will cross, igniting intrigue, but again they separate, as they struggle to find their place in the world and in themselves and overcome the mistakes they have made on the way, which have nothing to do with each other.
Ultimately the two young people flee their present and go into a period of self imposed reflection, Sonia retreating to her mother’s house in the mountains, where she has mystical revelations that she decides not to be frightened of, but to look for simpler meaning from; while Sunny finds solace in nature and human rhythms in a village on the coast of Mexico, blending in with locals and receiving a visit from his friend Satya who is having his own realisations, seeking apology and reconciliation.
There is so much to navigate and nothing mentioned gives anything away, just an idea of the journey these two will go on as they seek a solution to their loneliness, a confrontation with themselves, in various parts of the world.
A Cultural Coming of Age Youth’s Journeying
I was hoping for an immersive, character led Indian novel and this was everything I hoped for and more. It had all the old fashioned values and dilemmas of an India of the past and then the interesting blend of young people sent abroad for an education, isolated from their culture and influences, experimenting with the new and forbidden, benefiting from and coping with the effect of a western education and freedoms, while trying to understand themselves and their place in the world.
Though there were aspects that were deeply troubling, like the grooming of a young foreign student by a much older man, they are sadly relevant to the situation an isolated young woman without family around, might encounter abroad.
At the same time there were generational threads and mystical elements that disturb the equilibrium; there are parasitic entities met on their paths that cause them to learn, to suffer and grow, requiring surrender and courage. Everyone, young and old alike, must deal with their situation in order for any kind of balance to be regained.
I found the novel thoroughly entertaining and engaging, the mix of traditional and contemporary attitudes, the facing up to change and resistance against old roles. To a certain extent, as outsiders to the culture, we rely on authors to represent it authentically, but here we have characters that have been influenced and educated outside their own culture from within privileged families, which makes them neither one thing nor the other.
It had all the old fashioned values and dilemmas of India of the past with youth sent abroad for their education, isolated from their home culture and influences, benefiting from and coping with the effect of the western education and so-called freedoms, while trying to find their place in the world.
At the same time there are generational threads and mystical elements that disturb the equilibrium, there are parasitic entities, the need for growth, surrender and for everyone to deal with their situation in order for any kind of balance to be regained.
Loved all of it, did not want it to end, but the ending was perfect.
Review
The Loneliness of Winter in a Foreign Country
In this modern day Indian family chronicle, we meet aspiring novelist, freelance writer Sonia in the snowy mountains of Vermont, and Sunny a struggling journalist now in New York.
Unable to return home during the holidays, having been in America for three years and not returned to India for two, Sonia complains to her family.
“Lonely? Lonely?”
In Allahabad they had no patience with loneliness. They might have felt the loneliness of being misunderstood; they might know the sucked-dead feeling of Allahabad afternoons, a tide drawn out perhaps, never to return, which was a kind of loneliness: but they had never slept in a house alone, never eaten a meal alone, never lived in a place where they were unknown, never woken without a cook bringing tea or wishing good morning to several individuals.
In Vermont working on campus in the library over the two month winter closure, with two foreign students, one day she encounters a much older man Ilan de Toorjen Foss, who invites her to dine, promises to find an internship for her. He takes something from her that becomes one of the core threads of the story, the thing that will bring Sonia and Sunny’s fates full circle.
Her colleagues in the library are suspicious.
“I still don’t understand who this person is and why he is here in the dead of winter. It doesn’t add up. Where is his family?”
The Jealous Confused Girlfriend
When Sunny’s American girlfriend Ulla opens a letter from his mother with a photo of Sonia inside, he tries to downplay the foreign custom it refers to. She is suspicious.
“There’s nothing sinister about the letter,” he said. “Everyone gets these at my age, forwarded by relatives, friends, people who’ve never set eyes on you – a great pile arrives when you finish college, and the flood continues until everyone is settled. Then there is a lull before they begin marrying off the progeny of these mishaps, each generation lesser than what came before, because what hope can you have from such a process?”
Sunny avoids answering his mother’s calls and now his girlfriend suspects this custom might be the real reason he is reluctant to tell his family about their relationship. He finds it increasingly difficult to navigate his relationship, discovering there are as many pressures and expectations, with little understanding of the rules. He seeks an escape.
An Arranged Marriage? Not Likely!
Neither Sonia or Sunny are thinking about marriage according to the cultural traditions of their parents generation; they are too swept up dealing with their current circumstances. The letters they received were a response to a letter in India, sent from one family to the other, suggesting a match, inferring but never outright stating, a kind of favour that might balance out an old grievance these families had faced a decade ago, after an investment turned sour.
It was essential to remain close to those who had caused you harm so that the ghost of guilt might breathe through their dreams, that their guilt might slowly mature to its fullest potential. Not that Dadaji had thought it through – it never worked to consciously plot, to crudely calculate – and he himself was astonished at the possibility of what was unfolding. Even now it would never do to name this liability. The Colonel would not allow his grandson to bear the burden of his grandfather’s mistake. Dadji and Ba may simply suggest a desirable match between the grandchildren, two America-educated individuals, two equals, two people who naturally belonged together because of where they came from and where they were going. Without either of them mentioning it, the obligation might be beautifully unravelled.
The intended match fizzles out without Sonia or Sunny meeting, neither are interested, both already in romantic connections they are attached to but not entirely happy in.
However their paths will cross, igniting intrigue, but again they separate, as they struggle to find their place in the world and in themselves and overcome the mistakes they have made on the way, which have nothing to do with each other.
He passed a young woman sitting cross-legged staring at the rain. By her side was a book. Because Sunny couldn’t abide passing a book whose title he could not read, he walked by again and saw she had a face planed like a leopard, long lips, and watchful eyes, hair in a single oiled braid, but he still couldn’t see the title. So he passed by again. And one more time before he detected it: Snow Country by Kawabata.
Ultimately the two young people flee their present and go into a period of self imposed reflection, Sonia retreating to her mother’s house in the mountains, where she has mystical revelations that she decides not to be frightened of, but to look for simpler meaning from; while Sunny finds solace in nature and human rhythms in a village on the coast of Mexico, blending in with locals and receiving a visit from his friend Satya who is having his own realisations, seeking apology and reconciliation.
There is so much to navigate and nothing mentioned gives anything away, just an idea of the journey these two will go on as they seek a solution to their loneliness, a confrontation with themselves, in various parts of the world.
A Cultural Coming of Age Youth’s Journeying
I was hoping for an immersive, character led Indian novel and this was everything I hoped for and more. It had all the old fashioned values and dilemmas of an India of the past and then the interesting blend of young people sent abroad for an education, isolated from their culture and influences, experimenting with the new and forbidden, benefiting from and coping with the effect of a western education and freedoms, while trying to understand themselves and their place in the world.
Though there were aspects that were deeply troubling, like the grooming of a young foreign student by a much older man, they are sadly relevant to the situation an isolated young woman without family around, might encounter abroad.
At the same time there were generational threads and mystical elements that disturb the equilibrium; there are parasitic entities met on their paths that cause them to learn, to suffer and grow, requiring surrender and courage. Everyone, young and old alike, must deal with their situation in order for any kind of balance to be regained.
I found the novel thoroughly entertaining and engaging, the mix of traditional and contemporary attitudes, the facing up to change and resistance against old roles. To a certain extent, as outsiders to the culture, we rely on authors to represent it authentically, but here we have characters that have been influenced and educated outside their own culture from within privileged families, which makes them neither one thing nor the other.
November 5, 2025
One of my favorite books of the year! I loved every moment of this beautifully written saga that touched on a multitude of life situations and emotions – and of course, the many faceted concept of loneliness. The two main characters are Sonia and Sonny and their families, but, although both their names are in the title, Sonny and Sonia are together for only a very short time in the novel. Rather, the novel takes a deep dive into the lives of each of Sonia and Sonny separately, as two Indian young adults, each of whom spends time in the United States. The storyline alternates back and forth between their lives.
The reader first meets Sonia as a university student in the US. She meets a dominating, insecure older man who is an artist, with devastating consequences. Sonia returns to India where she must deal with her mother’s move to her mother’s family home in the northern mountains, her father’s reaction to this rejection, and her own attempts to assimilate into an Indian culture after attending college in the US.
The reader meets Sonny after he has graduated from college in the US and obtained a job as a reporter with the Associated Press in New York City. Of course, his living in the US does not free him from his family, particularly his mother, who is a strong, difficult and very well drawn character. Much focus is on Sonny’s experiences as an Indian living in New York City.
The novel follows these two main characters as they interact with United States and Indian cultures, their families and life in general.
I was overwhelmed with Desai’s ability to describe so many things. There are wonderful, tangible scenes in New York City (Jackson Heights), Delhi, Goa, the Indian hill country, a Mexican coastal village and Italy. The deep detail made the locations come completely alive for me.
Every aspect of Indian culture in the wealthy class is explored in great depth. The “staff” of each of the large homes is well portrayed – particularly in light of, and in contrast to, the family members. The underworld even plays a relevant role.
But this isn’t just a description of clothes, food and Indian families. Rather it is a tangible description of life, including family, emotion, love, rejection, choices and the cultural forces that underly and affect every aspect of life. I can’t remember reading a single novel that so perfectly captured life - from the effect of an older man on a young woman to the effect of a mother on her son.
Desai’s writing is poetic, descriptive and beautiful. I loved it!
At its heart, loneliness is the theme of the novel, most obviously loneliness felt by an immigrant working in the US or an Indian returning to India after studying in the US. But more subtly and therefore, much more powerfully, Desai has captured universal human loneliness, from loneliness in active romantic relationships, to loneliness in our families, and to loneliness in our cultures. This is a long saga, with a lot of “deep dives” and sidelines, but I only wanted it to keep going on and on!
The reader first meets Sonia as a university student in the US. She meets a dominating, insecure older man who is an artist, with devastating consequences. Sonia returns to India where she must deal with her mother’s move to her mother’s family home in the northern mountains, her father’s reaction to this rejection, and her own attempts to assimilate into an Indian culture after attending college in the US.
The reader meets Sonny after he has graduated from college in the US and obtained a job as a reporter with the Associated Press in New York City. Of course, his living in the US does not free him from his family, particularly his mother, who is a strong, difficult and very well drawn character. Much focus is on Sonny’s experiences as an Indian living in New York City.
The novel follows these two main characters as they interact with United States and Indian cultures, their families and life in general.
I was overwhelmed with Desai’s ability to describe so many things. There are wonderful, tangible scenes in New York City (Jackson Heights), Delhi, Goa, the Indian hill country, a Mexican coastal village and Italy. The deep detail made the locations come completely alive for me.
Every aspect of Indian culture in the wealthy class is explored in great depth. The “staff” of each of the large homes is well portrayed – particularly in light of, and in contrast to, the family members. The underworld even plays a relevant role.
But this isn’t just a description of clothes, food and Indian families. Rather it is a tangible description of life, including family, emotion, love, rejection, choices and the cultural forces that underly and affect every aspect of life. I can’t remember reading a single novel that so perfectly captured life - from the effect of an older man on a young woman to the effect of a mother on her son.
Desai’s writing is poetic, descriptive and beautiful. I loved it!
At its heart, loneliness is the theme of the novel, most obviously loneliness felt by an immigrant working in the US or an Indian returning to India after studying in the US. But more subtly and therefore, much more powerfully, Desai has captured universal human loneliness, from loneliness in active romantic relationships, to loneliness in our families, and to loneliness in our cultures. This is a long saga, with a lot of “deep dives” and sidelines, but I only wanted it to keep going on and on!
Read
September 27, 2025I read 48%. Really, it’s just too long. I would get into a character’s story and the it jumps to another character. I dreaded picking it up. There was things I liked about it. But it is overwhelming.
October 23, 2025
90th book read in 2025
I loved this novel with all my heart, mind and soul. It has been a long wait to get another novel from Kiran Desai. Twenty years in fact.
It is a long novel with a complex story spanning India and America and places in between. For me as a reader, there is nothing better than being fully immersed in a long book!
Kiran Desai covers quite a lot of territory both spatial and emotional. It is romantic, political, and familial. There is an art monster! Even a bit of horror.
An arranged marriage that could have been a disaster but in the end saved two Indian young people from disaster.
Finally, it is also completely contemporary while relying for its heft on much history.
I hope she wins the Booker Prize.
I loved this novel with all my heart, mind and soul. It has been a long wait to get another novel from Kiran Desai. Twenty years in fact.
It is a long novel with a complex story spanning India and America and places in between. For me as a reader, there is nothing better than being fully immersed in a long book!
Kiran Desai covers quite a lot of territory both spatial and emotional. It is romantic, political, and familial. There is an art monster! Even a bit of horror.
An arranged marriage that could have been a disaster but in the end saved two Indian young people from disaster.
Finally, it is also completely contemporary while relying for its heft on much history.
I hope she wins the Booker Prize.
October 25, 2025
Booker Book 13/13, 9 out of 10. And with a month long listen to Desai's epic novel, my 2025 Booker List project comes to a very satisfying end.
This is such a rich book. There are very many layers, and doublings, and even triplings, as refrains of love, loneliness, alienation, guilt, artistic menace, talismanic protection, and a lot of delicious food, circle back again and again through Desai's pages. Desai slyly warns the reader of the pitfalls of stories of arranged marriages, of magical realism, of evil older men preying on susceptible young girls, and then proceeds to give us a novel that is all of these things. From Delhi to Goa to New York to Mexico to Venice, the book sweeps us along, and while some of the writing was a bit pretentious, and not all of the magical realism worked for me, it was a world I was happy to live in(for a full month!).
With this novel 20 years or more in the making, Desai began the novel when she was closer in age to Sonia, our young woman protagonist, and finished it (or at least published it) when she was the same age as Babita, Sonny's menopausal 53 year old mother who may just have stolen the show, with a character arc and distinct voice that are perhaps more compelling than Sonia's, who spends much of the novel in thrall to the truly despicable Ilan, which is in some ways (as Desai tells us) a rather trite tale. (Rumor has it that that Ilan is inspired by Desai's own allegedly emotional abusive relationship with Orhan Pamuk, and knowing this may stop me from reading him again).
This book got extra points and stole my heart out of the gate because Desai named one of her minor characters from Sonia's college years, the gay Filipino kid Armando, after one of my dearest friends. (Desai's best friend from college's best friend from high school is the life partner of my best friend from college.... talk about six degrees of separation - I've never met her though.).
This is such a rich book. There are very many layers, and doublings, and even triplings, as refrains of love, loneliness, alienation, guilt, artistic menace, talismanic protection, and a lot of delicious food, circle back again and again through Desai's pages. Desai slyly warns the reader of the pitfalls of stories of arranged marriages, of magical realism, of evil older men preying on susceptible young girls, and then proceeds to give us a novel that is all of these things. From Delhi to Goa to New York to Mexico to Venice, the book sweeps us along, and while some of the writing was a bit pretentious, and not all of the magical realism worked for me, it was a world I was happy to live in(for a full month!).
With this novel 20 years or more in the making, Desai began the novel when she was closer in age to Sonia, our young woman protagonist, and finished it (or at least published it) when she was the same age as Babita, Sonny's menopausal 53 year old mother who may just have stolen the show, with a character arc and distinct voice that are perhaps more compelling than Sonia's, who spends much of the novel in thrall to the truly despicable Ilan, which is in some ways (as Desai tells us) a rather trite tale. (Rumor has it that that Ilan is inspired by Desai's own allegedly emotional abusive relationship with Orhan Pamuk, and knowing this may stop me from reading him again).
This book got extra points and stole my heart out of the gate because Desai named one of her minor characters from Sonia's college years, the gay Filipino kid Armando, after one of my dearest friends. (Desai's best friend from college's best friend from high school is the life partner of my best friend from college.... talk about six degrees of separation - I've never met her though.).
November 21, 2025
Nearly twenty years in the making, Kiran Desai’s latest novel attempts to wrestle with myriad forms of loneliness: the loneliness of family, and that of single women and men – the loneliness of mothers, daughters, fathers and sons. The loneliness of the immigrant experience; the loneliness of life – of love – in and away from a fraught nation of a million divided by caste, class, colour, religion and corruption; the lonely burden of being a ‘third-worlder’ in the third world and – if you’re fortunate – in the first. The loneliness of forging your own path, of losing your path, the lonely yearning for gravitas. The loneliness of a writer attempting to tame it all and tell a story:
Other Orientalist stereotypes are also rendered uncertain: Desai uses the ocean, as well as rain, mist and clouds to imbue her novel with a watery, indeterminate atmosphere; it is both a contemplative aid for her characters and a long thread connecting an otherwise choppy narrative. But she is here also skillfully upturning the idea of a foggy Eastern mysticism: her protagonist's unearthing of her disappeared German grandfather’s fate (and her retrieval of the talisman that connects his mythmaking with her own lived reality) forges a message her readers in the West may or may not pick up on.
Melodrama is central to all loneliness, and it certainly plays a part in how this novel considers its subject. But in this jumble of ideas and contingencies – of dialogue both profound and awkwardly profane, and scenarios both outsized and plainly quotidian – is also a commensurate brilliance. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is by no means a flawless novel, and Desai may not yet have tamed loneliness, but she does manage to bare its myriad shades to a milieu known for its hesitance to see it.
A writer itched and itched to put everything into a book, or it became unbearable, the tingling.The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny may be billed as a love story between two privileged, American-educated Indians, and it does nominally revolve around two privileged, aspiring Indian writers: Sunny, a Columbia-educated journalist trying to make it at the Associated Press; Sonia a graduate of a throwaway liberal arts college in Vermont who dreams of mastering fiction. But it is more so a sweeping epic about identity, hierarchy and human relationships in India, with the personal and political inextricably entwined. It reminded me, in an oblique way, of Gabriel García Márquez and his idea of ‘outsized reality’(did Desai ever think of “The Solitude of Latin America”?):
She continued to write multiple narratives until the truth of something she wrote became apparent – whatever those narratives may be labeled by others: surrealist, realist, orientalist, occidentalist, fable, legend, nightmare, daydream, myth, satire, kitsch, tragedy, comedy – wouldn’t every story become equivalent to every other story? If the center did not hold, maybe it should not hold. Maybe when reality shifted shape, a writer should let it shift.
This was India, she thought. You might try to write a slender story, but it inevitably connected to a larger one. The sense could never be contained.Twenty years of writing, 688 pages and a Booker shortlisting to show for it. This is an unwieldly book in many ways, balancing representation and register against multiple stories and discrete ideas. It is also uneven and sometimes ridiculous, the story unfolding without an obvious rhythm, building and letting momentum as it goes – it is lifelike. What makes it exciting is that this is all on purpose: Desai is a writer who lets reality shift. She doesn’t indulge in hand-holding, but she allows us glimpses into the sheer skill that goes into it. Sonia’s turmoil – and her faint identification with her maker as a writer born to a distinguished, German-Bengali woman – grants us an audience with the two decades of contemplation that went into this book:
Could she write all the love stories she knew? Grandfather Siegfried and Grandmother Anjolie, that was a love in contradiction to the events playing out on the world stage, a love that undid historical narratives simply by the way he had caught her glance, how she had caught his. Ba and Dadaji would never bother with the word ‘love’—they were rooted somewhere deeper, more reliable, more elemental. Armando and Lazlo, one tugged bigger, one shrank smaller. Marie and Cole, who never knew what the other was thinking, but who never, ever fought. Papa’s itch and torment, her mother’s fleeing into the past. Sonia having turned a ghostly ghoul. Would these stories intersect and make a book? How would they hold together?Sonia, as we learn, cannot write for a long time because she has lost herself in the shadows of an older, abusive artist. She cannot write because he tells her how not to write (Ahhh — don’t write orientalist nonsense. Don’t write about arranged marriages). Later, she wonders how she could manage to write the story of their relationship without it falling “into a tedious stereotype of older, monster male artist and younger, aspiring female artist”. Desai doesn’t quite manage to avoid this specific tedium herself, but but does portray, with startling if discomfiting accuracy, the habits and psyche of the urbane, middle- and upper-class English-speaking Indians (whether in Allahbad, Delhi, Goa, New York or Mexico) who might pick up her book, and who will both identify with and abhor the characters in it. This is the audience she is writing for – a bourgeoise milieu that refuses to face its own contradictions, that contemplates injustices from a convenient distance:
*
An immigrant story is a ghost story and a murder story. You become a ghost, the people left behind become ghostly.
*
How to combine the real and supernatural the way they had so implausibly entwined in her own life?
He thought among the best reasons to emigrate was to pack one's own bag and carry it oneself, to have no servants, to clean one's own house. Gandhi had managed to eject the British from India but had failed in his exhortations to get Indians to scour their own toilets and thereby fathom the basic meaning of human rights. Following the repercus-sions of this lack of understanding of human rights in a logical man-ner, Sunny thought it explained why Indians would never make good readers of novels: a reader of novels comprehends the notion of indi-vidual rights by the simple act of identifying with a person's-any person's trials and joys. When you considered another person's feel-ings, another person's dignity, you actually wished to scrub your own toilet. A good novel reader was a toilet cleaner, and so Indians didn't wish to be readers of novels as this would undo caste hierarchies and divides that made their world go around properly.Upper- and middle-class rot is thus examined from within, as are attitudes to marriage. Sonia and Sunny are first introduced to each other through an arranged marriage proposal attempting to broker "a desirable match between the grandchildren, two America-educated individuals, two equals, two people who naturally belonged together because of where they came from and where they were going." They have both previously been in complicated relationships with white partners, and the space between their first introduction and eventual 'happy ending' is interspersed with stories of the unhappy and happy coupledom – both 'arranged' and out of 'love' – of parents, grandparents and friends. And despite the love, it is not until the feud between their two families is settled that our protagonists can really come together.
He wondered if this philosophizing made good sense and if the publishing world would be interested in it as an explanation for the dismal sales of fiction on the subcontinent.
Other Orientalist stereotypes are also rendered uncertain: Desai uses the ocean, as well as rain, mist and clouds to imbue her novel with a watery, indeterminate atmosphere; it is both a contemplative aid for her characters and a long thread connecting an otherwise choppy narrative. But she is here also skillfully upturning the idea of a foggy Eastern mysticism: her protagonist's unearthing of her disappeared German grandfather’s fate (and her retrieval of the talisman that connects his mythmaking with her own lived reality) forges a message her readers in the West may or may not pick up on.
Melodrama is central to all loneliness, and it certainly plays a part in how this novel considers its subject. But in this jumble of ideas and contingencies – of dialogue both profound and awkwardly profane, and scenarios both outsized and plainly quotidian – is also a commensurate brilliance. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is by no means a flawless novel, and Desai may not yet have tamed loneliness, but she does manage to bare its myriad shades to a milieu known for its hesitance to see it.
September 24, 2025
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
I must try and write a review of this one - a book which fully deserves its shortlisting.
I must try and write a review of this one - a book which fully deserves its shortlisting.
Read
November 15, 2025Book 10 of my Booker Prize longlist challenge, each year I dedicate my time to reading all the books on the booker longlist/shortlist so I can attempt to predict the winner. (Key word here is attempt) This has led me to read some incredible books, pushing me out of my comfort zone & expanding my taste.
RTC- I didn't give this book the time it requires, so I don't think writing a full review is necessary. The kind of book to be consumed over time, this is a multigenerational large novel spanning over time. 700+ pages. I rushed to finish this in time for the booker winner, sacrificing my reading experience, silly move! I will be rereading this in the new year with a fresh set of eyes and no time restrictions.
Congratulations to Flesh by David Szalay for wining the 2025 booker prize! For the first year ever I was able to correctly predict the winner, woohoo! My full booker prize video of my experience reading through the entire longlist + winner reaction will be on my Youtube Channel!
RTC- I didn't give this book the time it requires, so I don't think writing a full review is necessary. The kind of book to be consumed over time, this is a multigenerational large novel spanning over time. 700+ pages. I rushed to finish this in time for the booker winner, sacrificing my reading experience, silly move! I will be rereading this in the new year with a fresh set of eyes and no time restrictions.
September 26, 2025
This book is one of those “sweeping epics” that covers so much ground that it defies a succinct summary. It follows the lives of the titular main characters, Sonia and Sunny, originally from India, who, at the beginning, are living in the US and experiencing loneliness in different ways. Sonia gets involved with a narcissistic artist, who treats her horribly, but she desperately wants to maintain their relationship, leading to great heartache. She finally ends up in India, back with her parents. In the meantime, we learn the backstories of her grandparents and parents, as well as what’s going on with Sunny and his mother. It takes almost half the book for the two main characters to meet.
The storyline meanders into a vast number of topics, but the main ingredients are: the immigrant experience; isolation and loneliness (even when surrounded by people); the search for love, happiness, and companionship; the role of creative arts in society (especially painting and writing); western and eastern cultural divisions; the generational divide; the push-pull away from and toward one’s home; the search for an authentic self; and much (much) more. It contains elements of magical realism, especially in Sonia’s embedded stories. It is set (mostly) in the 1990s and 2000s in the US, India, and Mexico (and references major events of the time such as 9/11).
Sonia is a writer and Sunny is a journalist, so there are ongoing points being made about who gets to tell what stories, and how western influences can come into play for eastern writers, even inadvertently. I think Desai captures the essence of psychological abuse and how it can continue to influence a person’s life for a very long time afterward. Where it fell a bit short for me is that it tries to do too much. At around 700 pages, I think it could have used a tighter focus. That said, for a lengthy volume, it (mostly) kept my interest. I also think the parts that did not appeal to me will likely be a highlight for others, so we can all probably find something to like about this novel. It has been shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, and even though it’s not at the top of my personal list, I would not be surprised if it wins.
The storyline meanders into a vast number of topics, but the main ingredients are: the immigrant experience; isolation and loneliness (even when surrounded by people); the search for love, happiness, and companionship; the role of creative arts in society (especially painting and writing); western and eastern cultural divisions; the generational divide; the push-pull away from and toward one’s home; the search for an authentic self; and much (much) more. It contains elements of magical realism, especially in Sonia’s embedded stories. It is set (mostly) in the 1990s and 2000s in the US, India, and Mexico (and references major events of the time such as 9/11).
Sonia is a writer and Sunny is a journalist, so there are ongoing points being made about who gets to tell what stories, and how western influences can come into play for eastern writers, even inadvertently. I think Desai captures the essence of psychological abuse and how it can continue to influence a person’s life for a very long time afterward. Where it fell a bit short for me is that it tries to do too much. At around 700 pages, I think it could have used a tighter focus. That said, for a lengthy volume, it (mostly) kept my interest. I also think the parts that did not appeal to me will likely be a highlight for others, so we can all probably find something to like about this novel. It has been shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, and even though it’s not at the top of my personal list, I would not be surprised if it wins.
October 11, 2025
Definitely the most disappointing book of the year for me. Thought this would be a great epic novel and instead it was a meandering mess that was more like 5 novels mashed together. So many characters, so many tangents, so little editing. Twice as long as it should have been and the kind of book that you don’t want to pick up because it feels like a chore.
November 7, 2025
I felt that there were many times this book could've been brought to closure, opportunities not taken, and I was shocked today when I looked down and realized there were six hours left to go. Enough already! I was also somewhat put off by the narrator's eternally chipper voice whether she's describing a love affair or a murder.
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