De eenzaamheid van Sonia en Sunny

by Kiran Desai, Paul van der Lecq (Translator), Petra van der Eerden (Translator)

In de besneeuwde bergen van Vermont voelt Sonia zich eenzaam. Ze is een studente met aspiraties om schrijver te worden. Omdat ze heimwee heeft naar haar thuisland India staat ze open voor de liefde van een oudere kunstenaar. Deze man zal haar in de komende jaren in zijn duistere greep houden. In Brooklyn is de eveneens uit India afkomstige Sunny net zo eenzaam. Hij worstelt met zijn bestaan als journalist en is constant in de war, zowel door de acties van zijn Amerikaanse vriendin, als door het land waarin hij zijn toekomst hoopt op te bouwen. In India kunnen hun families zich niet voorstellen dat Sonia en Sunny eenzaam zijn in deze grote, drukke wereld en ze regelen een ontmoeting tussen de twee. Een klunzige actie, die er alleen maar voor zorgt dat Sonia en Sunny uit elkaar worden gedreven, nog voor ze de kans krijgen om verliefd te worden op elkaar.

Genres: Fiction, India, Literary Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club

736 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2025

About the author

Kiran 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.

Reviews

[Read By RodKelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Stephen the Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

love can make you foolish.

that's not just a theme of this book but a theme of my life.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

i've been having a rough reading year. i've tried everything — new books from favorite authors, rereads of old favorite books, picking up my five star predictions — and it hasn't magically transmuted quantity into quality.

so i set out to read only the books i was most excited to read. the ones i had the best feeling about. the ones my gut told me YES.

and it worked immediately.

this book is everything: a sprawling family saga, the history of a nation and another nation and kind of some other nations too, a love story,  lyrical magical realism, gritty...real realism.

and it does it all well.

it's about how we carry our countries with us and how we shake them off, how our lives are ours for the taking and fated fro the start, how the bst-laid plans can be made a mockery of and result in something better than we ever could have imagined.

it's a tale of grudges and of forgiveness, of hate and of love, of youth and of death.

here is the best compliment i can give: it's 670 pages and deserves to be.

i heard it from the internet, people i know, and major award committees.

bottom line: everyone is right.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

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:

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.

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Jonas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A monumental achievement. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is an incredible family epic. As a reader, I learned so much about India, its culture, and familiar relationships. I grew my understanding of the caste and class system. I am hungry to learn more about Partition and its impact on families. There is definitely family drama and rivalries in this one.

There are so many settings and so many topics dissected. First and foremost, is art and the artist. I loved how literature and writing was prominent throughout the novel. Every type of relationship is explored in detail. The mother son dynamic is something to behold. the father daughter relationship was an interesting juxtaposition. Sunny’s friendship from childhood was one I particularly enjoyed. Everything involving Mina Foi, too. I enjoyed every aspect of the novel.

Reading this novel opens one up to new perspectives. It was very interesting to see the events of 9/11 unfold from different perspectives in different countries. It was interesting to see the American Dream (or America held up as the ideal) interrogated. Colonialism and imperialism are discussed as well as their impact on those colonized. This quote really spoke to me and opened my eyes.

“He thought that just as you should live in India to know the British the way you never would from living in England, you should live in Mexico to know the Spanish in the United States, to gain insight into what made the United States shine. . .”

I primarily listened to this one, and the narrator was amazing. I loved it so much I bought the hardcover. I underlined so many passages. The prose is absolutely gorgeous. This is the best written book. I’ve read in 2026. This novel and Flashlight made my shortlist for the Booker Prize, and in my opinion, either should have won. They are two of the best written novels I’ve read in a very long time.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately I felt that this book was just too long and unfocused to enjoy. There were some sentiments about gender and nationalism that I vibed with, but there was just so much going on that I couldn’t connect with the characters and none of the ideas really stuck with me. Discursive prose, too much plot to follow, and at 688 pages I was glad when I was done with this one. I also was a bit confused because some of the characters/passages seem to critique orientalism but then some of the ways the characters were presented… I wouldn’t say they were orientalist but I just was not clear on what Kiran Desai wanted to accomplish here. Onto the next book and hoping it’s better.

[Danny Nason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank god that’s over

[Affan]

More like the loneliness of me and myself for not having this book in my hands yet.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize

“Why do we try to solve other problems? There is only one that is necessary to solve.” “Loneliness?” “The other problems would melt away in importance.”

And the last of my re-reads of the full longlist in August - a read I deliberately spread over a week or more (including rather appropriately given some recurring imagery in the book a safari where I saw my first wild leopard) - Vintage Books kindly supplying me with a Paper ARC which considers my enhanced my re-reading experience.

The re-read proved fascinating - there is no doubt that parts of the book are somewhere on the ridiculous/pretentious boundary - namely any scene when the most annoying character on the longlist Ilan is involved (although this time I realised that the sections with Sonia’s German grandfather’s writings are as bad, albeit perhaps providing a generational justification for her attraction to such a repellent and preposterous figure as Ilan). Of course Desai has Sonia (who at frequent points during the novel takes on a meta fictional aspect as her own writing ambitions foreshadows the novel we are reading) saying “Yet if Sonia managed to write the story of herself and Ilan, it would fall into a tedious stereotype of older, monster male artist and younger, aspiring female artist.” but I was less convinced on a second read that Desai had really escaped the same trap, although she had I think succeeded more at the other challenge Sonia presents herself in the same paragraph: “How to combine the real and supernatural the way they had so implausibly entwined in her own life?”

But other parts were excellent and what was most impressive and enjoyable was the fully immersive nature of the read - despite being easily the longest novel on the longlist I did not feel it contained superfluous detail but enjoyed the sensation of being drawn back into its pages and the stories not just of Sonia and Sunny but their extended family and friends (artists excepted)

Some other things I noted second time:

Pasha - who wins Best Dog of Booker 2025 with his fetching “his tinkly ball in case it was the correct answer.” later repeated with a toy cat.

The repeated sequences when, for security purposes, something precious is opened by a series of hidden keys which have to be found in turn, each opening the next hiding place. And towards the end in the Sunny/Ilan showdown ”Where was the key to the key that led to the key to the key to the treasure?” - and it struck me that this was a metaphor for the multiple layers of meaning and allusion in the novel itself.

The frequent passages along the lines of “if it was better to be one Indian than two Indians, better to be two Indians than three Indians. And better an Indian in New York than an Indian in India.” - which starts as very much a discussion of the Indian immigrant experience but extends even at the end to Babita and Sunny’s coming together from their respective haunting in ”Better two single ladies in the dark”.

The allusions to Desai’s own all encompassing novel writing over the last 20 years of which she said in a recent New Yorker interview “your writing and your life become the same thing” and “I wonder if I am living for real life, or simply to put everything in a book.” - with Sonia musing at different times “to write meant stepping out of life, isolating yourself. If you tried to balance the two, wouldn’t you be living a life for the sole purpose of creating a fictional life, not one that would take its natural course, but one that you would be bending and shaping toward a secret purpose?” And later ”A writer itched and itched to put everything into a book, or it became unbearable, the tingling. She thought it was almost too late to reclaim all she experienced before it vanished into oblivion”.

A key passage where the thematic reason for the ghost hound and for the murders of the two Uncles is captured: “An immigrant story is also a ghost story and a murder story. You become a ghost, the people left behind become ghostly”

And my favourite quote second time - again very metafictional

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. If Sonia scattered her being into an ocean of stories, could they, like waves, bring her to another shore?

ORIGINAL REVIEW

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. Dadaji 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 unraveled.

And in fact very deliberately my last pre longlist announcement read as from early reviews of this novel - the first by the author since her 2006 Booker Prize winning second novel “The Inheritance of Loss” (which defeated Edward St Aubyn’s “Mothers Milk” 4-1 in the final vote despite an attempt by the 1 – Anthony Quinn to demand a recount) and some twenty years in the writing – I felt it had an excellent chance to make the list.
 
Appropriately a character in another 2025 Booker longlisted novel – Tom the narrator of “The Rest of Our Lives” provides what could be a coda to this novel:
Nobody tells you what an intense experience loneliness is, how it has a lot of variations
 

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.

 
It is by far the longest book on the longlist – weighing in at over 650 pages – but was actually carved out of a much longer set of writing.  As far back as 2019 Desai said in an interview (which is both in title and themes very recognisably what we are reading now)
 
I've been working on a book forever. See, if I was in a writing workshop, quite likely l'd be finished. But instead I've taken a long time to explore a multitude of stories and now I will whittle it down and whittle it down and distill it. I'm working on a book called The Loneliness of Sonia & Sunny and it's a book about global loneliness, the division between nations, the division between classes, the division between races, the fact that the past is vanishing so fast—many kinds of loneliness, not just romantic, but the novel seen through the lens of an endlessly unresolved romance.
 
I would probably go further and say that the novel has two complex relationships.
 
Yes the “endlessly unresolved romance” between Sonia and Sunny which plays out against complex family relationships, the two family trees of the characters that start the book are a useful guide to navigating it but the cast of key characters is much lighter than the length may suggest – but also and equally difficult to navigate for the two titular NRIs, not just between home and adopted country but very specifically America and India – with just like any relationship each party bringing its own flaws and faults and misunderstanding those of the other.
 
Sonia at the novel’s start is studying at college in Vermont and thinking about fiction writing (although in a clear metafictional nod subject to her own and other’s doubts about what is appropriate to include in Indian fiction for an American audience) – and initially clearly lonely causing her grandparents to decide to try for an arranged introduction into Sunny the son of a family who owe something of a non-fiscal debt to them.
 
Sonia though falls into a fairly toxic relationship with an older, charismatic and fairly-famous older artist (and it seems serial seducer) Ivan – a character who I have to say I initially hoped was simply a cameo leading into her later life but becomes something of a permanent shadow on both her and for some time my enjoyment of the novel, before I realised that I too needed to re-adjust my expectations of the Indian author I was reading and that she was really examining much of the same ideas of the patriarchal gaze (and behaviour) in art as Rachel Cusk explores in “Parade” with an increasingly strong element of the menacing fantastical imagery (in particular a painting of a dog which seems to blend into the real world) which reminded me of the writing of Deborah Levy.  When that relationship first fails she returns to India.
 
Sunny – a budding AP journalist - meanwhile is in a kept-secret-from his overbearing mother live-in relationship with a white American girl, a relationship which rather drifts and which he escapes when he travels back to India with an NRI friend who has decided to look for an arranged marriage.
 
And both are then drawn – in a novel set roughly over the 1996-2002 period - back to the very past and family they had partially gone to America to escape – with Sunny’s mother Babita, and Sonia’s separate-during-the-novel parents Seher and Manav, all experiencing their own loneliness in this sweeping tale.
 
Although Sunny moves to Mexico (a deliberate nod I am sure to the magic realism that from then on pervades the novel). I wonder absolutely if there is a link to her mother - Anita Desai herself three times shortlisted - and her last novel Rosarita which features a woman journeying from India to Mexico only to find her mother has been there before.

Through this tale of generational/country/race/class/caste/male-female complexities and how they play out into the isolation of the modern world there are also running themes of privilege and representation in art and no-holds-barred critiques of both the US and India but particularly in terms of fiction, for example
 

Sunny thought it explained why Indians would never make good readers of novels: a reader of novels comprehends the notion of individual rights by the simple act of identifying with a person’s—any person’s—trials and joys. When you considered another person’s feelings, 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. 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.

 
This is currently due to be published in the US on the day of the Booker shortlist announcement, and in the UK 2 days after I would be surprised if it does not lead to a double shortlisting for the author (still one short of her mother Anita’s three Booker shortlistings) and this must be a contender for the win given the judges comments that it is “the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our great novelists” – and not, from a first read, a winner with which I would quibble.
 
It is one I tend to revisit before then and ideally in paper copy – as I don’t find this kind of complex epic suited to the e-book form. 

But nevertheless my thanks to Viking Books, Penguin UK for an early ARC via NetGalley
 

On her toy veranda, she opened her notebook. The second story she had written, the one her dear Professor Conti had praised, was the story of Mina Foi and Ernest. 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 the historical narrative 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? How to trust herself to do her part to sustain what existed beyond her vision? What if she stepped back to survey what she had wrought and saw that it lay in incoherent pieces?

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

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? :-)

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

⭐ 1.5/5 rounding down

Full spoiler breakdown/Connect with me: SpillthePlot.com.

I went into this so ready to love it. A sweeping novel about two Indian families navigating immigration, loneliness, and the complicated pull between India and America? Yes please. As an immigrant myself, I was especially excited for the themes of cultural displacement, identity, and the quiet ache of not fully belonging anywhere.

The premise follows Sonia and Sunny, whose families hope a match between them might cure their mutual loneliness abroad. And at first, it’s thoughtful and promising.

But somewhere along the way, the story loses focus. It starts juggling too many threads, and the emotional core gets buried. The writing is beautiful, no question — but I kept wishing for a tighter, more cohesive story.

Sadly, this one just didn’t land for me.

Check out my blog: spoiledbooks.blogspot.com

[Vivek Tejuja · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book a few days ago and am still trying to digest and define my thoughts. I loved the writing and a family saga is one of my favorite types of plots to follow. This one promised much being over 600 pages long, an Indian and U.S. setting, both parents and off-spring drama, love perhaps (due to the title) and shortlisted for the Booker. It did meet these promises for sure. I used both the audio and print for this reading. The audio narration was by Sneha Mathan who was very good but at times I wasn't sure in transitions who was speaking so I was glad to have the print. The book also has a diagram of family trees for the characters, (it could found on a PDF included with the audio) that I thought I would need to refer to often but I found it mostly unnecessary as the characters were so well drawn I had no problems knowing individual characters or the families due the the dramas of each.

This was largely a story of the young people's immigrant experience India to America and the flavor of India with its foibles and strong rich, diverse setting in both class structure and environment. I found myself enjoying more the parents in India parts of the story rather than the children (Sonia and Sunny) in America. Having traveled to India I found I could relate to and found realistic those portions of the story.

I had less engagement with Sonia and Sunny's portions of this novel. Part of it was the expectation of a romance always waiting in the wings. Second, I was not always sure that loneliness and being alone are one and the same as the author often seemed to mix. ( Much of the true loneliness occurred when Sonia or Sunny were with other people rather than solo--a most striking part of the plot). It was an excellent story yet aspects of it while well drawn felt unrealistic to me. Too often these characters seem to skirt danger and come out a little too lucky. It could have been so much worse. The two young people took chances and made choices that could easily resulted in tragedy.

I did love the story but it did seem to be a novel (too unrealistic) and almost too well written at times. So many great quotes, a strength of the writing. I was not always engaged but I was totally hooked in the reading of it. 4.5 stars rounded up. I do recommend it if you want an excellent reading experience that you can fall into and just want to keep turning the pages.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

One of The Guardian's The best fiction of 2025 list!

Time's The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 selection

One of Lit Hub’s 43 Favorite Books of 2025!

A New York Times 10 Best Books of 2025 selection!

One of BookPage's 10 Best Books of 2025!

The Publisher Says: The spellbinding story of two young people whose fates will 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

Behind every love story are the myriad stories of two families.

In the snowy mountains of Vermont, Sonia is lonely. A college student and aspiring writer homesick for India, she turns to an older artist for inspiration and intimacy, a man who will cast a dark spell on the next many years of her life. In Brooklyn, Sunny is lonely, too. A struggling journalist originally from Delhi, he is both beguiled and perplexed by his American girlfriend and the country in which he plans to find his future. As Sonia and Sunny each becomes more and more alienated, they begin to question their understanding of happiness, human connection, and where they belong.

Back in India, Sonia and Sunny's extended families cannot fathom how anyone could be lonely in this great, bustling world. They arrange a meeting between the two—a clumsy meddling that only drives Sonia and Sunny apart before they have a chance to fall in love.

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.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: If this *immense*, intense, and deeply emotionally charged novel is not on the Booker shortlist tomorrow, I will kick off big time.

Sonia and Sunny and their families are excellent company. Like anyone you spend this much time with, there are moments of irritated shouting, times of sad, misty dripping, and the occasional whoop of glee. (Note to self: reading stories like this at 3am can lead to justifiably angry quarters-sharers. Best not to.)

What I got out of this Dickensian-in-scope tale of love, Love, imperialism, racism, chicanery, skulduggery, and the immutable urge to discover Truths greater than self-actualization, was the conviction that there needs to be a new category of read: a Bildungsroman for adults figuring their {stuff} out; a one-volume roman-fleuve for the increasing number of Indian-authored epic novels that feel even bigger in scope than they are.

Love, love, and desire figure into both of the above subgenres. I think of the old joke describing Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses as "horny Irish medical student goes on a rampage" and I'm still pretty sure that is the whole reason Joyce didn't stop at A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...he had so much more to say.

This could have been A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-length but Author Desai had a Ulysses-esque lump in her throat. It's a lot, Sunny alone is a novel's worth of weird (mother Babita and her...unexpected...opinions and cheese-related kleptomania), but Sonia and her nasty time with Ilan (older, jealous artist-lover) could've been another entire book fully satisfying the criteria of novelhood. (NB: this is the beginning of the book; persevere, ye who dislike this truthtelling trope. It's not like that all the way through.)

The weight of expectation, of cultural baggage, on aspiring artist Sonia (I'd read her novel!) and journalist Sunny (a byline I'd look for!) as they try to figure out their paths in the buzzing hive of US culture and politics, all stewed up with many people they run into (sometimes literally) along the way: crushing, annihilating, and in the end energizing. Loneliness and fear and baggage motivate these two, where they squash so many. Across the world there are people with the talent and the drive, but not the luck, of Sonia and Sunny, and we will never hear their names.

We have, now, heard their names, in Author Desai's busy, overstuffed novel. I hope in that magical-realist liminal place they are, they know and are happier for it. Seher, Sonia's mother said it best: "Loneliness could mean abiding peace. It could mean understanding your happiness backward, when you happened to exclaim out loud, surprising yourself when there was no apparent reason, I'm happy!"

Shout it, folks, you've been found.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Tracy Greer-Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.”

[Liz Hein · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

i feel like this could've been a couple hundred pages shorter but still beautiful

[Bojan Gačić · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Anita Pomerantz · Rating 3 out of 5]

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!

[Yahaira · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Tini · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweeping, intimate portrait of love, displacement, and the quiet ache of belonging.

"There was so much life in this country that Sunny needn't bother to create one. His life could be simply looking upon life."

Sonia and Sunny are two young Indian immigrants whose lives, though separated by oceans and circumstance, echo one another in their shared search for connection. In snowy Vermont, Sonia - a homesick college student and aspiring writer - becomes entangled with an older artist whose influence will shadow her for years. In Brooklyn, Sunny - a struggling journalist from Delhi - wrestles with his own sense of alienation as he tries to make a life in a country that never fully feels like home. Back in India, their families, unable to comprehend such loneliness, arrange for the two to meet - a well-meaning act that inadvertently drives them further apart.

Kiran Desai's "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" is a lush, lyrical meditation on solitude, migration, family expectation, and the ways trauma weaves across generations, following Sonia and Sunny across years and continents as their paths cross in multiple ways. The writing is stunning, but the novel is unnecessarily long and at times the narrative feels overextended, trying to encompass too many perspectives and themes at once. Still, the novel's emotional truth resonates deeply, grounded in the universal need to be seen and understood, and the loneliness as the core of many human lives.

I also listened to the audiobook for parts of the novel, narrated superbly by Sneha Mathan, whose stellar performance adds richness and intimacy to the story. The multitude of characters and interconnected families can be challenging to track in the audiobook format (the print edition includes family trees that help), but Mathan's expressive reading brings clarity and warmth, making the experience all the more engaging.

Expansive yet intimate, melancholic yet hopeful, "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny "is a beautiful exploration of the distances - geographic, emotional, generational - that define and connect us.

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to read. Setting aside the extensive use of Indian terms which may not be familiar to a Western reader, the writing, while at times masterful, is dense and overly descriptive. Why use one or two words to describe something when six or eight will suffice? There was no reason for this story to be almost 700 pages long.

There were a few entertaining characters, although the title characters were not among them. The use of magical realism left me confused at times. I’m sure there is an audience for this, but I’m afraid it wasn’t a good fit for me.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Nancy]

I 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.