THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY

by Kiran Desai

As I found myself slogging through The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, I kept questioning why it appeared on so many bestseller-lists of 2025.  At 607 pages, how did all those other readers make it through this cumbersome tome?  Determined, I girded my loins, dug in and persisted. But even after I’d finished, I still couldn’t appreciate Loneliness’ appeal.  

In Loneliness, Desai writes extensively about the phenomenon of middle-class Indian parents living in India who aspire to send their children to university in the United States.  This elevates their status in their peers’ eyes. And, ultimately, they hope that their children establish themselves, become U.S. citizens and send for their devoted parents to join them.  Sonia and Sunny are two such adolescents, trying to settle into their new lives at colleges in the U.S.  They both feel like outsiders, even spectators of their own lives.  Each of them endures horrific experiences which leave them feeling disconnected, lonely and depressed.

By the end of Loneliness, Sonia and Sunny find their way back to India and to each other, with Sunny’s interfering mother’s assistance. Weeks after finishing Loneliness, I’m still trying to figure out what the author was trying to say in her novel.  Could it be as simple as: “There’s no place like home?”  Is it that we are all lonely and the sooner we understand that, the better our lives will be?  I can’t say with certainty.  But what I can say is that The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was not my cup of tea. (Liz)