Elise

“The first time you swim after a long while is as close as you’ll ever get to happiness,” said Sonia.
But, Sonia, that is so strange. I thought the exact thing my first morning in Goa!”

I recently finished reading the book The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia by Kiran Desai. The book revolves around Sonia and Sunny, and that’s what the title of the book says, but the story is far from that; it’s about a multitude of characters, their lives, and their political opinions, their culture, in full detail, and sometimes you wonder and search for the main theme: “loneliness”.

The book speaks about displacement, race, racism, immigrants, the lives of immigrants, and how they are perceived by natives and vice versa. As a reader, you will see the struggles of these characters and how they navigate life. I’m being critical here, I think, cuz I’m not a person to criticize an author who spent 20 years of her life writing (creating) a book. I was a little disappointed. (Maybe I had high expectations)

I wish the novel revolved more around Sunny and Sonia (at least 40% of the book). Still, it was about a lot of other things, which felt unfair to me, who was excited to read about the said 2 charcters because, again, the “title”.(I would have preferred a different title cuz it’s not just only about the relationship but more than that. Sometimes I felt the main theme side-stepped and was not prioritized.)

My reading experience was good. i loved how the author portrayed vulnerability of sonia, i saw a part of myself in characters, the family dynamics was something i was able to relate, the perception of society of a married women, a widow, a single woman, a woman who chose to live alone and a woman who chose to separate and how they are perceived in the society and their narrative was different, whenever the author brought up sonia and sunny together, I devoured.
And I felt despair when it came to an end. I have a huge respect for the author because of the research that must have been done to write something complex to bring out the narrative of every character, with complexities that make them who they are.

Buddy Read with @nooretics ♥️

#thelonelinessofsoniaandsunny #review