The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Desai’s novel features a large cast of supporting characters. Who were your favorite ones? Why?

2. Describe Desai’s prose style. How did it impact your experience of the narrative and its themes?

3. How might you compare this novel to other family sagas, like Pachinko by Min Jin Lee or One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? How are they different or similar?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. What does the American Dream mean to you today? How do your views and experiences compare to the characters’?

2. The novel challenges the relevance of tradition by deconstructing the impact that the Badal Baba amulet has had on the Shah family. What are some of the traditions that your family or community observe? How might you compare your thoughts on these traditions with Sonia’s evolving attitude towards Badal Baba throughout the novel?

3. Discuss a time when an overwhelming problem allowed you to grow. How does this resonate with Sonia’s relationship to her problematic romance with Ilan?

4. Sunny and Sonia have tense relationships with their parents. How has your dynamic with your own parents shaped you, both in your younger years and as an adult?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The novel examines the far-reaching impact of the Partition of India on the grandchildren of those who experienced it. What are comparable events from your history that have continued to affect you, even in small ways?

2. Desai uses Sunny’s character to expose the emotional demands of the immigrant experience. How did this novel affect your views on immigration and expatriation?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Discuss the symbolic function of the ocean in the novel. What does it represent to Sunny and Sonia?

2. Trace the evolution of Babita’s character from antagonist to a supporting character in Sunny and Sonia’s romance. How is she characterized? What is her wider significance in the text?

3. Analyze how various characters struggle with the idea of identity. How do Sonia, Sunny, and the other characters’ ideas of identity change—or fail to change—over the course of the novel?

4. Discuss how Desai uses allusion in this novel. How do her references to famous novels and other literary works function? How do they illuminate key themes and ideas?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Towards the end of the novel, Sonia writes surrealist stories based on her relationship with Ilan. Apply her literary style to Sunny’s experience and write a surrealist story based on his experience as an immigrant.

2. The novel is set between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Only using songs from this period, make a playlist inspired by one of Desai’s characters.