Sunny – review (AD)
I was kindly given an advanced electronic copy of Sunny by Sukh Ojla in exchange for an honest review*.
Sunny book blurb
This actually is a love story, just not the one Sunny was looking for…
Sunny is the queen of living a double life.
To her friends, she’s the entertaining, eternally upbeat, single one, always on hand to share hilarious and horrifying date stories.
But while they’re all settling down with long-term partners and mortgages, Sunny is back in her childhood bedroom at thirty, playing the role of the perfect daughter.
She spends her time watching the Sikh channel, making saag and samosey with her mum, hiding gins-in-a-tin in her underwear drawer and sneaking home in the middle of the night after dates, trying but failing to find ‘the one’.
She juggles both lives perfectly… on the outside, at least.
But when her mum sees a guy dropping Sunny home one evening, Sunny’s life gets a little complicated.
Now her mum wants to know about the life she’s hidden from her for so long.
Sunny is well versed in lying to her friends, her family, and, above all, herself.
But how long can she keep it up for?
Or is it finally time to start being honest?
Sunny by Sukh Ojla is a relatable, moving, and life-affirming novel.
It is warm and full of honesty, exploring family, love and mental health.
My overall thoughts on Sunny
I really enjoyed reading Sunny and going on a journey with her!
Sunny is a 30-year-old Punjabi woman who is living at home with her parents, feeling a little outside of everyone else, and wondering what the heck is going to happen next.
She’s really at a crossroads in her life – she hates her job, feels like she’s living a double life she’s sunny on the outside but not so much on the inside!
Sunny is lying to her parents particularly her mum a lot, her friends and even her colleagues at work and feels like her friends aren’t really her friends any more, she’s lost.
Maintaining her standing as the dutiful daughter, she’s searching for “Mr Right” away from the watchful eyes of her mum whilst keeping up the appearance of being the happy go lucky, amusing one amongst her circle of friends.
But really Sunny like so many of us, is suffering big style from low self-esteem and anxiety, and she comfort-eats carb heavy and sweet treats stashed away in her bedroom as her coping mechanism.
Boy can I relate!
This story is crucially also about the relationship between Sunny and her mother, as they learn to communicate – much of this in the latter chapters made me almost cry because it was just so lovely and heart-warming.
I really liked her relationship with her mum and how that grew throughout the book, the love really shone through the pages despite them not actually verbalising those three little words!
Although culturally Sunny and I are different, I saw a lot of my younger self in Sunny when I had a big breakup and had to move back home and try to start again when some of my friends were settling down getting married and climbing the corporate ladder.
I loved how this wasn’t a typical find a man to make you happy story, this was about Sunny hitting rock bottom and pulling herself out of it, saying goodbye to toxic (and in one case racist) friendships and embracing new friendships and new starts.
There’s so many laughs within this book as well as some really tender and heartbreaking moments.
I highly recommend Sunny and I would’ve read this book in one or two sittings if I didn’t work full time and have a toddler!
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*Disclaimer
This review has been written with 100% honesty.
I was not financially compensated for this post. I was given an advance copy of this book for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own based on my own experience.
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