Thank you to Knopf publishing and to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review. Dream Count is a sprawling narrative of the lives of 4 interconnected African women. During the pandemic they are recounting their lives, past loves, and their regrets, encapsulated in their "Dream Count".

I wanted to love this book. It starts off strong setting up the main character Chia who is stuck at home during the pandemic and recounting her past loves and her travels and ultimately her regrets. The author does a nice job of initially building the narrative and showing the connections between the four women at the center. However, it just never really felt like the story went anywhere. I appreciated what the author did with Kaditou's story and the parallels to a real life similar case but if the intent of the book was to center that story (as was sort of hinted at in the author's note at the end) then the pacing and set up of the story was very odd. I feel like it could have been a story about using the pandemic for introspection on one's life and travels or about Kadi's story and what happened to her, but the way that the author chose to join both together was disjointed and made the book feel long and dense. I had a hard time finishing it but I am still glad I did.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3

If im being honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting to read. the first few chapters were def closer to what I expected but then we got to Zikora and I was like uh ಠ_ಠ hard pass what have I gotten myself into??

Overall, Adichie is a great author so even though I can’t fully say I enjoyed this book 1000%, there is a certain beauty in her style of writing.

I can appreciate that Adichie took artistic freedom with Kadiatou’s story but it felt so icky to have Kadia be happy when the woman whose life Kadia was based off, was rightfully hurt by the dropping of her case.

I fell in love with this book. The writing and style was more than I hoped for and the story itself hooked me

I just couldn’t get into this book. I tried but decided this must not be the right time for it. I will try again at another point.

I got to 15%….was bored and not enjoying myself and then my friend told me the author is a transphobe and supports RFKjr so not finishing this,

*Dream Count* is a quiet, richly layered novel that weaves together the lives of four African women, exploring the many shapes love and human connection can take in a post-pandemic world. Rather than centering on romantic entanglements, the book gently probes the deeper bonds of friendship, kinship, and compassion that tether us to each other.

Though some of the characters may resonate more than others, Adichie’s authorial presence remains luminous and steady, like a guiding light. Her writing evokes warmth and wisdom, echoing a belief in people’s capacity for good. At its heart, the novel pushes back against the impulse to retreat into ideological camps, urging readers instead to stay open, curious, and humane. It’s a beautiful meditation on the importance of listening, really listening, to more than one narrative before deciding what we think we know.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC which I read in exchange for this honest review.

After waiting a freaking decade for Adichie to release a new book, this was a letdown. While the prose is stunning, this could have been MUCH shorter in my opinion and I found myself just hoping it would end.

Dream Count started off really good. It is full of raw experiences of four African Women somehow connected to each other. The writing is beautiful but the story not so much. It was very male centered for all four women. Chia’s and Omelogor’s story got exhausting in the end. The only character that I liked was Kadiatou. The other characters I couldn’t connect with. Another thing I didn’t like was that the stories were all over the place.

Although Dream Count wasn’t my favorite but Adichie is an amazing author and I loook forward to reading more books by her. Thank you Net Gallery for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Here we are. Reading books that reference the pandemic. It feels like we were just in the midst of it, but now it's just in the past! It seems strange when you pick up a book like this and realize that though.

Dream Count is about four Nigerian women - Chiamaka, Zikora, Omelagor, and Kaditou. Their stories take place in various locations in the US as well as in Nigeria. I do love reading about this culture because it's so different from my own, yet I relate to a lot of the issues these women face. My favorite character was Omelagor - she's an unmarried professional making TONS of money, yet she gets all the same pressure as every other girl - she needs to focus on finding a man who will have her before she gets too old. She needs to have kids and run a traditional household. It doesn't matter that she's been successful in a whole other way - she's expected to conform in this regard.

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I felt the beginning was too slow and the stories were too long and wandering at times. I will definitely continue to read this author!

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the ARC!

I really wanted to love this one, but I wasn’t a fan of the main character. That didn’t help the slow burn of this novel. However, I think it was a good book that was well-written.

I requested this after seeing a lot of hype around it on instagram, but it just wasn't for me. I ended up DNF because i couldnt get into it. Thanks so much for the gifted copy.

From the very beginning, I was drawn in by the vivid writing and smooth flow of this novel, which beautifully explores themes like friendship, identity, family, and love. The narrative digs deeper with powerful reflections on social class, beauty ideals, and misogyny, all of which added depth to the journeys of the four main characters and left a lasting impression on me. Listening to the audiobook was a rich experience as well—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, along with Sandra Okuboyejo, A’rese Emokpae, and Janina Edwards, brought each character to life with heartfelt performances and authentic accents.

“Our close friends are small glimpses into us.”

The story follows Chiamaka, a wealthy Nigerian writer with a romantic soul, who reflects on her past relationships and life choices during the stillness of the COVID-19 lockdown. Her best friend, Zikora, is a driven woman dealing with personal heartache and forming an unexpected connection. Kadiatou, the housekeeper in Chiamaka’s home, faces a series of emotional and practical challenges that made her story especially moving. My favorite, though, was Omelogor—Chiamaka’s bold, career-focused cousin—whose narrative touches on big questions about fulfillment, identity, and societal pressure.

“If our daughters do not know how beautiful they are, just as they are, then surely we have failed.”

Each of the women felt honest and complex, each flawed in her own way and shaped by her circumstances. The different perspectives added richness to the book, though I did feel that the story could have been tighter. One less point of view might have made the narrative feel more cohesive, and I found myself wanting a clearer connection between all four storylines.

Overall, this was a powerful, thought-provoking novel with unforgettable characters and meaningful commentary on the world they live in.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can’t write a bad book, I think we all know that. But DREAM COUNT was beautiful in a way I wasn’t expecting. It’s a sweeping tale of relationships, identities, histories, intertwined dependencies and interdependence, fierce INdependence, and, ultimately, the many kinds of love we experience in this world. Adichie is an expert at not only crafting rich, complex characters but also at bringing the reader into those characters’ inner and outer worlds. The way she explores the human condition and capacity for love, emotion, kinship is unparalleled. I’m so grateful to have read this book!

This book made me feel sick every step of the way, and I hated it. This was horrible, and I do not recommend it at all.
Please accept an incomplete list of trigger warnings in lieu of my usual review (I stopped keeping track around the 60% mark):
Infidelity
Detailed child labor (also breastfeeding struggles, hysterectomy, endometriosis)
Multiple, various, detailed SAs
Abandonment
Abortion
Faked pregnancy
Detailed miscarriage
Circumcision (both male and female)
Polygamy
Incest
Death of parent, spouse, child of various ages
Alcoholism
Police Brutality

Beautifully written with lush descriptions, deep introspection and many complexities. This is the story of strong women, each with different stories. The plot is not linear rather multiple sections with multiple narrators. Each character lives a vastly different life and carries contrasting perspectives. It’s heartbreaking at times but also empowering at others. Sometimes hard to follow, with some characters having more intriguing story lines than others. But it was fascinating, captivating and a deep look into friendship, immigration, love and self discovery.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.

'I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being. Sometimes we live for years with yearnings that we cannot name. Until a crack appears in the sky and widens and reveals us to ourselves, as the pandemic did, because it was during lockdown that I began to sift through my life and give names to things long unnamed.'

Four women, each strong and independent in their own way, struggle against the double, or indeed quadruple standards of societal expectations; reaching for what they want, what they deserve, but devastated by how much of themselves they have to suppress in its pursuit.

'Chia loved the idea of love, so eagerly, so unwisely.'

There is a lot that worked in Dream Count, starting with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's brilliant writing that can evoke resonant emotions in people cultures and continents away. The novel isn't a linear time story, but is more a collection of formative experiences and occurrences in the lives of the four women, like vignettes showcasing how they were struck with each occurrence. This construction works to highlight the themes of sexism, immigrant injustices and financial status explored, among other things. Adichie's understanding of people and societies shines through in every vignette.

'She [Zikora] relates with women only through the pain caused them by men. That I do not trade in stories of my love-inflicted wounds is my [Omelogor] unforgivable failing.'

The whole book somehow disappointingly adds up to less than the sum of the parts - the character sketches, the writing and world-building, the premise as well as the themes explored. Chia, Zikora and Omelogor are such clever, strong, independent and resourceful women, but seem to give away too much control to other people and institutions over too many years, or suppressed themselves too much. A lot of the petty bickering/ internal judgement when talking to each other didn't help. They didn't seem to have to grown or changed much over the years, though they were in shock over a few events, however difficult this was to judge as the timelines jumped around a bit.

'Zikora felt cheered by this news, by the sense that misery was now being evenly spread. Omelogor crying? Omelogor could cry? Whatever America had done to her, God bless America.'

Kadiatou can't be grouped with the other characters as she was based on a real person, or at least real events, but with a fictional back story. She suffered so much, her struggle to build a life in a new country overthrown suddenly, but even a case against the assaulter that was much discussed in public platforms does not lead to justice. Her response at the end to the case being dropped was markedly different to the public statements made at the time, anger and disappointment changed to relief and acceptance that do a disservice to the very real person's feelings and rights, no matter what the author's note says about reclamation. This added to the disappointment with the whole book.

'There was a bone that birthed courage and Kadiatou believed she lacked that bone, or if she had it then it was feeble, soft and chewable like biscuit-bone.'

Thanks to NetGalley and the Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor Publishing Group for an ARC, all opinions in this review are honest and entirely mine.

🌟🌟🌟
[Half a star for the premise and the whole book; Half a star for the characters and their growth; Half a star for the plot and themes; 3/4 star for the world-building and societal description; 3/4 star for the writing - 3 stars in total.]

This one took me a while to read. I constantly found myself re-reading the synopsis to remember what it was about. There were a few times when I got into the story, but then it would lose its appeal again.

The narrative revolves around three African women and their experiences in the diaspora as they seek to find themselves. The women's back stories were interesting until they weren't, and it felt like they went on too long. Then the story goes back to the start of the pandemic, and it feels like it glosses over it until the lockdown ends. It felt both too fast and too slow at the same time. There are lots of cultural critques on everything from race to porn and lots of history thrown in at the same time ( Nigrian-Biafran War to Nazi's in Argentina)

After two months, I just wanted to finish it, so I focused and pushed through to the end. Normally, I would give up on a book that feels tedious, but for some reason, I couldn't abandon this one, which says something in itself.

I have very mixed feelings—it was hard to finish, yet I didn't want to leave it unfinished.to leave it unfinished.

This was my first book by this author, and I was so excited, as I have heard so many great things. Which brings me to say, that I am so sad I didn't love this book. I enjoyed it in some parts but most of the time I felt bored to tears. Chiamaka's first part had me locked in. Zikora I was in and out of but overall enjoyed. Kadiatou's part also had me sucked in because it was just absolutely devastating. However, Omelogor's part is where it almost fully lost me. I found myself wanting to follow ANY of the other girls.

All that being said this is a very important book. It just didn't capture me fully. I am sure that it will capture the right person, and I would definitely recommend it, and have!

The authors note at the end was really great!

Dream Count, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is advertised as a book about women. Strong women who face adversity, are introspective and emotionally grounded, and are supportive of each other. So why is so much of this book about the men in their lives, the men no longer in their lives, and the affects those men had on their lives?

That’s obviously not all this book is about. But I was surprised at how much space men took up- literal page space and space in the characters’ consciousness. It was not what I expected from the marketing and not what I was wanting from this book. I think the author can do better for her female characters in general than to make them male-focused and these ladies in particular deserved better. They were going through enough.

I rate this 3.75 slightly disappointed stars. I recommend it, but adjust your expectations a bit as to what the book is really about. It’s not as women-centric as advertised.

Covid books can be tough. Brings us all back to some weird dark places. Dream Count takes place during this time period, which wasn't that long ago!

Dream Count marks Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s return after a decade—and while her prose still sings, the story sometimes stumbles. The novel follows four Nigerian women—Chiamaka, Zikora, Omelogor, and Kadiatou—as they navigate love, trauma, and the mess men leave behind. (Yes, the title’s a cheeky nod to body count.)

At first, it's juicy: Chiamaka’s dating misadventures feel fresh and relatable. But as the plot thickens—with Zikora’s brutal childbirth, Omelogor’s shady schemes, and Kadi’s gut-wrenching trauma, the emotional resonance thins. Despite its focus on women, the book keeps circling back to the terrible men in their lives. Why must these brilliant, complex women always be reacting to some dude's nonsense?

COVID looms in the background, but the characters' personal drama often overshadows everything else, including each other. A key crisis meant to tie the women together feels oddly cold and disconnected.

Still, Adichie’s talent shines through in razor-sharp observations and quotable moments.