Dream Count Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a rich tapestry of a literary fiction novel that explores the stories of four women loosely tied together by one common person as they reflect on their loves, losses, trials, and tribulations during the pandemic.
Synopsis
Meet four extraordinary and dynamic women as they explore love, happiness, and identity. Chiamaka a Nigerian travel writer who’s made her home in America is isolated during the pandemic and begins to reflect on what she calls her dream count. The defining relationships of her past and all that could have been.
Zikora, Chiamaka’s best friend, is a successful corporate lawyer who’s eager to settle down and start her family. She believes she’s found the one until an unexpected twist betrayal changes everything altering her plans. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s outspoken cousin has risen in the ranks of Nigerian finance. Yet, she wonders if her life is truly complete.
Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, believes in the American dream and is happy to provide a chance at a better life for her daughter Binta who is her pride and joy. But, when faced with a tragic circumstance she fears all her plans for her and her daughter’s future are in jeopardy.
Content 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
At its core, this story explores the complicated necessity of connection from family, friendships, and relationships we explore how they shape our identity and influence us. You see how Chimimaka, Zikora, Omeleogor, and Kadiatou are different and how each distinct piece of their personalities was fascinating on their own and became dynamic when combined. They all faded in and out of each other’s stories and had an impact whether positive or negative on the other.
We see a plethora of themes and ideas covered in this novel from the key theme of exploring relationships, connection, and identity. There’s also fascinating commentary on various cultural topics. Perhaps my favorite was on the rise of the independent woman and their desire to seek love and companionship on their terms in place of hitting a milestone or acquiescing to societal norms.
Chimimaka and Omeleogor are both unmarried, childfree women and while different circumstances led them to this reality the idea is still the same they weren’t willing to sacrifice happiness just to be a wife and a mother. While there were feelings of frustration or perhaps reflections on what could’ve been. Each woman still found happiness and purpose within their present life and found fulfillment from friendships, and travel.
Writing Style and Readability🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
The prose in this novel was refined and profound full of insightful commentary making for a thought-provoking reading experience. Additionally, using the pandemic to further expand on the themes of relationships and connection set the tone for a reflective and introspective story.
Adichie’s writing style also serves to invite you into the character’s mind as you analyze and perceive their past experiences through their eyes. Creating an almost psychological deep dive into the character.
For those that enjoy complex character-driven stories, you’ll love the dynamics of this story and how the different narratives weave together creating an epic experience.
Plot Development🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This story is exclusively character-driven choosing to focus on the relationships and events that shaped the character’s lives and providing social commentary regarding relevant cultural topics. There were two particular events involving Zikora and Kadiatou that followed a loose plot but Zikora’s storyline wasn’t tied up with any type of conclusion.
Characters🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
As you would expect for a character-driven story the development was extraordinary. The characters were deeply flawed and imperfect but made terrific character studies. Another favorite was how the writing style adjusted for each character’s point of view displaying their unique voice allowing you to truly immerse yourself in that character and understand them more intimately. This created a phenomenal reading experience.
Perhaps my favorite was Kadiatou’s narrative. The choice to feature her narrative in the third person highlighted her vulnerabilities and naivety when it came to understanding concepts outside of her culture. It also served to show how many tend to treat immigrants as others and push particular narratives on them. Additionally, we see her struggle to navigate the culture shock as she lives in other places that are not her hometown especially when she flees to America.
Rating & Recommendation
This novel is everything that I enjoy and look for in Literary Fiction. From the multi-layered storytelling, strong character-driven plot, flawed fascinating characters, epic scope, social commentary, and wonderful exploration of themes surrounding relationships, connection, purpose, and identity.
That being said this may not work for those who prefer a more action-driven plot, dislike multi-pov, and prefer simple, straightforward prose, and storytelling that may come off as convoluted.
