Review: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, however I opted to listen to the audiobook when it cam available from my local library.  As always all of my opinions are my own.

The audiobook is narrated by the author, as well as 3 other ladies for each of the characters.  I love when audiobooks have a different narrator for different points of view so I know who is speaking.  This was especially useful in a book like this when the chapters focus on a specific character.

This follows 4 women centering around the time of the pandemic and follows them in the past and afterward.   We really get to know each character and how they are all interconnected.  Chia is a travel writer struggling to live up to the expectations of her parents and community.  Zikora is, Chia's best friend and a successful lawyer who's life is turned upside down when her beloved ghosts her and breaks her heart.  Omelegor is Chia's cousin and a successful banker, who decides she wants to get her master's degree in the US in a completely different field.  the we have Kadiatou once an employee for Chia's family and now a friend, who's story is heartbreaking.  She is raising her daughter in the US, doing all of the right things, not making waves, working hard when something terrible happens to upend her entire life.  We learn about each of these women, their struggles with love, relationships, their families, their careers, where they came from and more.  

This was a tough read.  It has quite a few triggers, so make sure you check trigger warnings before picking this up.  I felt like this was focused more on the terrible men in their lives and the bad choices these ladies made than the their lives.  I was disappointed that this was more about poor choices in partners and staying in bad relationships than it was about 4 strong independent women overcoming their poor choices and being awesome in a world that doesn't always love and respect women.  They were each strong, intelligent women with strong opinions of their own, but were often overshadowed and overpowered by the men in their lives.  I believe that is a way to get to the underlying social issues in the book, but the women didn't feel like main characters in their own stories in my opinion.

As with many reviewers I really loved the author's note at the end, it was heartfelt and gave insight into the characters an why she chose certain aspects of the story to tell.  That helped me understand a bit more about the way she choose to tell the story.

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