The story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
Rich, complicated ... Language that feels entirely natural and yet instinctively poetic ... Adichie makes no effort to snap these four stories together neatly ... All benefit equally from Adichie’s ability to plumb their particular desires, their hopes and anxieties. You can hear that in the way she hones her style to reflect each woman’s education and experience.
This expansive novel of friendship is tinged from the start by an air of melancholy ... Engrossing ... The lives depicted in Dream Count are linked without being integrated, like tapestries on the four walls of a room ... A humbler work. There is pathos in its inability to cohere. The four women are sympathetic allies, but they tend to be better at diagnosing each others’ problems than facing their own. That’s a very recognizable flaw, and Ms. Adichie treats it as humanely as the rest of this tender and wistful novel.
There’s power and promise throughout Dream Count. Adichie reminds readers that she’s a massively talented prose stylist and storyteller ... Though the sentences have momentum, their stories only run in place. Perhaps the novel’s weaknesses stem from its referential quality ... Does not fully release its Nigerian characters from gender’s strictures. Adichie glances toward an alternative, never fully embracing it. Maybe that’s another novel.
