Dream Count tells the intertwined stories of four women—Chiamaka, Zikora, Kaidiotu, and Omelogor—each navigating the complex terrain of love, loss, and longing. Set against the backdrop of societal pressure, especially the weight of being an unmarried African woman in her 40s, this story is a quiet yet powerful exploration of the things we dream of, lose, and sometimes never even get to hold.
Each woman carries her unique grief:
• Zikora mourns the love she once believed would anchor her future.
• Omelogor is forced to confront the unsettling possibility that her entire life may have been a well-performed lie.
• Kadiatou has suffered deeply—her innocence, her sister, her child, and her sense of self all torn away through tragedy and trauma.
• Chiamaka counts the men she has loved and lost—her “dream count”—each one a mark of hope, affection, and heartbreak.
This book is not just about yearning for deep connection — it’s about the fragile ties that bind us. It’s about the silent mourning many women live with daily. The kind of mourning that doesn’t have rituals, but lingers nonetheless. Through the heartbreak, betrayal, and grief, we meet women who carry the weight of womanhood, yet continue to rise.
Adichie masterfully captures the irony of human connection: how someone can go from being your world to a memory… from intimacy to absence. How relationships can be both our deepest source of joy and pain.
Dream Count is also layered with subtle commentary on race, culture, gender, and the spaces in which African women must constantly negotiate between strength and softness, duty and desire.
This isn’t a fast-paced read.
It’s a slow, reflective unraveling—a mirror held up to the lives of many women, real and imagined, who live with quiet strength,
navigating the ache of what was,
and the courage it takes to keep going.