A Review of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dream Count

Dream Count is a reflective book that chronicles a middle-aged woman’s introspection during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Through the narrator, Chia, we’re invited into the personal worlds of her two close friends, Omelogor and Zikora, and a domestic worker from Guinea named Nafissatou.

Chimamanda unwraps the characters’ lives like a delicate onion, briefly introducing them to us in the beginning and diving in depth into their lives throughout the book. Each woman’s life is unpacked layer by layer, giving readers a clearer picture of what shapes their thoughts and decisions.

Chiamaka, Omelogor, and Zikora are all unmarried, but each has a different relationship with that status. Omelogor is a firm feminist who doesn’t want to be tied down by marriage, Chiamaka is gentle and often makes excuses for the poor behavior of the men in her life. and Zikora is more passive and unsure.

Chia is very soft and easily makes excuses for men. This is something you’ll find upholders of the patriarchy promote and even swear that is a trusted way to keep a man. They call it protecting a man’s ego and not trying to overshadow him. Chia does everything to please Darnell but he can’t even hide his disdain for her. Despite her patience and traditional demeanor, she is unlucky in love. She doesn’t know how to strike a balance, which is why she goes on to date people like Darnel who openly hates her existence and just loves the comfort her affluent life brings, and almost marries Chuka who couldn’t pick up after himself and give a pleasant impression on her visits to his house. Chia is not sad about being unmarried or childless. She is content in herself and her life, which is why she never feels the pressure of having a child despite her aunt’s pressure on her to adopt one. She has the privilege of financial stability, which gives her room to chase her passions in travel writing, but the story doesn’t dwell on that. Instead, it focuses on how she finds peace in living life her own way while chasing her passions.

Omelogor is never bothered about being unmarried. She doesn’t wish to commit to one person. While she’s confident in her choices, she still feels something is missing and eventually leaves her banking job to study pornography in America, hoping to find meaning. But that decision doesn’t bring the fulfillment she expects. Through Omelogor, the novel highlights how deeply corruption runs in Nigeria’s banking and government systems. She becomes wealthy by helping powerful people launder public funds, but later tries to make amends by secretly giving grants to small traders in rural areas, thereby fostering women empowerment. Even that doesn’t give her lasting satisfaction. She’s outspoken, quick to act, and unafraid to challenge authority. Only Omelogor is inquisitive about where people learnt about sex. Only Omelogor will stand up to an immigration officer who’s being condescending towards her during a visa interview, damning the consequences. Only Omelogor quits seeing a man because he didn’t touch her respectfully. Omelogor is such a revolutionary about everything and her ideas seem weird sometimes, especially to Zikora. She calls a spade a spade, unlike Zikora who closes her eyes to the truth if it feels uncomfortable for her. For example, she doesn’t pay attention to stories about religious leaders being involved in immoral activities especially when it concerns children.

Zikora, while successful in her career, still feels the absence of a romantic partner. She doesn’t have strong opinions regarding anything. Her life goal is to get married and bear children. She begins to feel scared when she crosses 30 and considers freezing her eggs. Her desperation to not end up childless makes her get pregnant for Kwame who absconds immediately she announces her pregnancy. She goes through life hoping that the man she’s dating proposes marriage. It’s easy to imagine her saying yes to someone like Chuka, ignoring the red flags. She is a present friend for Chia and is scared of Omelogor’s antagonism. At the end of this book, we perceive a feeling of self sufficiency from Zikora. Her child is now 5 years old and she appears to have found her own sense of completeness.

Then there’s Nafissatou from Guinea who is unable to keep her foot to the ground. She is a victim of circumstance.  From childhood, she learnt to not think for herself, dream, ask for too much, question why things are the way they are. She is taught to be obedient and not question the status quo- and this is why she accepts to marry the man who works at a mine. She doesn’t wish to marry a man who works at a mine because her father died on the same mine, but she goes on to marry one r whose living condition is a health hazard for herself and any child they birth. Her fears come to pass when her child and her husband die in close succession. She is secretly pregnant, so she leaves her late husband’s house and returns to her mother’s house. She doesn’t fight the several times she is raped - by her boss and by the powerful client for the hotel where she worked. Nafissatou exists in the background, preferring not to stir trouble. What matters most to her is giving her child a better future. Several times, Omelogor asks her what she dreams of becoming and she realizes she has never dreamt. When a rape case against a powerful man is dismissed, she’s actually relieved—she doesn't want the stress of being interrogated about something so painful. She doesn’t care that the case is dropped because they think she lied in her application for asylum. She chooses peace over fighting for justice.

At its heart, Dream Count is also about friendship and the need for community, especially during isolation. Chia’s mental and emotional state unravels during the lockdown, and even virtual connection doesn’t always help. But it’s through her longing for her friends and the shared grief over lost loved ones that the book reaffirms the quiet strength of human connection.

The novel reminds us that total happiness may be a myth, but contentment is within reach, when we define life on our own terms. Whether it’s Omelogor’s fierce independence, Chia’s quiet dignity, Zikora’s maternal resilience, or Nafissatou’s sacrificial love, each woman’s story challenges us to ask: What does fulfillment really mean?

Dream Count is a portal into the lives of the upper class and the lower class in the society. It stresses the importance of living on your own terms and not standards set by society. It’s okay to dream and make it happen. It’s also okay to want a simple life like Nafi. Living in affluence doesn’t guarantee a happy life. Or maybe, a totally happy life is a farce. However, a life of contentment is possible and the only way to achieve it is to be your true self; to go to bed everyday feeling a sense of fulfillment.

Dream Count is not a loud book. It doesn’t shout its messages. It hums with quiet truths. It asks the reader to listen closely—to the silences between words, the ache beneath polite smiles, and the dreams that never quite had names. It’s a tender meditation on choice, survival, and what it means to live for yourself in a world that constantly tells you who to be.