Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a huge name in the literati. She has won a lot of awards, most global of which are: the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, PEN Pinter Prize (2018), Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Best First Book) for Purple Hibiscus (2005), MacArthur Fellowship's Genius Grant.
If you don't know her she's definitely worth checking out.
She is a Nigerian novelist with a host of great books, and a leading feminist philosopher.
Her latest book Dream Count (2025) is my latest read, and it was thoroughly impressive as expected.
Review
Addictive Prose
Adichie is well known for her prose, and I think that's about the greatest thing about her. The ability to write beautiful prose that can make even talking about the most mundane things a great pleasure to read.
As soon as you pick up Dream Count that is what hits you. Great addictive prose. You'll find it hard to keep the book down. I think this should be the most defining quality of a writer, the ability to just be a pleasure to listen to.
Great Plot
When you mix that with a great plot then it cannot but be a masterpiece. And that is definitely what this book was. The story was about four women and their love lives, supporting their love lives was also their backgrounds, upbringing and their navigation of life.
The sort of things these women went through in their love lives and their lives in general were so remarkable! Reading them gives you a lot of insight into the female psyche and situation. It makes you happy that a great female writer decided to take you on this journey and show you this world.
For male readers it goes without saying how great that is. For female readers I'm sure it teaches them a lot of things they didn't know and a lot more about the things they already knew. And watching all the circumstances unfold including a great showing of what the characters were thinking and their thought process, it is just a phenomenal tour.
The Characters
The characters were very remarkable too. The main characters gave you different doorways into the female world. Chiamaka showed you a female from a rich family who didn't have to work to make money, who was just rich and beautiful right off the bat and could travel the world with reckless abandon.
Zikora showed you the world of an intelligent, more conservative woman of moderate wealth.
Omelogor showed you a woman who was from a modest background who had to work to get to the top. Who was a free spirited woman who didn't care much for commitment just the fun and pleasure of sex and satisfying her passions.
While Kadiatou showed you a woman from abject poverty who grew up in an African village, timid, conservative, and had to navigate life with those cards.
The writer clearly started out thinking "I need four women who are different in major ways to bring about so many different circumstances and versions of the female world. " And that's how she created these four.
Time Setting
The setting was quite a historical ride. All the way from the end of the Covid 19 lockdown to the 80s. Some of the events that happened while the characters were growing up let you know what year it was as the writer never mentioned years.
The killings in Guinea, Nigeria, the killing of Amadou Diallo, etc. events like these let you know what year it was. It was quite difficult to keep up but it was also clearly the writer's chosen means of adding a little challenge for the reader.
It can be criticized as having a good effect but also a bad effect as the reader is left guessing a lot of times and not feeling properly guided. A challenge is good but the feeling of not being sufficiently guided through a story comes off as poor storytelling whichever way you want to look at it.
There's a thin line. No challenge can feel poor, too much can too.
Location Setting
The story was set in so many places. Lagos, Abuja, America, England, Guinea. And a lot of other locations that played minor roles.
This is a trick Adichie plays so well. She has got to be so well travelled or so well researched. She talks about places and shows her characters experiencing those places as if she knew too much and too many insights about those places. It is always pleasure to read.
Showing Guinea and Guineans was the most impressive. Beginning around the 80s up until the early 2000s, there were great descriptions of the places and great portrayals of what was going through the heads of the Guineans as the historical events affecting them happened.
As Adichie is a Nigerian who grew up in Nigeria not a Guinean it was beautiful watching her show all of these with that much detail and intelligence.
Negatives/Less Impressives
Less Talk About Islam
Apart from my disapproval of how time was portrayed in this book that I talked about under the "Time Setting" subheading above I haven't registered any other disapproval. But I have a couple.
Adichie took it upon herself, as she does in a number of her books, to talk about lives that are different from the ones she has lived and to give great insight into them as she talks about them.
For example the character Kadiatou is a Guinean and through her the life of a Guinean was explored and great insights given when Adichie herself is a Nigerian who grew up in Nigeria. It is mind-blowing how she does it so well.
But her not talking about Islam much in this book felt like a fail. Kadiatou was a Muslim but that didn't come up much when her life and the life of her people were so thoroughly explored. Definitely a fail as it made the exploration incomplete.
Kadiatou's Experience Based on a True Story
After reading the book I read the "Author's Note". It was about what the author had to say about the novel. It was lovely reading about some of the things that went through the mind of Adichie while she began and wrote her book, but it led me to something that reduced how impressed I was with the story of the character Kadiatou's.
And that was the fact that the rape accusation, publicity of it, and the dropping of the case because the accuser had lied about something else was something that happened to a different real life character Nafissatou Diallo.
I had never heard of Nafiasatou until I read that Author's Note. Before reading it I was so impressed by the Kadiatou story and all the twists in it and how it ended, but finding out how much of it was from a real life story reduced how impressed I was with the story.
Because I was in awe, like such Brilliant twists and plot Adichie came up with here only to find out how much of it was real life. The way it ended was Adichie's invention and that was a great final twist but...
Basing a fictional story on a real life story does not make one a less inventive writer, but after real life takes it's glory for it's twists what is left for the writer's glory? Still glorious if the writer did a good job but definitely less for the parts real life has gone with.
So that was how my awe was reduced. Only as regards Kadiatou's story. And only as regards the part of me that was impressed by those particular real life twists. Still a great book, though.
The End
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@nevies, I run a Humor, deeper thoughts, and sex talk blog here on Hive馃寶