Published via Ecency

Chimamanda Ngozi is a renowned writer in Nigeria. Her books are extraordinary. Dream Count was recently released last two months and I couldn't wait to purchase it.

Here's my review on the book.

I slipped into Dream Count feeling wary, expecting a pandemic novel—but Adichie had other plans. The story begins in lockdown, yes, but it's less about the virus and more about how the silence forces you to look into your own fractures. That opening scene with Chiamaka—this travel writer stranded in her own past—hit me first. She starts counting her exes with a term that stings: “body count.” But she refuses it. Instead, she reclaims it as “dream count,” tallying not sexual conquests, but hopes met, stories missed, love squandered. That flip made me sit up: this book will be tender and angry all at once.

There, Chiamaka starts to scroll through the memories, Darnell, the sulky guy who fades away leaving her with half-finished conversations and botched dinners. She brings this burden--I wanted to be known--and it was a dose of truth that struck. I was under her gaze of desire, that pain that rings in midnight meditations as you doubt who spied you at your worst.

Then comes Zikora’s turn. She is the friend that you look up to: lawyer, successful, but a surprise pregnancy makes the cheers quiet down around her life. The man vanishes. and with that her bravado breaks. She loses her moorings, wounded--and I would have fain held her between the pages. As she struggled with disloyalty, motherhood, and shame--I knew every savage breath as her shell burst. The one when her mother appeared to save her fall? Pure tenderness.

And then Kadiatou. She does not belong to them socially, she is their housekeeper. She comes to Guinea to create a new life with her daughter, but everything falls apart in one of the hotel rooms. That was the storyline, repeated in Nafissatou Diallo, which pierced me. I was enraged and broken seeing her confront the horror, the social disgrace, the omission-- But Adichie endows her with dignity, even in the face of the world endeavoring to take it away. I made her steady my shaking heart.

Omelogor, thou, financial queen becomes an introspective drifter. I was expecting a Stock Winter, but she is not going to be easily pinned down. She blogs, breaks rules, and wonders why she participates in systems that she previously dominated. You could feel her restlessness, uncomfortable, but it was enlightening in its demonstration that success does not necessarily provide peace.

Their stories orbit, overlap, sometimes collide—sometimes only in lingering silences across Zoom screens. And that’s when the book felt alive, not tidy. Adichie doesn’t tie arcs into bows. She lets the pandemic sky crack open their facades and show them, unfiltered

Close to the end, I found myself trembling. These women—dreaming, disappointed, trying again—left me hungering for that same tenderness in my own life. The way Adichie writes about longing—not as weakness, but as truth—made me miss things I hadn’t realized I’d given up. When the "Author’s Note" drops the “writing a wrong” gesture toward Kadiatou's story—that purity of intention made me blink until tears came.

Setting the Scene

Ah, let’s slow all the way down into that mimosa scene with Chiamaka, because it’s one of those deceptively quiet moments that actually tears her open.

So, picture it: Chia (I mean chiamaka but I'll be using Chia) is sitting at brunch, the kind of scene that’s meant to feel light and girlish, filled with laughter and clinking glasses. There’s that warm hum of background chatter, people sipping orange-gold mimosas that promise sweetness, celebration. On the surface, it looks like a gathering of women who “have it together”—well-dressed, polished, like they’re in sync with the world.

It is not jealousy after all. That’s too simple. The false hope of love that she was holding all this time is what tears her up. She believed it could be found in men like Darnell, who smiled at her as though she was a secret, who would text her at late times of the day but vanish in the morning. She believed that she could shape intimacy with fragments. At that table, in the light of all the others at ease, she finds out her dreams had not been fulfilled, but made out to be wrong. She remembers every time she convinced herself that intimacy could be pieced together from scraps. And sitting at that brunch, surrounded by the appearance of stability and happiness, she realizes her entire blueprint for love has been a fragile illusion.

That’s the spoiler — the brunch isn’t about celebration, it’s the exact moment when Chia finally confronts the truth that her dream of love has been mismatched all along. It’s not the grand heartbreak that does her in; it’s the quiet, crushing realization that she’s been counting the wrong dreams.

The Weight of the Mimosa Glass

This is what broke me reading it: the mimosa glass becomes symbolic. She swirls it, presses her fingers against the rim, holds it like it’s proof of something she’s still trying to grasp. But instead of being golden and festive, the drink feels sour, acidic. It mirrors her insides — that bitterness of time wasted, of realizing she’s been settling.

You can even hear her chest contracting, as she is making an effort to laugh at something, and her fingers are going around the edge of her glass as if they were trying to hold on. And then her silence becomes noisy. She recollects every unsuccessful attempt, every time she wished to be known but was only tolerated, every time she held back praying that another person would take a step towards her. And at that moment the mimosa loses its sparkle. It’s sour, it’s acidic, it reminds of time wasted.

And here is the weak spot--it is not merely romance. It is what the number of dreams is that lingered the haunting question of How many times did I take less than I deserved? And how many slumber dreams had I destroyed Of the rest? It is what makes the scene ach. She’s not crying. She’s not causing a scene. But nothing is more noisy than her silence.

I recall reading it and being forced to leave the book aside. Well, who has not been there? Sitting in a room that is meant to be happy, and, then, all of a sudden, you feel like you are looking in through the window?

That moment when the gap between who you hoped you’d be and who you are stares back at you in the shine of a champagne glass? That was Chia’s crack.

And I think what made it gutting wasn’t the grand drama—it was the quiet. The fact that no one else at that table noticed. No one else saw her drifting into herself. She smiled, raised her glass, but inside, something had already shifted.

Vulnerable Take

Here’s where it hit me personally — haven’t we all been there? That moment in a room full of laughter where you suddenly feel like you’re not part of it, like you’re outside looking in? Chia’s breakdown isn’t about envy or jealousy. It’s about that sharp, gutting awareness that who you thought you’d be by now doesn’t match the reflection staring back at you.

And that silence, that’s what stings the most. Because it’s not loud, it’s not dramatic, and it doesn’t get sympathy. But in that stillness, something in her breaks for good.

Aftermath (Spoilers)

The brunch doesn’t end with Chia storming out or confessing her heartbreak. She plays along, keeps her mask intact. But from that moment forward, she starts quietly redefining her “dream count.” Instead of tallying broken relationships or missed chances, she begins to ask herself harder questions: What do I actually want? What do I deserve? How many more dreams am I willing to lose to illusions?

That brunch becomes the pivot — not because anyone else notices, but because Chia finally notices herself.