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Dream Count
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Oprah Daily, Readers Digest, The Seattle Times, LitHub, The Chicago Review of Books, BET, and Radio Times
A publishing event ten years in the making—a searing, exquisite new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—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.
In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
These discussion questions were provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House - Knopf Doubleday Group
Book club questions for Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
Dream Count could be described as a “Covid novel”, a new genre of novel that takes place during or deals with issues that arose during the Covid pandemic. Why do you think people enjoy writing, or reading, about the pandemic? What issues or themes came up during the pandemic that are important themes to include in literature?
Chiamaka spends a large portion of the first part recounting her relationship with Darnell, a professor who clearly judged her lifestyle. She recounts instances in which it was clear that his friends, fellow professors, didn’t like her. Do you think this part illustrates a divide between Africans and African Americans? Or does the divide between Chiamaka and these intellectuals have more to do with class and social ranking?
Zikora and Omelogor have a very strained relationship. Of all the women, they seem to be the only two that cannot relate, but they are not the most different. Why do you think they struggle so much to relate or even like one another?
This is ultimately a book about grief and learning to live with grief. How does grief manifest in each woman’s life and how does each woman learn to live with their grief?
This book showcases multiple complicated and layered relationships between mothers and daughters. From Chiamaka’s relationship with her mother, to Zikora’s journey in learning to rely on her mother as she becomes a mother herself, to Kadi’s relationship with her daughter, Adichie highlights many different experiences of motherhood and daughterhood. Why do you think relationships between mothers and daughters are often so complicated and fraught?
Dream Count Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the Dream Count discussion questions