Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is a long time coming, this book--it has been over a decade since the last book, and this is a book about dreams not turning out as planned. The interconnected stories of three Nigerian women, Chiamaka, Zikora and Omelogor , who are leaving their youth behind and for various reasons are reflecting on how their lives have not turned out the way they thought they would with respect to men, marriage, and motherhood, and while that is true, it is not the disaster that their families and their culture would assess that to be. Then there is Kadiatou, Chimaka's Guinian housekeeper, who shares their disappointments but is more harmed by them and more vulnerable socio-economically. This part of the story is a bit harder to fit into the puzzle but is based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged rape of a Guinean hotel worker in 2011. In the aftermath, Kadiatou only panics all the more at the newfound vulnerability in her manager’s eyes, faced with news of the assault, and the resultant dissection of her life in the press. There is no glamourization of America here--far from it--and the real issues that immigrant women of color face is lyrically if not optimistically portrayed.