It’s been a slow start to #20BooksofSummer2025 for me, but I’ll hope to do some catching up during our Scotland holiday and then once we’re home in July. So far, I’m sticking to the list I chose last month. These first few were slightly disappointing, to be honest, but I have no doubt I’ll find some gems among my original selections.
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2025)
This was one of my Most Anticipated books of the year and had a lot to live up to as Adichie’s first novel since the amazing Americanah. When I first attempted to read it, I was dismayed by how much it felt like a rehashing of Americanah, with Chia (a travel writer in Maryland) and her cousin Omelogor (a feminist blogger) together reminiscent of Ifemelu. It did get more readable and somewhat more interesting as it went on. But instead of finding the narration and structure natural, I ended up full of questions about what Adichie intended.
Why four main characters? Why is it the one non-Nigerian who’s poor, victimized, and less proficient in English? (That Kadiatou is based on a real person doesn’t explain enough. Her plight does at least provide what plot there is.) Why are the other three, to varying extents, rich and pretentious? Why are two narratives in the first person and two in the third person? Why in such long chunks instead of switching the POV more often? Why so many men, all of them more or less useless? (All these heterosexual relationships – so boring!) Why bring Covid into it apart from for verisimilitude? But why is the point in time important? What point is she trying to convey about pornography, the subject of Omelogor’s research?
It’s Adichie, so of course she writes solid prose with engaging characters, convincing dialogue, and provocative ideas. There’s a focus here on women’s experiences of attempted or actual motherhood (e.g., PMDD, fibroids, single parenthood or pressure to adopt), and, as per usual, a bit about race (specifically colorism, ethnic prejudice, and code-switching). But the characters’ connections seem weak, their coverage of the range of women’s experiences narrow. The title is, I suppose, the best clue to what Adichie wanted to do with the novel. Everyone dreams of finding, or preserving, love and family. Chia yearns for someone who will truly know her, and because she’s convinced this will be a romantic bond she devotes lockdown to a mental inventory of past relationships. Kadiatou dreams of peace more than of justice, and only in that she gets what she wants is there a happy ending of sorts. I wish I could be more positive, but this was a slog for me. (New purchase – Hungerford Bookshop) 
The Hotel by Daisy Johnson (2024)
I’d really enjoyed Johnson’s two novels, Everything Under and Sisters, and have a copy of her previous short story collection, Fen, on the shelf. This completely passed my notice last year. I liked the idea of eerie linked short stories, but I wish I’d known this was originally written for radio as I think it accounts for how simplistic and insubstantial the 15 tales are.
The Hotel is a fenland folly, built on the site of a pond where a suspected witch was drowned. Ever after, it is a cursed place. Those who build the hotel and stay in it are subject to violence, fear, and eruptions of the unexplained – especially if they go in Room 63. Anyone who visits once seems doomed to return. Most of the stories are in the first person, which makes sense for dramatic monologues. The speakers are guests, employees, and monsters. Some are BIPOC or queer, as if to tick off demographic boxes. Just before the Hotel burns down in 2019, it becomes the subject of an amateur student film like The Blair Witch Project.
Scary books don’t tend to work for me because I am often too aware of how they are constructed and so fail to give myself over to the reading experience and take them seriously. I can’t summon much enthusiasm for these stories, though I suppose the setting is rather atmospheric. My favourite was “Infestation,” about two girls – the one (not randomly) named Shirley – who think they discover something down in the laundry room in 1968. Only one of them makes it out alive. Okay, this one was creepy, but the rest left me unmoved. (Gift – purchased with Hungerford Bookshop with Christmas token) 
Girl by Ruth Padel (2024)
Padel is one of my favourite poets and a repeat appearance on my summer reading list; I reviewed her Emerald in 2021. I’ve read 12 of her books now. This collection is about girlhood, by way of personal history and myth.
The first section, “When the Angel Comes for You,” is about the Virgin Mary, its 15 poems corresponding to the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary (as Padel explains in a note at the end; had she not, that would have gone over my head). The opening poem about the Annunciation is the most memorable its contemporary imagery emphasizing Mary’s youth and naivete: “a flood of real fear / and your heart / in the cowl-neck T-shirt from Primark / suddenly convulsed. But your old life // now seems dry as a stubbed / cigarette.” The third section, “Lady of the Labyrinth,” is about Ariadne, inspired by the snake goddess figurines in a museum on Crete. The message here is the same: “there is always the question of power / and girl is a trajectory / of learning how to deal with it”.
But the only poems that truly stood out to me are in the central autobiographical section arising from Padel’s own girlhood as well as her observations of her daughter and grandchild (setting up a Maiden–Mother–Crone triad). “Girl in a Forest” and “Tomboy and Panther” draw on the lure of the jungle to depict a wild child who chooses trousers over skirts. I loved “Fair Verona” for its traveler’s nostalgia but also for the hint of menace: so many tourists fondled the breast on a statue of Juliet that it had to be replaced. “How much touching // does it take for a bronze breast to crack?” the poet asks.
There’s some good alliteration throughout, and I warmed to the vision of girlhood as a time of promise and possibility: “the wonder / the where shall I go what new thing / will this day bring of being a girl.” Overall, though, I didn’t think the book had a lot of substance to convey about its theme. (Gift – purchased with Hungerford Bookshop with Christmas token) 
Off to Scotland today. I’ve packed Ice Cream by Helen Dunmore and Pet Sematary by Stephen King from my 20 Books list, plus other books I may substitute in. I’m scheduling a few posts for while we’re away; forgive me if I don’t reply to comments until July.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Your questions about Dream Count seem on-the-mark to me: whenever I start wondering about why an author has made the choices that they’ve made, it’s usually a sign that they aren’t working. Shame about The Hotel. Susanna Clarke’s very disappointing The Wood at Midwinter was also originally a radio piece and I wonder if either there’s something about the transfer of medium that causes this feeling of slightness, or whether it’s Radio 4-commission-specific (i.e. their radio editor is asking for certain things in terms of length or complexity that translate badly to the page). Actually quite like the sound of the Padel, although she hasn’t historically been a poet for me, but the contemporaneization (made-up word?!) of Mary works so well in that passage you quote, plus I’ve seen the snake goddess figurines in the Crete museum!
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I featured a few radio-to-book projects some years back, two of which were for R4, and all of them worked better for me, so I’m not sure if I can draw any conclusions. https://bookishbeck.com/2018/12/06/three-books-that-originated-on-the-radio/
I can see why you’d be drawn to those themes in the Padel. For years she was my favourite contemporary British poet and Mark Doty my fave American.
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What a pity. All these authors are ones whose books I would pick up without the benefit of having read a review first. Even the best authors can disappoint sometimes.
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Yes, I too would normally read anything by these authors. I suppose it’s inevitable for them to have a few weaker entries in the oeuvre.
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Interesting to read your thoughts on Dream Count. I had planned to read it as part of Women’s Prize reading but ran out of time. Sent it back to the library and figured I’d get to it at some stage. In the interim, a friend read it and raved – she gave it five stars! (I’m back on the library waiting list, so will see).
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Perhaps it depends on your frame of reference (how much Adichie you’ve read and what kinds of stories you love). In any case, I’m surprised it didn’t make it further in the WP race.
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Wishing you better luck for the rest of your summer reads
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Another four down so far; I just need to write about them! And several of them I did like better than this set.
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I wish Daisy Johnson would write another novel. I liked her others very much.
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I agree. I still have her other collection Fen to read.
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I had a hard time getting into the Adichie novel too but, then, after I got well into the second narrator’s pov, I felt more engaged, and then read it fairly quickly after that. Particularly after the “housekeeper” character comes into the story (being vague to avoid spoilers). My take on the different POVs (1st/3rd etc.) was that it would have been too much (and potentially invasive in the case of the one plot line that was inspired by an event IRL) for readers to have all four 1st and that having all four 3rd would have felt too distanced, when dreams are rather an intimate topic. And that the pornography research was another way to consider objectification and another headline issue of importance about power dynamics (to compare/contrast with that other headline). Structurally, it’s like a bullseye, isn’t it? That intrigued me, too. I wish I’d taken more notes, cuz you’ve asked lots of interesting questions, but that’s what comes of my reading too quickly (duedates.y’know /eyeroll).
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With a library deadline I certainly would have read this faster, and maybe it would have felt more focused. You make strong arguments in reply to my questions! But I’d still call this one of her weaker books.
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How disappointing to be so looking forward to books to find them all wanting! I hope that you have a fantastic time in Scotland, I heard it is a heat wave in England, but when I saw the weather report, the north still looked really nice, sunny but pleasant!
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Oh well; you can’t win them all!
The Scottish islands were certainly a lot cooler than the south of England. We’re now going back into another mini heatwave later this week. It’s at least easier to cope with than a longer spell of heat and drought.
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Ah, I liked The Hotel more than you did, but then I DNF Everything Under but enjoyed Fen, so it felt like a bit of a return to form for me. I agree with much of what you say about the Adichie, but Omelogor’s section has stayed with me.
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Omelogor is the character I identified with the most (along with Chia — in some ways they felt so similar). I copied out a quote about her wanting to keep possibilities open for herself.
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I was a little disappointed by The Hotel too. I thought a lot of it was quite forgettable.
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I later saw it in a charity shop for £1 and wished I’d gotten it for that rather than full price (with my gift voucher)!
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Too bad about Daisy Johnson. Although she’s a mixed bag for me (I liked Down Under but didn’t much care for Fen), she’s a very interesting writer. If I have time/energy I may still check out Hotel, as I like horror fiction. As for Adichie, well — I have a copy of Dream Count, but haven’t quite been able to make myself start . . . .
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On my first attempt I only got about 30 pages in. It was ‘assigning’ it to myself for 20 Books that helped me finally get back to it.
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I was disappointed by Dream Count, too, esp as I bought it full price in hardback on the day after it was published AND read it immediately!
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Oh well. Adichie didn’t particularly need our support but independent bookshops do.
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I was so looking forward to reading Dream Count as part of BooksofSummer. Sounds like she has packed too much in for one novel?
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I wouldn’t say that; for me it was more that she repeated too much from Americanah and didn’t have enough to say about her familiar themes. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it more than I did. I do hope so!
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