They Dream in Gold

A Novel

By: Mai Sennaar

Narrated by: Julia Kwamya

When Bonnie and Mansour meet in New York in 1968―his piercing gaze in a downtown jazz club threatening to carry her away―their connection is undeniable. Both from fractured homes, with childhoods spent crossing the Atlantic, they quickly find peace with each other. And as Mansour's soaring Senegalese melodies continue to break new ground, keeping time with the sound of revolution and taking him and Bonnie from Paris to Rio and Switzerland, it seems as though happiness might finally be around the corner for them both.

Then Mansour goes missing. His Spanish tour was only meant to last three weeks, but three months later, he and his band have not returned. In his absence, Bonnie reckons with her memories of him, and comes to understand that the hopes of so many women―her mother and grandmother; his mother, aunt, childhood friend―rest on her perseverance. Stirred by the life growing inside her, Bonnie puts a plan in action to find him.

Spanning two decades and moving through the hotbeds of the African diaspora, They Dream in Gold is an epic yet intimate exploration of the migrant hunger for belonging and a powerful, intergenerational testament to our shared humanity, for lovers of Tara Stringfellow's Memphis and Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice.

Hard Read

This book was all over the place and confusing to keep up with. Very difficult read

Book great, Performance meh

I found this book to be incredibly enjoyable. While it may be a slow burn for some readers, I appreciated the depth of the main characters' backstories. I likely would have preferred reading the book rather than listening to it.

Although Julia Kwamya, the narrator, is undoubtedly talented, her performance in this audiobook was mediocre overall. While her narration was strong in the first quarter, it became inconsistent in the latter parts. It felt as if an earlier draft had been uploaded by the editors. This inconsistency detracts significantly from the experience, doing a disservice to both the author and the narrator.

narrator is terrible

This may be well written but it was impossible to tell since the narrator had no understanding of punctuation.

It’s all over the place…

I started this with the actual, physical book. About 1/3 of the way through, I decided to just do the audio book thinking I just wasn’t focused. This book is all over the place!! The story is good, but the book jumps from one character to the next, one POV to another, bouncing back and forth between past and present dates… I’m so lost. I’ve been on 3 different continents in the story and I don’t know how any of it happened. To make matters worse, the narrator was awful. I was so glad when it was over, and I can’t even tell you how it ended.