The dream hotel is a sobering a look at how much of ourselves we willingly give away for convenience, and a reminder that in this capitalist society, true freedom means embracing discomfort.

The Dream Hotel follows Sara who is detained for 21 days because, based on a dream and an algorithm, she has been deemed a risk to husband. She is put in a facility with other women who have had "dangerous dreams", and before she knows it those 21 days stretch indefinitely, as every infraction (intentional or not) adds weeks to her "retention", until she feels like she will never be free. In the meantime, she must work for the center in order to keep her risk score low in the hopes of one day, maybe, getting out.

This novel explores the ways we buy into the myth of neutrality when it comes to technology. However, tech is built by human beings, and our biases go into the building of it, and the enforcement of its results is also done by human beings. So, now we are in a world in which a frustrated and exhausted woman's dreams are categorized and dangerous, the punishment of this danger is upheld and enforced by men, and she is put in an institution whose rules are so rigid, by design, that it is impossible to escape.

On Retention and other institutions like it: I love that the prison is called a retention center instead of what it is, a prison. There are so many institutions that function like this in the United States, and I'msure around the world. Also, the depiction of beauracracy in this novel is PAINFULLY accurate. So much of the automated correspondence filled me with deep deep rage.

On our bodies as capital/capitalism is driven on slave labor. The obvious commentary about prisons as for-profit institutions is amazing. If locking people up makes  money, what stops the powers that be from inventing new crimes, and for locking people up as crime prevention? When your body and your mind become a form of capital, what incentives do they have to free you? How do you protect your assets and yourself when the idea of protection is used as a form of control?

I really enjoyed the ways certain characters used written correspondence as a way to assert their point of view and get their words onto official records.

Perspective shift: There is a sudden perspective shift halfway through the book that didn't feel entirely necessarily warranted. The information communicated in that portion of the story could've communicated in other ways, especially since we don't really return to that POV. I do like that this opens the possibility of exploring this world through another lens.

Also, the latter half of the book felt incredibly rushed. A lot happens in the second half, and it felt a little jumbled together. I wish the finesse shown in the first half of the book was demonstrated in the second half.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. A huge thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the Advance Reader Copy!

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is one of those stories that will stick with me for a very long time. Set in the near future where each citizen is assigned a risk score (how likely they are to commit a crime) based on many different factors that including dreams. Those with high scores are sent to retention centers where they have the “opportunity” to lower their scores and return to society in as little as three weeks. Our main character, Sara, is detained largely due to a dream where she was perceived to have harmed her husband. In an infuriating series of events, her retention gets extended again and again. Lots of thought provoking commentary on the privatization of prison systems, the dangers of AI and how our information can be used against us. It was a compelling and enraging read. Highly recommend!

Thank you @netgalley and @pantheonbooks for an eARC.

What a ride. This storyline felt eerily real while reading. Lalami does a great job of highlighting how easily surveillance becomes the norm & the dangers of pretending that data can speak for itself. Many more themes stick out, but I’m trying to write this with no spoilers lol.

For me, it was a slow start. I appreciate the world building and context, but I wish some of the space was used to explore other aspects of the plot further. I have so many questions. Despite that, I appreciate the writing and pacing - I looked forward to reading The Dream Hotel.

Thank you to Pantheon Books for the ARC. All views are my own.

The Dream Hotel is a psychological speculative fiction novel with authoritarian control at its core. The novel is perhaps even scarier because it’s not difficult to imagine the plot unfolding in modern society.

The protagonist, Sara, is a new, working mother to twins. Wanting to sleep less and function better, she receives an implant device designed to do just that. The bad news? The AI software in her determines she is at risk of murdering her husband — based solely on her dreams — and she is detained. 21 days turns into nearly a year as she navigates incarceration, tries to show she isn’t a threat, and is subjected to the whims of algorithms.

Themes of lack of control, loss of autonomy, failure of due process, deprivation of rights at the hands of government and big tech abound. Lalami’s writing was sublime, and this book will stay with me for a long while. I highly recommend.

This reminded me so much of The School for Good Mothers. It was very thought provoking, but felt pretty slow at times. This one would make for great book club discussion, but I was bored for parts of it. If you enjoy futuristic/slightly sci-fi novels about a world very similar to the one we live in now, you might enjoy this.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami was a fantastic read that I recommend everyone to add to their TBR. This was my first read by this author; now I can't wait to get my hands on all the books this author has written.

Imagine a world in the not-too-distant future where everyone is under surveillance and not even your dreams are private. This was my first book by author Laila Lalami and was absolutely blown away by this dystopian tale. Not only is this novel scary timely, but it is also well-written and utterly absorbing. I devoured this in two days and will continue thinking about it for many more.

"In any case crime is relative, its boundaries shifting in service of the people in power.
The dream house is a novel about Sara, an archivist, mother, wife and a daughter to two Moroccan parents, whom have raised her to abide by the law, not to draw attention to herself and she would not have any problems with the justice system. However, it proved to be fruitless as one day she was detained for being a "questionable" profile at the airport because the sources the AI used said so.
Laila Lalami managed to blend the haunting past and the fear of the unknown future, where human being are reducted as mere data to collect, a statistic that they aquire through invasive means from their childhood to social media accounts and the most scary one, their dreams. All to determine who's likely to be a criminal, without having committed an actual crime.
I believe this novel discusses a lot of important topics that are relevant to our contemporary society where poc are always seen as suspicious and questionable and the ethics of AI, it also highlights how important it is to challenge to system and build a communit especially when it sounds so terrifying.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Knopf for the ARC in exchange of an honest review!!

these days it's like, oh, a near future in which people are thrown in prison based on being determined close to committing a crime by a deeply flawed and capitalist algorithm created by a creep with political ambitions? who could imagine. 
in spite of feeling about a week and a half away from our current reality, this is an intense, oppressive book. i felt so surveilled and so restricted, just by virtue of the depth of both on-page. it's timely and terrifying.

This one is a science fiction for the literary fiction lover. It was slower than I thought it would be and a quiet novel in a good way. I enjoyed how it was character driven with the science fiction in the background. Would have liked the secondary characters to have been a bit more distinct and fleshed out, but overall enjoyed my time! 3.75 rating rounded up to 4.

To say I enjoyed this book isn’t quite true, but I dare to say this book isn’t meant to be “enjoyed.” I expected something much more fictional - dream surveillance? - but what I got was something that felt much more realistic and of the present time than I expected. This book is important - especially now. I’m left reflective about technology, surveillance, trust, resistance, and human potential - for good and for evil.

The social commentary goes hard in this one.

Following Sara’s journey was at times infuriating, heartbreaking, and relatable. I thought the social commentary was well and elegantly done. I do wish there had been some further resolution to the story, even though I’m sure that was to make a point about the nature of Sara’s confinement.

I appreciated the commentary on emergent problems with surveillance technology, the true nature of retention centers, the use of captive subjects as nonconsensual experiment participants, and the illusion that science/innovation is value-free and always leads to social good. And, of course, the slow, creeping demonstration of the insidious nature of for-profit imprisonment. And! Even more presciently! The socially constructed nature of crime and how this can be molded and enforced to suit the whims of those in power.

Overall, this was an excellent incorporation and demonstration of these systemic failures/violence into a singular narrative.

4.5/5*

Intense and kind of terrifying; The Dream Hotel is a world I hope to never live in. From the get go the situations in this book were frustrating and unthinkable. The way technology was infiltrating peoples lives with zero regard for privacy was truly frightening. Things in the book keep getting worse and worse. I was always hoping our hope for a better future but it was hard to even imagine whether there could be anything “better” on the other side. This book is thought provoking and could definitely spark some interesting conversations. I hoped for more resolution at the end, it was quite an abrupt finish. However I understand that there is very little positive resolution to be had in that world. A world I hope to never be part of.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.

Laila Lalami has written a powerful character-driven novel in Dream Hotel, a novel that I found hard to put down. Incarcerated for an indefinite period - until some imaginary score descends to an "acceptable level, Sara Hussein and her fellow "retainees" are monitored by cameras, by close observation, and - most damningly - by devices they had purchased prior to their retention that helped overcome their insomnia while monitoring, and perhaps altering, their dreams. Sara's insomnia was brought on by her recent birth of twins and she was "retained" while returning to California after attending a conference for her employer, the Getty. Lalami artfully weaves Sara's stories with others and with the meaning and importance of one's dreams. Set in the near future but evocative of today's changing enviornment and culture, Dream Hotel hits too close to home. Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

Oh, my...I can't get over the disturbing realistic quality of this book...

This is a dystopian thriller that could very well be something our future could turn to. It felt so eerily realistic and left me beyond frustrated and feeling helpless as I read the nightmare situations our characters were subjected to.

After a Mass shooting that took place at a Super Bowl there was a program established to curtail potential threats. Through an algorithm it determines through various factors (including dreams) that a person may be a threat...

Sara (mother to infant twins) is red flagged at the airport when her numbers are slightly over what is acceptable. She is deemed an imminent threat to her husband and sent to a retention center for observation for 21 days. As we are reminded, this is not a prison, and yet, the lack of freedom and rights is gut wrenching. Then extensions are added on continuously for random reasons with no action to remedy the situation. Reminder, the person has never been convicted of a crime! There is no trial to prove innocence because no crime has been committed!!

While I appreciated the end, I wish we had a grand show down, and a way to get justice and to shut down the insanity! A book two would be great!! Hint, hint...

A modern day 1984. I think this is very timely and very frustrating. Such an interesting concept and amazing character development. I loved this book!

The plot of this book is powerful and scarily prescient, filled with bone-chilling references to events that are so horrifying yet entirely probable (a televised mass shooting at the biggest live televised event of the year, for instance) that it's actually breath-stealing. "Enjoyed" might not be the right word for this book, but it's well-written, with a very urgent POV, and I totally understand why it made the Women's Prize Longlist for 2025. That said, this is very much a slow read, focused mostly on the characters and the exploration of what society could look like in the near future thanks to our technological overlords. I did find that I was craving for a bit more propulsion to the plot once I got past the 50% mark; things pick up a bit toward the end but there is a chunk in the middle that does drag a bit. There is also a small section that shifts perspectives, and while I liked where that was going, I didn't feel like the author ever really fleshed that out. Overall, I will be thinking about this one for a while and I got a lot out of it.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage catalog and Laila Larami for the copy of The Dream Hotel. As soon as I started this book I was hooked. I could feel the rage Sara felt throughout the book at the injustices she faced. In a world where risk scores can determine if you are placed in detention centers to be watched, even dreams can be used against you to show you are a risk to others. Sara is out in a detention center after her risk score is determined to be too high; she is stopped by TSA when entering the country after a work trip. Extension after extension as a result of minor, and often made-up infractions from guards, leaves Sara doubtful that she anyone will believe she is truly not a threat to society. The ending of this book felt satisfactory and realistic. I love how the author was able to nod to current issues in the prison-industrial complex while adding a layer of sci-fi that truly feels it could happen in the future.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel is set in the near future in LA, where every individual has a Risk Assessment score that calculates their potential of causing a future crime, based on data extracted from social media, public records and surveillance, medical records, genealogy (including if you’re distantly related to anyone who has committed a crime), and even dreams.

Dream Hotel is the nickname of a women retention center where Sara is being retained for a future murder that the algorithm predicts she will commit. Conformity and docility are valued in a society like this. As someone who used to live in LA, the references to LA and surrounding areas are also very well done.

If you’ve seen/read The Minority Report, seen the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror, or read 1984, then this story will feel familiar. Like these works, the story is pretty intense as Sara suffers a lot of indignity and injustice. There’s not much left to interpretation as the messaging about how easily our personal data can be manipulated is very clear. I also thought the switch in character’s perspective for one chapter was pretty unnecessary. Overall, there’s a ton of important themes, but the story kind of leaned a little too pedantic in the middle.

Special thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest, independent review.

Fascinating premise with a disappointing execution. This seemed unsure whether it wanted to be literary fiction or sci fi. Though the emphasis was character over plot, the protagonist didn't have a particularly unique motivation and her realizations often felt spoon fed (if I'm reading a dystopia, I don't need to be told that the character is seeing more of herself in the oppressed than the oppressor). The overuse of fictional technobabble was superfluous and disorienting. The perspective shift midway was out of place, ultimately setting up a later reveal that would have been just as effective without the interlude half way through. After a very slow build, the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying, leaving many plot points unresolved and opting for what felt like the simplest and most logical conclusion.