The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami

“Freedom isn’t a blank slate. Freedom is teeming and complicated and, yes, risky

The Dream Hotel is a dystopian novel set in a near and very believable future where the US government has partnered with a large tech company to use its algorithm in service of crime prevention.

Following a mass shooting, the government passes the Crime Prevention Act which allows it to mine data and detain people it finds are likely to commit crimes. Everyone is assigned a risk assessment score, which is based on all the data available about a person — social media activity, job, family life, driving record, and even dreams. Detained people are then sent to “public safety centers” for investigation and possible prosecution.

Under this backdrop, our protagonist, Sara, gets pulled aside while going through customs attempting to reenter the US. The novel follows her experience in — and attempt to escape — one of these public safety centers.

I really enjoyed this. Its themes are terrifying and its algorithmic policing plot feels very possible, especially in light of the fact that an unelected tech billionaire currently has unprecedented access to US citizens’ private data and recent reporting that the State Department plans to conduct an AI assisted review of student visa holders' social media accounts to police foreign nationals' conduct and speech.

The writing really forces the reader to feel the indignity of being detained when you’ve done nothing wrong, and I particularly liked how well it shows the ways private prisons are interested in — and profit from — keeping people incarcerated.

I found the final 25% to be a little weaker than the rest of the book and the ending anticlimactic, but maybe that’s the point. These systems drain people’s will and beat them down, and fighting back most often requires small, unsexy actions.

Recommended if you enjoyed Minority Report, The Candy House, and I Who Have Never Known Men.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pantheon for an early digital copy of this book.

For a Sci-fi book, this was scarily real. The writing was reflective and humorous with an edge of scariness built in because I truly believe something of this nature could happen in our future. I felt immersed in the story and the saga of Sarah!

THE DREAM HOTEL by Laila Lalami hit me hard -- in the very best way. In a terrible version of reality -- one that is also all too imaginable given our current time of surveillance, suspicion, and intrusive technology, a woman is accused of a crime she did not yet commit and the price of 21 days of isolation from her target is extended as she fails to meet the rigid requirements and shifting rules of the surveillance state. Well-written, marvelously paced, this story kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting and also afraid to find out what happens next, particularly when a change agent enters the scene and disrupts everything. I don't typically enjoy thriller/suspense/techno-based stories, but this one was a shining example of what is possible, particularly with the questions raised about identity and what it is to know a person--and yourself. I received a copy of this book and these are my own, unbiased thoughts.

3.5 STARS

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Genre: Dystopian fiction
Themes: Surveillance, data privacy, oppression

Returning home from a work conference abroad, Sara is stopped at the airport, detained and taken to a retention center where other women are held under observation while they try to prove their innocence. What crime did Sara commit?

Well, Sara has a brain implant that is supposed to help her sleep better. However, it also stores her dreams and data, which are reviewed by the Risk Assessment Administration, a government agency that determines whether her dreams may foreshadow crimes she might commit in the future. THE DREAM HOTEL follows Sara’s fight for freedom and reminds you to always read tech’s terms and conditions.

Laila Lalami started writing the book in 2014, which makes THE DREAM HOTEL even more eerie given the influence artificial intelligence, surveillance and technology are having on the world today. The concept of the book? 5/5. The writing? 4/5. But the middle was a repetitive slog, and the book ended with a whisper rather than a bang.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an advanced reader copy of #TheDreamHotel.

Lalami writes a timely speculative dystopian novel that is scary and delightful at the same time. Sara is stopped at LAX when returning from London by the RAA, the Risk Assessment Administration, for the potential to commit a violent act. She is placed in a detention center, not a prison, as they say, for 21 days, which becomes much longer as any "infraction" the powers that be deemed significant increases her time there. Not only are people's actions and words being monitored but their thoughts and dreams are as well. How much longer until this becomes our reality? Orwellian and beyond. 5 stars for Lalami who deserves a huge breakout hit. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced copy

As soon as I read the synopsis of this book, which sounded like a cross between Minority Report (movie) and The School for Good Mothers (book), I knew I wanted to read this book. I was so excited for this book to be scary, uncomfortable, and shocking, while also feeling all too close to reality. Unfortunately, something about this book fell flat for me. I cannot even quite put my finger on what it was, but I just never got into it. It took me twice as long to read as a book of this length normally would, even when I sat down with a few hours ahead of me to just get lost in the world of the book. I just never really felt like picking it up, and even when I did, I found myself bored and trudging through it.

The book felt really drawn out, and when I realized how long it was taking me to read it, I figured it must just a be a long book (I was reading on my Kindle and didn't have an awareness of the page count). So I was shocked when I looked it up to find it was only 336 pages. It felt like far more, and not in a good way.

I found the main character to be really flat and dry. Imagine being unexpectedly being taken to a retention center when landing at the airport, returning home from a business trip. Imagine you cannot hug your children or husband who are waiting at the airport for you; in fact, you cannot even see them to inform them of what's going on. Imagine having your whole life essentially taken from you and having no control or power to change your situation. And then imagine showing/expressing/feeling little-to-no emotion over it. That's your main character in this book. I'm not even a mother, and I know I would feel absolute anguish over being separated from my twin toddlers, missing out on their daily life, big milestones, etc. While Sara of course wanted to be home with her family, she expressed more frustration with her husband not calling or visiting enough than she did over being separated from her children. There was a strange disconnect there, and as a result, it left me feeling disconnected from the main character.

While everything about the retention center was awful and frustrating, this book just never made me feel the big emotions that I expected to feel. I just couldn't get invested in the story. The first half of the book went almost nowhere, then things took a turn and it seemed to be going somewhere, then the ending came rather abruptly. The pacing felt off to me and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of the book.

I also think that with it being called The Dream Hotel, and the whole premise being about people being able to be punished for their dreams, there actually wasn't a ton of focus on dreams in the book. Sara had a few dreams that were mentioned in the book, she talked about the device she got that allowed her dreams to be commodified, but beyond that, it really wasn't a focus of the book. We never heard or learned about the dreams of her fellow "inmates" and friends in the retention center. I thought it would be a bigger part of the story and was letdown that it wasn't.

Even though this book wasn't for me, I don't think it's a bad book. I think the premise was great, but the execution just didn't work for me. I think if you've never read a book like this before, you may really love it. But because I read a dystopian book with a somewhat similar plot in the past, I couldn't help but compare the two, and this one will leave nowhere near the impact on me that the other book did.

2.5 stars, rounded up

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

this was a bleak, nightmarish dystopian read that explores how AI is used to monitor dreams and use that data against people in the justice system. majorrrr black mirror vibes!!

giving this one a 3/5 because of how slowly the story unravels. the pace only quickens and gains momentum at the end, which made the ending feel rushed and oversimplified. for such a nuanced and complex premise, i was expecting an ending that wasn’t so..abrupt.

it was also difficult for me to connect to the main character and her relationships — i felt like the characterization fell flat and one dimensional. this added to the coldness and hostility the characters faced but i wished there was more emotional depth in how the characters interacted with each other, with their environment.

i remain a big fan of laila lalalmi’s work, however, i just don’t think this was as moving or thoughtful as i hoped it to be.

thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy!!

It's the year 2039 and we're in Southern California with protagonist Sara Hussein. She's the mother of young twins, an archivist at the Getty, and on her way home from a work trip in London when she's detained at LAX. It seems that her "risk score" is above the acceptable level and she's flagged for "retention". Note, it's a "retention center" not "jail".

In this year 2039, everything is tracked and recorded and used to generate the individual's risk score. All the things we're tracking in good old 2025: steps, heart rate, phone conversations, texts, browser clicks, security cameras, etc. Also, all the Terms & Conditions on those apps and consent forms we so blindly click "agree" on, well that data is aggregated and used too. Last but not least, in this not-so-distant future, a sleep aid implant that guarantees "better sleep in fewer hours" happens to also keep (and commoditize) a record of your dreams. And Sara signed off on that, without much awareness, because she was desperate for sleep (young twins).

The setup, the rationale (public safety) and the monetization of the "retention centers" (not jail): the women can lower their retention periods by signing up to work, for which they're barely paid, are chilling. Frighteningly chilling. This book is part "Orange is the New Black", part "Severance" and, in this climate of 2025, a lot of horror. There's humor in the bleakness but boy this is bleak. Frightening. Stripping the women of any shred of dignity, sadistic guards, crap food, privileges given and taken at a whim. The arbitrariness of the risk scores. The Dream Hotel was a nightmare.

Lalami knows how to ratchet up the tension and keep you on the edge of your seat. We're with Sara every step of her journey. Relentless.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the digital ARC. (pub date 3/4/2025)

A fascinating premise, done very well. In the somewhat near future (no year is specified, but it doesn't seem that far off from present day), surveillance is everywhere. Sara is a museum archivist with twin toddlers, returning from a business trip in London. She is stopped at LAX by "Risk Assessment" agents, who tell her that her dream data has been flagged because she's dreamed of killing her husband. She is baffled and pushes back, but she is put into "retention" for 21 days so she can get "risk score" back down. Of course, her sentence gets extended time and again.

This book reminded me of The School for Good Mothers, which I found utterly devastating and so impactful. Similarly to that book, we follow Sara as she adjusts to life in a place that is "not a prison," but so extremely strips away one's rights and humanity that the distinction has no meaning. Sara's every move is surveilled and interrogated, and the goalposts keep moving. Sara learns quickly that anything she and the other women do can be seen as defiant, and the attendants at the facility have such discretion that they can basically make up rules whenever they want.

This is definitely a read that wore me down, but I found it fascinating and compulsively readable nonetheless. It's terrifying to think of our already horrible criminal system being made even more horrible by even more surveillance than we already have, and this book also made me think about how our conceptions of "normal" are entirely dictated by people with power. Of course that's not an original thought, but I thought Lalami did an amazing job of depicting how arbitrary it all feels.

Sara's emotions about being away from her family, feeling betrayed and like no one trusts her, and being incredibly angry all resonated, and I really enjoyed her relationships with her fellow confinees. It's hard to describe this as enjoyable because so much of the book I wanted to punch every single person who worked at the facility, but Sara's revelations about state power and technological creep are really interesting, and the plot moves fast enough to keep you going. All in all, glad I read this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.25 stars)
**A Haunting and Thought-Provoking Read**

*The Dream Hotel* by Laila Lalami is a beautifully crafted novel that weaves together mystery, memory, and the immigrant experience with Lalami’s signature lyrical prose. The story is both atmospheric and introspective, pulling readers into a world where dreams and reality blur in compelling ways. The characters are deeply drawn, and the novel’s themes of belonging and identity resonate long after the last page. While the pacing lags slightly in the middle, the novel’s emotional depth and elegant storytelling make it a captivating and rewarding read.

i'm gonna be real. at some points in the book, i could not tell whether what i was reading was fiction because of what today's current political and societal environment is like. nothing like immersive, am i right ladies? 🤩 so i have to say, this book felt very gray and monotone, like visually in my mind. also, movement wise since it felt very stagnant for majority of the book. but i think it is meant to represent sara's time at the retention center. i can't really say the premise of this is cool, since we're like two steps from experiencing this in real life and that is not cool whatsoever. the exploration of surveillance, yes, which would have made this a great book to have read in my analytical reading and writing course freshman year. i feel like this could have been better fleshed out. there were a few plotholes and flat characters. quite a bit of social commentary in this. could be a good book, but not particularly my biggest cup of tea. yes, thank you netgalley!

When did dystopian novels start sounding more and more like real life?!?

Sara has just landed at the airport, jet lagged and ready to go home, when she is stopped by a security officer. Now she is being told that her dreams have flagged and labeled her as a future criminal. Welcome to The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami and its unsettling take on what may be our future.
After being detained for a crime she might commit. Sara is kept in a facility where every rule is seemingly designed to keep her there. As her three week stay turns into more extensions and each attendant growing more suspicious, the question shifts from if she will be freed to if freed will she ever be the same.
Lalami explores how our rapidly advancing technology, marketed as a tool for safety, becomes a weapon for control in the hands of our government - thus leaving our autonomy, safety, and security in question. Overall a magnificent read and very thought provoking.


Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this amazing novel!

It was a great story, however it did seem to drag out a bit and went from past to present too much without context at times

Sara is pulled aside at the airport, as she's returning home from a conference. She's eager to get home to her family but she's told her Risk Assessment Score has risen too high.

But Sara hasn't committed a crime?

But the data - all the data that is collected on a person, social media, emails, facial recognition, and in this case, dreams... indicates that a crime will occur in the future. Sara has dreamed that she will kill her husband. So risk prevention has a task force to lower crime and keep these indicators at bay.

This premise grabbed me and I had to read The Dream Hotel. There were so many similarities to how AI could track our current data, it wouldn't be too farfetched to see something like this occurring. The story unfolded slightly differently than I expected. I was surprised by those changes.

I would recommend it to others who are interested in sharing data, sharing dreams, and the potential of that. Thank you to NetGalley and PRH for the advance copy and audio in exchange for an honest review.

If you are freaked out by AI right now, just think if you were in a world where the government had access to every action, email and even your dreams and gave you a score for your actions! Sara had signed up for a dreamsaver to help her sleep after having her twins and little did she know they were selling her dreams. When her score dips, she is detained at the airport and sent to a "facility" until she can get her score up to be released because they suspect she could be a future criminal. Talk about too much information! This is an exaggerated story of AI and Sara's fight to get back to her life and her family but holds so many hints of the future that it will make you have chills. The first part of the book is a little slow to build but then you start wondering what is really going on and why are they holding her? I was completely captivated by this creative and original twist on the information age.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

#TheDreamHotel

thank you netgalley, the publisher and laila lalami for the e arc!!!

this dystopian setting was so eerie bc of how real it felt, so much AI & technological advancement that felt a little too real (bc its actually where we seem to be headed as a society currently). however, the ending left me with some hope which is the ~ beautiful ~ part of this story. it just comments + validates why/ how community is important and why it’s where so much / all hope lies. there were so many moments i was angry and raging for sara as we witnessed the system in place constantly oppressing her throughout the majority of the story. also there where parts where i truly understood her and rooted so hard for her, especially when she realized what system in place was doing. overall such an interesting and beautiful read, definitely would love to read more by lalami.

This book was deeply upsetting, but I know necessary. I craved reading it, and at the same time had to put it down several times for how it was deeply affecting me. It felt so timely, in a very terrifying way. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a dystopian novel set in a near-future America where the government surveils citizens' dreams to predict and prevent crimes. The protagonist, Sara Hussein, a digital archivist, is detained upon returning from a conference abroad after an algorithm determines she poses a threat to her husband based on her dream data. She is confined in a retention center with other women, all striving to prove their innocence in a system where even unconscious thoughts are monitored.

The Dream Hotel presents an intriguing premise that I haven’t seen explored in a novel before, making it a unique addition to the science fiction genre. The themes of privacy, government surveillance, and how much control individuals have over their own data were thought-provoking and relevant. However, I found Sara to be a frustrating protagonist, especially in the first half of the novel—her obsession with her husband overshadowed the much more compelling mystery at hand. The novel also leaned heavily into politics and history, which, while interesting, often felt dry rather than engaging. Additionally, the abrupt and unsatisfying ending left me wanting more closure. While the book had an original concept, it lacked the excitement I was hoping for in a sci-fi thriller.

3/5 stars.

When Sara arrives back home from a work trip she thinks everything is normal until she is stopped by the airport security. When they tell her she’s been identified as a threat based on her dreams her whole world implodes. She soon finds herself at a retention center, locked up with other women who also were deemed as a threat. Sara finds herself trying to prove she’s not a threat to no avail. What do you do when even your dreams can be held against you?

This book was really good until the ending. The story was interesting with the idea that technology is both a blessing and a curse. But the ending to me just fell short for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This novel has a very intriguing premise as it looks at a future where technology can predict crimes. In that prediction of crimes there are retention facilities for those who the algorithm has deemed enough of a danger to commit a crime that they must remain until that risk score decreases. It is at the heart guilty until proven innocent.

The story takes place in a facility called Madison and follows one woman Sara Hussein as she navigates life at Madison and getting released. Overall the story is fascinating and keeps the reader wanting more as time passes. Madison gives the reader more of an impression of a jail than a facility devoted to those with high risk scores based on their dreams. What it highlights is not only how much technology plays a part in our lives but how every moment can lead into everything we do. We think about tiny moments of an argument and in this world that would increase your risk score for a future crime. Could an argument really predict a future crime? This is one of many questions that leaves the reader pondering about advances in technology.

The novel is well written and really sucks in the readers with not only the narrative aspects but also how information is presented in the form or transcripts and other also found documents from Madison. The characters are well developed and you could easily imagine yourself in this type of facility. I could easily see this one a book club hit as there are so many different aspects to dig into, more than what can be conveyed in a review.