They say dreams are a window to the soul. But what if those dreams are used against you to determine your level of culpability in a crime - even one that hasn't happened yet? That's what The Dream Hotel explores in this dystopian piece by author Laila Lalami.

We follow the journey of Sara Hussein, who was detained at the airport by the Risk Assessment Agency (RAA) because her risk score is too high (518, whereas 500 is considered the threshold). Using predictive AI, the RAA has determined that based on her dreams, she is an imminent threat to her husband and is sent to a retention facility with other women who have also been deemed threats to society in one way or another. The initial standard holding period is 21 days, at which time detainees are then re-evaluated and hopefully determined to be cleared and released back into the world. During their time there, detainees are given a strict set of rules and regulations they must adhere to, or their risk assessment score will increase and weaken their chances of being release. We soon see that the conditions in this facility are barely a step up from deplorable, and very few women actually get released after those first 21 days.

This book's relevance to today's world hits almost a little too close to home as it explores themes of AI manipulation, exploitation of women and prisoners, and the issue of what is/isn't considered a fundamental human right. Those basic human rights act as the grim proverbial carrot dangled in front of those in the detention facility in order to coerce them into complacency. Throughout Sara's time in detention, we meet a colorful, albeit complex set of characters that represent various walks of life and get a firsthand view into the disparity experienced by each of these women.

The author does a wonderful job of making each of these characters relatable in some fashion, even if they are not entirely likeable. This is often a hard balance to find, but Lalami does it very well. The pacing starts off slower than anticipated for a story line this gripping, but picks up quickly and hooks the reader in. I would have liked to see the ending play out longer, with a more satisfying resolution than the one given. However, I suppose the ending in and of itself could be considered a portrait of the continued discrimination, manipulation, and control over minority groups we are seeing in the world today. Highly recommend this poignant and thought-provoking novel.

Thank you @pantheonbooks for the complimentary DRC.

“From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.”

The premise of this made me think of Minority Report with anticipating someone’s likelihood of committing a crime in advance. Because of that, I was expecting a level of tension and excitement. While The Dream Hotel didn’t deliver on that, it did provide an increasing sense of unease and dread. It didn’t take much to suspend disbelief, so much of our lives are tracked through the phones we are attached to, if a promise of enough rest without much sleep were offered to us, would we say no? However, after half way through it felt like I was walking uphill to finish this. The story seemed to meander, and while there were a couple minor “events” nothing truly came of them, and the story never gained any momentum. I was hoping for a redeeming ending but sadly that too fell flat

Sara's "risk score," teetering at the low 500s mark, has her flagged and detained at the airport on her way home to a dystopian LAX. From there, she's whisked away to a retention center, where, under 24/7 surveillance, she comes to realize that her labor is being farmed for private security firm Safe-X, in spite of not having committed any of the supposed crimes she's at risk of enacting. Through creative and resilient disruption, she manages to secure her release, but not without enduring incredible psychological, spiritual, and physical duress.

This was really, *really* fantastic! It reminded me a lot of The School for Good Mothers, with its dream logic and frustrating carceral situations. Would definitely recommend this to friends:)

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC; opinions expressed here are my own..

The Dream Hotel is an ambitious story with a strong young woman of Moroccan heritage, Sara, at the center. It opens as she arrives back in the US on a flight from London, where she was attending a work conference. In the airport, Sara is suddenly detained and prevented from getting home to her husband and twin toddlers. The rest of the book describes her struggles to make that journey.

I admired the world building and character development, but these slowed down the plot too much for me. I found the ending oversimplified for such a layered theme. Even with it’s its flaws, I hope someone smart buys the rights and makes it into a suspenseful movie.

Dystopian fiction that feels less and less distant, and more and more like a current events non-fiction commentary the further you read!

Laila Lalami weaves a compelling tale of the dangers posed to every single person who willingly hands over their life to technology, the devices that support it, to the corporations that monetize this practice, and to the algorithms that quantify and qualify our daily existence. There is an insidious, invasive, threatening, and downright dangerous undercurrent to the story of a woman who is flagged by airport technology that in this not so distant future has been calibrated to discern a person's *potential* for crime.

You heard that correctly... immediate arrest and mandatory retention for surpassing an algorithm's predetermination that you (and the content of your DREAMS) might pose a threat to someone, somewhere, sometime in the future.

Let that sink in.
Kafka would have loved this novel!!

"The Dream Hotel" was released on March 4, 2025. I highly recommend this literary novel and thank the author for her craft, the publisher for their recognition of that fact, and NetGalley for offering the galley proof to this reader.

The Dream Hotel is a gripping and thought-provoking dystopian novel that immerses readers in a near-future society governed by predictive AI. In this world, sophisticated algorithms are used to prevent crimes before they happen, offering an illusion of safety while raising questions about fairness, freedom, and the human spirit.

At its core, the novel explores the troubling implications of using technology to control human behavior. The predictive AI, designed to anticipate crimes and prevent them, may not always be accurate, leaving marginalized communities disproportionately affected. Through this chilling concept, the novel critiques a system that, rather than promoting justice, deepens inequality. The narrative highlights the stark divide between the wealthy elite, who seem to exist above the law, and the disenfranchised, whose every move is scrutinized by algorithms that can't fully capture the complexities of human nature.

Equally central to the novel is the exploitation of prisoners, an uncomfortable reflection of a reality where those with the least power often bear the heaviest burdens. The stark portrayal of this systemic abuse serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of unchecked power, and the peril of allowing such technologies to govern human lives.

Despite these grim themes, The Dream Hotel is ultimately a story of resilience. The characters, though trapped in a world that often seeks to strip them of their agency, demonstrate the strength of the human spirit. The novel suggests that while freedom is always at risk of being lost, it can be preserved through solidarity and community, offering hope in the face of overwhelming odds.

The world-building in The Dream Hotel is both haunting and fascinating, and the narrative is rich with philosophical and ethical questions that challenge the reader to reflect on the role of technology, power, and justice in our own world. The writing is sharp and evocative, with each chapter tightening the novel's grip on the reader as the story unfolds.

In conclusion, The Dream Hotel is a timely and incisive novel that raises crucial questions about the intersection of technology, power, and human rights. It’s a captivating read for anyone interested in dystopian fiction that tackles both the personal and societal consequences of a future shaped by algorithms, surveillance, and inequality. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

In this novel, the United States has taken an extreme step in fighting violence by using an algorithm to detain individuals deemed at risk of committing a violent act. It's no longer about just making threats, either; in this world, implantable devices design to help people sleep better also can read their dreams, and the content of their dreams can be used against them. That is what happens to Sara Hussein, a mother of young twins who sought help for her extreme exhaustion and ends up in a retention facility because the algorithm predicts she is at risk of harming her husband. Once she is in the system, she finds that it is hard to escape it, because not only can her own dreams and data be used against her, but she is also of value to the private company that runs the retention facilities. She is subject to the whims of those who supervise the retainees, who enforce the endless and often changing rules of the facility, and is under constant surveillance by cameras, microphones, and the device that continues to record her dreams, and every infraction lengthens her stay. She is torn between trying to follow the rules in the hopes of being released and fighting against an unjust system. What is so chilling about this book is that it doesn't seem that far-fetched, given how much of our lives we put online and how little attention we pay to the terms and conditions of the apps and sites and devices we use every day. Who is to say that all our data won't be used against us, particularly in the current political climate?

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This novel hits horrifyingly close to reality. A combo of Minority Report, 1984, and all those YA dystopian stories from the 2010s that had intense surveillance, (but with more late stage capitalism) this book was so good at establishing its premise that it pissed me off. The overwhelming unfairness of it all made me viscerally angry. Intensely compelling.

The overall message was one of resistance through community which I appreciate immensely and honestly makes me want to do fewer things that give the world data points about me and yet here I am writing a review so what does that say about me.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Sara Hussein, mother of two and archivist at the Getty Museum, is traveling home from a conference in London when she is detained at the airport and sent to a retention center for those deemed at risk of committing a crime based on their risk assessment score. Based off of a proprietary algorithm that includes sleep data, Sara does not know exactly what she is at risk of doing or why. When her 21-day observation stretches into months, she must decide whether to remain compliant or attempt to stay true to her own nature.

This is a wonderful dystopian novel in the vein of The School for Good Mothers and The Handmaid’s Tale. The plot is gripping, the writing is lovely, and the themes that the novel grapples with are prescient and timely. I expect this book to be in the top 10 I read this year, and it would be especially good for a book club as there are so many discussion points here. Prison-for-profit, the surveillance state, and gendered expectations are all explored in ways that are always interesting and never pedantic. My one complaint is that Sara’s character’s interior life was a bit subdued; her separation from her children did not have the emotional intensity I would have expected. But all in all this is a solid book that I anticipate being very popular!

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for the electronic advanced readers copy!

Read this if you: liked The Handmaid’s Tale, The Farm, Hum, or The School for Good Mothers

Skip this if: you strongly dislike dystopian fiction or anything touching on sci-fi.

We live in a time of digital overload. Everything we do is tracked, it seems, and the data is shared. So, imagining, in the somewhat near future, our dreams being tracked doesn't seem that far off! Now think about how screwed up dreams can be... The data from our dreams, along with all the other tracked info out there, is analyzed and reviewed by the Risk Assessment Administration and used to determine the risk you pose of committing a crime. Nothing could go wrong with any of this!

The concept of this book is fascinating. Sci-fi, dystopian, authoritarian vibes abound! I wanted a little more out of the ending, but overall, The Dream Hotel will be one I'll keep thinking about.

Sci-fi literary fiction is one of my favorite genres ever. I’m a horror fan but nothing terrifies me more than stories that deal with AI, autonomy, and a reminder that our technological consumption will likely be the ruin of us all. Just a little light reading, amirite?

The Dream Hotel starts off strong and hooked me in immediately. So many incredibly profound lines and the concept was just excellent. It lost a little steam about halfway and I wasn’t crazy about the ending, so it wasn’t the five star read I was predicting early in. I did overall enjoy it though, and it was an important read! l I love the hype it’s getting and can’t wait to see what others take from it.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC of this book! The Dream Hotel is set in the near-future in a dystopian society where the government has created an agency to assess risk and retain potential criminals before they commit their likely crimes. This premise seemed ambitious to me, but I found myself pretty much immediately sucked in. It does cover a super broad range of societal issues - racism, sexism, the lack of equity in the justice system, commodification of personal data, overreach of both government and tech companies - but it never seems forced or contrived.

Some parts near the middle dragged and there were other areas that I wanted to have more detail for (especially more about the back story both for Sara and for the formation of the RAA), but overall I really enjoyed this book. It's given me a lot to mull over in the hours since I finished reading it and I find myself hoping to revisit these characters in a sequel eventually because I think there's a lot of story left to be told.

In Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Booker finalist Lalami's latest novel, which just landed on the Women’s Prize fpr Fiction long list, she envisions a not-too-distant future where one’s dreams can lead to incarceration for crimes that have may never be committed. When the novel opens, we learn that a private company, Safe-X, had purchased a 1930s era public elementary school, Madison, that it uses as a retention center (not to be confused with a prison or a jail). The protagonist, Sara Hussein, is being held at Madison until her forensic observation is completed.

Thirty-eight year old Sara was an archivist at the Getty Center and the mother of twin toddlers who is being retained at Madison on a “forensic hold.” After returning to Los Angeles from a business trip to London, she is detained at LAX and told by agents of the federal Risk Assessment Administration (RAA) that her risk score was high. She hadn’t seen her score since she and her husband, Elias, purchased their apartment three years earlier when the bank required it to secure a mortgage (in Lalami’s near future, people can’t get decent insurance without solid health and fitness scores so there was a demand for licensed trainers). An algorithm had flagged Sara as an imminent risk, despite the fact that she had no criminal record nor major changes in her life since her last risk report.

In Lalami’s future, the RAA was part of a controversial Crime Prevention Act that was enacted 20 years ago after a shooting at the Super Bowl in Miami in which 118 people were killed, a traumatic event witnessed live by 113 million Americans. The RAA was charged with identifying and detaining individuals who were likely to commit violent crimes, and it had been effective in identifying hundreds of potential murderers and preventing suicides by firearms. But there was a clash in the Senate about private detention contractors, such as Safe-X, jeopardizing fundamental civil rights and the types of data that the RAA could legally use in its algorithms.

That there were questions about the legality of the RAA is of no consequence to Sara who is unable to lower her risk score when the capricious guards repeatedly slap her with extensions to her detention for minor infractions. The retainees “have to eat what they’re given, do what they’re told, sleep when the lights are out, but they’re considered FUO, Free under observation.” As her detention is extended long beyond the initial twenty-one days, Elias stops responding to Sara’s calls and emails, and she is starved for news of him and of their children. The world has moved on without her.

The Dream Hotel examines the access that we so freely grant to technology — our smartphones, our automobiles, our door cameras — and how that information can be misused. Sara, sleep-deprived as the mother of twins, had purchased a Dreamsaver implant to help her with her debilitating sleep deprivation. Like most of us, Sara did not bother to read the terms of service, so she was unaware of how the data mined by Dreamsaver could be shared and misused. Lalami has created a chilling world where we can’t even wander freely in our dreams because they are in conflict with technology. Lalami’s novel is all the more frightening because the future she envisions - where every moment of our lives is monitored and documented — is here. Thank you Pantheon and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this engrossing novel filled with luminous prose and sophisticated storytelling.

Imagine being held accountable for things you dream about but don't actually do! Sounds very 'Minority Report' for sure.
As Sarah returns from a trip, she's arrested at LAX for a crime she 'might' commit towards her husband. She's then thrown into a detention facility of all women who've been arrested for similar offenses. There are so many parallels in this book to what is going on today. My favorite quote '"We blame the algorithm for our predicament, she thinks, but the algorithm was written by people."
You could easily see this happening today with all the restrictions on woman's rights, and all the data that is collected about us online. This book is thought provoking, timely and gives you a feeling of existential dread as Sarah tries to escape her predicament. I love dystopian books, or books dealing with an alternative future, and in this tale you don't know if what Sarah is experiencing is real or in her mind. A great narrative on the dangers of our current and future society.

Sarah has just landed at LAX, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pulls her aside and informs her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA has determined she is in imminent risk of harming someone. For safety reasons, she must be held for 21 days. This book is set in the "future" where companies are mining data from all our devices, social media accounts and dreams. This information is allowing the government to profile people in the name of safety.

This was a book that definitely makes you think about how much information we are willing to share on a daily basis, and what the information says about you. We knowingly allow our data to be collected all the time. Think about your social media, online shopping, internet browsing, 23 and me, DNA testing etc. How could all this info be used against you?

I was a little disappointed with the ending. It seemed quite abrupt with no real explanation as to why. I give it 3 1/2 stars.

Thank You NetGalley for the free e-galley.
Publication Date: March 4, 2025

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for this ARC.

I think dreams are so interesting, so I thought this book would be more engaging for me. Unfortunately, the story didn't quite hold my attention. While I can see how others might enjoy its futuristic elements, it just wasn't the right fit for me."

I adored Laila Lalami's previous fiction and was looking forward to how she wrote a speculative fiction story. In The Dream Hotel, Sara has just landed at LAX and is looking forward to reuniting with her husband and young child. She is pulled aside in security by the Risk Assessment Administration which has flagged her at high risk for committing a crime. You see, the RAA uses an algorithm to monitor dreams for potential future violence. Sara is now a "retainee" on a 22-day hold at a retention center where she aims to prove her innocence. Lalami generates an interesting scenario on preventative measures. If we could stop crime before it happened, would it be worth it? It's a fascinating idea (this will be a good book club book), but I think in reality the algorithm is flawed and so this is less of a morally complex question than it could have been. It certainly tapes into a surveillance state and how much of our individual freedoms are we willing to give up? I did find the ending of this seemed a bit forced and unsatisfying, but this is a book worthwhile of further discussion.

Thank you to Pantheon via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for an ARC of The Dream Hotel. I hate leaving negative reviews but I didn't connect with this book as much as I wanted to. I wanted so much more from this. It was such an AMAZING concept but the execution fell flat for me. I wanted to know about how this world began! Instead, the majority of the book takes place in the detention center and seems to drag. It was disappointing. Then the ending was very abrupt. But I firmly believe that no two people read the same book so I don't want to influence anyone with my review. Thank you again.

4.5 stars

“The attendants never call the women prisoners. They say retainers, residents, enrollees, and sometimes program participants.”

“Step by step, they’ve replaced village matchmakers with dating apps, town criers with social media, local doctors with diagnostic tools. The time has come for sages, mystics, and prophets to cede to an AI.”

Fans of The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, and similar dystopian novels will enjoy this book! The commentary on consumer data mining and the use of AI and algorithms to make policy decisions was relevant and thought-provoking. I enjoyed Lalami's writing style; there were so many nuggets of wisdom, it was hard to choose my favorite! I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending (I almost wish there was a sequel!) but overall the book was great. Looking forward to reading more from Laila Lalami!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is sci-fi but reads like fiction. It introduces the idea that we can prevent crimes with enough data and analysis. It's a fascinating dystopian topic that doesn't feel far from reality, which makes the eerie tones within this novel even more spine-chilling. Overall, I thought this book was interesting, well written, and has important assertions it makes and demonstrates through the story. This is less of an adventure and more of a character/environment study of this plausible societal shift.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pantheon for a copy. This book is out Today!