This is a tough one to review. The scenarios in the book feel all-too-plausible especially in light of the chaos of the last 6 weeks; I just felt so much dread whenever I picked it up. But then the ending was anti-climactic and unsatisfying. 3.75 stars overall. I understand what the author was trying to do, it just didn't completely click with me.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a scary speculative fiction novel that takes surveillance and protection to the next level.
When Sara Hussein, Ph. D is selected for an extra screening after a flight home from London, she thinks she’s being profiled. But that shouldn’t be possible, as the AI surveillance algorithm is supposed to be non-biased for data points such as race. When she’s questioned by a real human, she’s told her risk scores are too high, and she’s been flagged as potentially dangerous. These scores are supposed to predict crimes before they happen, to keep American’s safer. It’s the way of the future to prevent mass shootings, suicide and murders. Most people agree that it’s necessary. But when Sara is retained in a “not a prison” labor camp, she cannot figure out why the algorithm thinks she’s a danger to her husband. She loves her husband, doesn’t she?

This novel made me think in ways different than I ever have before. It’s scary to me because I can see this happening, all of the rhetoric and explanations make sense and I can see people giving up their anonymity to be safer. But is giving AI the reins the right way to go? Can it make decisions better than actual people? And once you’re labeled a threat, aren’t they looking for the data to prove that instead of exonerate it? I loved this book. It was so interesting and raw and real. Sara is also a mother to two small children and I could feel her hurt inside myself that she was missing them growing up. I also enjoyed the writing style, Laila Lalami is an incredible wordsmith. I do wish the ending was maybe a little different. It felt like there were many unfinished plot lines at the end that I wanted to know more about. Obviously that could have been stylistic choice, but I would have read 100 more pages of this beautiful, thoughtful book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC.

This book was captivating. I loved the interspersed meeting minutes, news articles, and other pieces that added to the story. It was frustrating and scary all at the same time to read about the experiences of these women and their quest for freedom. Really well done and unlike anything I have read before.

THIS BOOK SHOULD BE ADAPTED INTO A MOVIE! While reading, I could almost see it play out on a screen. This is a dystopian novel about the government keeping track of each person and scoring them to come up with sort of a scale that measures the potential for being a criminal. It is creepy. At times while reading it I felt claustrophobic as these women try to behave in a way to decrease their "score" that they don't fully understand. It made me think of gender roles and what a society deems as "acceptable" and "not acceptable" and the pressure women are in to do it all - mother, worker, partner. A great book discussion group choice! Pick this one up. Thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy!

4.5 rounded up to 5! I was blown away by this one- from the writing, to the plot, to the cast of characters. I went into it not knowing what to expect as dystopian/sci-fi can be hit or miss for me, but I really enjoyed it. What really stood out to me was the discomfort and anger it made me feel along with Sara. In this society we live in, something like this doesn’t feel too far off. Lalami did a great job creating a group of characters to root for and making the injustices they face feel so real and drastic. My only quip was that I wanted it to be a bit longer. I felt that it would’ve benefitted the reader by spending a bit more time with Sara after the final twist at the end. Sitting with Sara and her feelings on this new development would’ve really solidified the resolution to me. But overall, this was really hard-hitting and beautifully written.

“The Dream Hotel” by Laila Lalami is a futuristic novel set in a world where technology dominates. The protagonist is incarcerated for a crime she is foretold to commit.

The narrative is characterized by its explicit detail and well-developed characters. The story employs multiple timelines and incorporates numerous language styles commonly found in computer-generated text.

Overall, it is a compelling and thought-provoking work that offers a glimpse into the potential future.

Thank you to Knopf for the review copy!
This was kind of a miss for me but I am giving a strong review for recognizing what I think is of value with the story and that is a highly impressive approach to timely themes on how we are tracked, where our autonomy begins and ends, and a whole lot of stylish speculative writing... the ideas in this book matter and Lalami is a talented writer. The book is a win for discussion of themes even if for me I struggled with reading the book.

I wanted to like this one a lot more than I did, I think it's a case of the plot ending up being perhaps not the right time for me to give into speculative fiction...For me the ideas just didn't develop in a way that kept me wanting to read the book, I felt at times confused in a way that was more alienating than engaging. The premise had a lot of potential for suspense but the plot slowed instead of sped up, leaving me a little more distant from the book than I think was intended. Again, might be the current climate and strains of life in the US right now that have my professional life feeling uncertain and speculative in and of itself.

Well-written, page-turning, and felt like a much truer prediction of what a not-too-distant future could look like if it was built on AI promises, tough-on-crime politics, and a profits-over-everything corporate ethos.

I think a lot of other authors who write in this genre (about what unleashing tech and AI onto our society will do to us) can lay it on a little too thick or just give these broad pronouncements like “the robots are going to be controlling all of us!!”, but Lalami does a great job of 1) depicting the smaller indignities, like being told you have to wear your hair in a certain style of bun, set against the more offensive backdrop of having your literal freedom restricted; and 2) demonstrating that, though the tech is exploitative, at the end of the day, it’s human beings making the decision to repress other human beings. On that last point, I actually think back to the beginning of the book where Sara is getting questioned at LAX because her score was flagged as being right on the bubble. She shows her frustration to the agents questioning her and, only after she’s sent away does she realize that, risk report aside, they actually had the power and discretion to let her go if they wanted to, and they might have if she “acted like she knew her place.” The fact that she didn’t cost her almost a year in confinement. It’s the perfect reminder that, though the technologies enable the repression, it’s really the smallness and pettiness of the people controlling them that deprive us of our humanity. Taking off one star because I thought the ending was very disappointing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the advance copy.

This book is terrifying.

Publication date 3/4/2025
Thank you @pantheon and @netgalley for this gifted e-ARC.

Incarceration based on dreams you have—which are monitored—in order to prevent future crimes. This is absolute nightmare fodder. And then add the fact that this means she’ll be separated from her children? No thank you.

It took me along time to even get to the 20% mark because of how stressed out I was from reading this. I think I even convinced myself that I wasn’t engaged enough with it to finish. But I kept going because Laila Lalami is one of those writers that you trust completely! Her writing and storytelling is truly impressive. You are in good hands with Lalami and The Dream Hotel.

But it’s not only a propulsive nail biting read; like any great speculative fiction, it’s thought provoking and provides excellent social commentary on our legal system and how far we’ll go in the wrong direction to give our selves a sense of security. and there’s more here to chew on as well, but I won’t give any spoilers.

Read this. But maybe not before bed like I did.

Honestly one of the best books I have read in a while. It felt all too plausible and super eerie! It gave me the creeps in the best ways! This will be one for recommendations!!

Thank you so much for the gifted copy of this book!

This was one of my most anticipated reads of this quarter, and I was not disappointed. I'm going to dive right in to the review because you can read the synopsis, but this was such a relevant read. The monitoring. The risk assessment. The risk SCORE. It was a terrifying look into what could EASILY become our future if we let it. The user agreement they signed for the DreamSavers without reading the fine print was SO REAL and so much like the user agreements we sign without knowing what they entail. There wasn't even a question of "how did this happen" because it's where we're currently heading. This book is a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual.

This is a must read! I personally have a fascination with dystopian sci-fi stories, with plots set in realistic/futuristic timelines; think The Handmaid’s Tale, but without all of the vulgarity. It only took me a day and a half to read this because I could not put it down. Laila Lalami is quite the talented writer!

I was captivated by Sara’s journey at Madison. It was gritty, too realistic at times to feel comfortable, and really well done. I felt extreme empathy for her situation, and was drawn in by her determination to fight while staying just compliant enough not to harm her future.

In our current age of AI, tracking, smart devices, and data at our fingertips, I had some anxiety while reading this book (being that it feels possible) which made it that much more riveting and eye-opening.

I would love to see this book become a movie. I would be one of the first to see it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

I absolutely ate this book up. It’s entertaining and philosophical. It’s an absolute ride from start to finish. And this cover is stunning!! This woman write impeccably well. It was unputdownable.

Laila Lalami's The Dream Hotel is like A Handmaid's Tale for 2025. Imagine a world where technology purporting to improve your life insidiously collects data on your everyday movements and uses them to make you a more pliant consumer, where lawmakers allied with big business is more concerned with protecting corporate interests than the liberties of their electorates, where prorietary black box algorithms are given free reign to shape people's lives, where apathy slowly chips away at due process and the rights of the accused. Just imagine!

The Dream Hotel concerns an overwhelmed new mother named Sara who purchases a neural implant to help her sleep, and it seems to do what it's supposed to do until one day she's detained at airport security because her "risk score", an index calculated from various data-tracking sources including her sleep implant, has risen above the acceptable range and flagged her for potentially committing a future crime. What follows is Sara's journey to extricate herself from detainment, a Catch-22 situation in which she has to lower her risk score while being held at a facility away from her family, where everything she experiences only increases the amount of strain and anxiety she suffers.

I devoured this book. Despite being a work of science fiction, there are a lot of elements in this book that already exist or could easily exist in our currently fraught times. This is definitely one worth reading!

Harrowing, terrifying, eerie. Never read something like this before and I really enjoyed it. I can’t wait to read what’s next from this author!

3.5 stars! 🌟 Huge thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor & NetGalley for the ARC! 💌

Welcome to a future where your dreams can get you arrested. ☁️🚔

Sara lands at LAX, expecting to see her husband and baby twins—NOT to be told that she's a future criminal. 🤯 The Risk Assessment Administration (RAA) has analyzed her dreams, and the algorithm decided she's a threat to her husband. Guilty before proven innocent.

She’s taken to The Dream Hotel—aka a high-tech prison disguised as a retention center—where women are locked up for potential crimes. Every step, every word, every breath is monitored, and the rules? Always changing. 😵‍💫 A 21-day stay turns into months, with no way out.

Dystopian nightmares? Try dystopian reality. 🔥

This book had me suffocating alongside Sara. Every time she thought she was getting closer to freedom, BAM—another rule, another punishment, another reason to keep her trapped. It’s slow, but that’s the point. The system is designed to break you, and Laila makes you feel every moment of that helplessness.

⏳ Dystopian Future
🔒 Big Brother/Surveillance State
⏳ Wrongfully Accused
🔒 Trapped with No Escape
⏳ Psychological Thriller
🔒 Morality & Ethics of Technology

The scariest part? It felt TOO real. 😨 We already live in a world where data is collected from every device, every social media post, every click. Would people really protest a system that "prevents" crime? Or would they let it happen, convincing themselves it’s for safety?

This book is a psychological thriller, a dystopian drama, and a terrifying look at our tech-driven future all rolled into one. Sara’s desperation, the hopelessness of fighting a faceless system, and the moral questions it raises?? CHEF’S KISS. 🤌✨

LOVED:
✔ The concept. It’s haunting, realistic, and forces you to question EVERYTHING about privacy, freedom, and justice.
✔ Sara’s fight for her identity. She’s NOT a hero. She’s just a woman trying to survive a system that’s crushing her. And that makes her SO real.
✔ The eerie, slow-burn tension. It’s not a fast-paced action thriller—it’s psychological. The dread builds, every rule change feels like a punch, and you start feeling trapped with Sara.

MEH:
❌ Some parts felt too long—the middle dragged a bit.
❌ I wanted deeper connections between Sara and other characters. The friendships in the center? SO interesting, but not fleshed out enough!
❌ The ending… I’m still processing. 😵‍💫 Not bad, but I expected more of a punch after ALL that build-up.

"The data doesn’t lie."
"It doesn’t tell the truth, either."

This book is a warning. A terrifying, unputdownable, too-close-to-reality warning. 🚨 If you love speculative fiction, dystopian thrillers, or books that make you question EVERYTHING—this one's for you.

This book saw me. As a mother, a woman, a professional and as a scared human exisiting in the states right now. Doesnt even deserve to be called united and probably never did. Thank you for helping me channel some rage.
I will PROUDLY share this with my learners as a 2025 version of Handmaids Tale, 1984, Fahrenheit 51 all in one.
Beautiful
Important
Smart
Scary AF

Readers follow Sara as she is held for observation due to potentially “dangerous” dreams. This timely novel holds a mirror up to our data obsessed landscape and warns of the bleak future ahead as AI and data mining continue to grow. Although I found the themes of privacy, technology, freedom, race, and guilt fascinating, the plot was predictable. The prose felt detached at times as well, and the dream sequences lacked a disorienting or unsettling atmosphere you would expect. A promising topic with a fairly standard delivery. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Wildly interesting (and conceptually not that difficult to envision) dystopian lit fiction. This was a new author to me but the writing was compelling and I couldn’t put it down.

In The Dream Hotel we follow Sara when she is sent for retention basically because of an algorithm. Her risk score has gone above 500 and a 21 day hold is required. It’s very difficult to gather information in the retention center and in many ways felt similar to a for-profit prison. Despite her initial 21 day assessment, Sara has been stuck in the center for months which is common of most of its “participants” due to the infinitely slow rate at which things move in this bureaucracy. It’s definitely a sloooooooooower burn. There’s not a ton of action and it’s one of those books you’ll hate because you’re bored or love because you’re fascinated. I was the latter, for sure.

It really wasn’t that hard to conceptualize a society where crime prevention has become so prevalent. Think Minority Report (sans psychic triplets) but more so using all the data of your life, plus that of your dreams, if you’ve received certain technological devices. The chain of events that lands Sara in the center are so incredibly innocuous, but it’s really not that much of a stretch to imagine algorithms making dumb decisions when too heavily relied upon. I did want a bit more from this book. There were several threads that we never really got to unravel. I’m left with many questions and the ending was a bit abrupt. Overall a really great read and one I’d recommend to those who appreciate dystopian lit fiction.

Thank you to Pantheon for the free ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This out next week on 3/4!

Dystopian/Speculative Fiction. Imagine a world in which everyone single piece of data about you is factored into a risk score which is used to predict how likely you are to commit a crime. From interactions on social media, to your finances, to even the contents of your dreams. For Sara, she was desperate to get sleep after she had twins and agreed to a brain implant that would help her sleep, but in the fine print it said they also had access to all her dreams. After an encounter gone wrong in the airport, Sara’s risk rating is deemed to high after dreams of killing her husband and she is sent to a retention center for a 21 day hold to ensure she’s no longer a danger. But after breaking some arbitrary rules at the center three weeks turns into months, and Sara is still no closer to being released. Sick of the control, Sara starts to break the status quo of the center to at least feel some type of freedom, but that means she might not make it home at all.

WHOOO this was DARK. In a society where so much of our data is already sold and private corporations are profiting off of human suffering (ie prison), the thought of an algorithm used to “prevent future crime” which uses DREAMS is pretty wild. This felt like a episode of Black Mirror meets Orange is the New Black. I was hooked - great writing and story telling and a super original plot.