This was an interesting speculative fiction story, and despite still struggling to tease out my overall feelings about it, it’s one that I’ve been continually thinking about since I finished it. Perhaps it’s because while this novel is written as a dystopian tale, it also feels like something that is far too close to home already.

The story follows Sara, a working mom of infant twins who gets detained at LAX when coming home from a business trip. The Risk Assessment Administration has used all of its data and algorithms, including data about Sara's dreams, and recognized that her "risk score" is too high, meaning that she is in imminent danger of committing a crime and must be sent to a facility for three weeks until the danger period passes. From there, we follow Sara's experience in the facility, her relationships both formed inside and with her family on the outside, and how it seems like the world is out to get her, even though she hasn’t ever actually done anything wrong in the first place. Everything in this story really makes you think twice about how much information all of the current technology in today's world is capable of gathering about you already - although it makes our lives easier in so many ways, at what sacrifice?

The book started off rather slow for me and got to be a little meandering and monotonous at times, but I also think maybe that was intentional to further emphasize the comparison to today's world. Although it was often easy to root for Sara given the position she finds herself in, essentially imprisoned because of her “risk”, I also wanted to know more about her backstory and motivations - but again, perhaps that was intentional, leaving the reader with the unsure feeling of an unreliable narrator without actually implementing a super unreliable narrator. That being said though, I do wish there was a little more character depth throughout - I wanted to know more about the characters in the facility with Sara and I’m so intrigued by the author’s choice to include just one single chapter from another character’s POV.

All in all, it was an enjoyable reading experience, while also feeling like an eerie cautionary tale that has kept my wheels turning. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The dream hotel is a much hyped novel by beloved novelist Laila lalami. The novel is reminded of minority report and takes place in a near future la. Sara is being detained returning from a trip from Morocco because big tech now monitors dreams and has flagged her for potentially committing a crime against her husband. Sara is detained with other women who have shown the same risk. Sara fights to get out of detention and prove that her dreams are only dreams. Exposing the risks of big tech when it has too much over reach, the novel feels very real and very timely to our current situation in our world and where we could be heading with tech.

I loved the set up of and the first 60-70%. I am not sure why but the last 30% lost some momentum for me, but I would still highly recommend this! A great balance of plot and character!

Thanks to the publisher for providing this arc via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Laila Lalami’s fifth novel, The Dream Hotel, is a near-future dystopian tale involving Sara Hussein, a Moroccan-American returning home to LA from a conference she attended in London. When she lands in LA, she is pulled aside by Risk Assessment agents and told that she will soon commit a crime. They believe this to be true based on data they have procured from her dreams. The crime she is going to commit is harming her husband. Sara goes to a retention center, where she is held along with other women, trying to prove that they are innocent and their dreams are simply dreams. Deprived of her freedom for an extended period of time for her pre-crime tendencies, Sara mounts a small-scale resistance against the companies responsible for creating the biometric data. Although the story exposes the plight of big tech’s capacity to exploit our every movement and thought, this genre is not my cup of tea; it is a unique, well-imagined, and written story. Those who like dystopian novels will love it.

This book was terrifying. Not in the "somone jumping out at you" kind of way, but the idea of a our privacy and liberty being put in jeopardy in a way that is not entirely unbelievable. The main character, Sarah, is on her way back to her husband and twins when she is flagged at LAX. She is taken to a detention center becasue her dreams were flagged, indicating that there was a likely chance that she would commit a crime in the near future.

At times, I had to put this book down becasue it was just too real and creepy. That being said, it was GREAT! If you want to be freaked out in a non-traditional way, read this book!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

This book hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting, and I could not put it down. It’s my current best read of 2025– and as someone who has already clocked ~70 books that is definitely a hard title to earn.

I am thrilled with so many of the books that published this week, including 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑫𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑴 𝑯𝑶𝑻𝑬𝑳 𝒃𝒚 𝑳𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒂 𝑳𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒊 #gifted to me via @netgalley by @pantheonbooks and audio #partner @prhaudio which is my favorite combo!

I had been reading about halfway when I added the audio, narrated by Frankie Corzo & Barton Caplan, which was a great addition. It added an intensity of hopelessness turned resolve.

I was truly taken by this premise of retaining people before they commit a crime based on certain behavioral cues. Sounds reasonable, right? I think ideas like this are appealing and culture is likely to accept them because they feel like a personal safety protection. This book shows the very real issues that occur when either specific people are in charge of these programs or even when the 'algorithm' is given such power over lives without nuance or humanity.

I was instantly enmeshed in the retention center with Sara as the technology she implanted for sleep deprivation tagged her for retention. To see how she processed her time there and the decisions she made as she began to understand the deeper tacks that made this system work was brilliant and terrifying in its possibility. Technology, data collection, capitalist only institutions, and corrupt leaders combine for a speculative fiction horror that has made me take note.

I'll start off by saying i simply adored this book in its entirety. A near future look into the control that having a digital footprint has on us, and the consequences of it? The way that everything felt so eerily real, like this could happen any day now with the advancements of artificial intelligence (an algorithm, really) and the way that we leave everything in our lives available to be looked at online.

A book that really made me consider the world around me, and the stakes we are all willing to go for this so-called safety. From the beginning, with our main character's explanation on the safety--the reasoning behind the implementation of the algorithm--I just knew that this book was going somewhere. And somewhere it went. It covered the basis of control, of what constitutes risk, and about what exactly makes us humans. It got me thinking about how humanity is simply all risks. Every day is risks, and though this book tries to show a world where it can "possibly" be avoided, there is a deeper seeded message to what is being said. That message is what really elevated it to me. It's about control, really, and how much as can and do know about the companies and the government with which we have.

Our main character is detained on the risk that she might possibly do something, a risk that has been calculated according to an algorithm that has access to her dreams. For fans of Black Mirror, and for people who want to be creeped out over a near future that sounds all too real.

For fans of Severance, Black Mirror, & Minority Report; Lalami’s latest book takes us to the near future where a sleep implant promises our MC, a new mom of twins, a full night of deep rest. The only problem? The implant comes with your standard form legalese for data storage/sharing, which she easily consents to as we all so often do with our new tech. This lands her in a load of trouble when she’s detained at the airport for an alleged violent dream in which she threatens to harm her husband. Where Lalami takes us from there is a wild ride of completely possible restrictions on our freedom; commentary on the prison system and private contractors who profit off the free labor of inmates; a look into the ways women and specifically women of color are oppressed with a smile in systems designed for this purpose; and of course the dystopic exploration of how far is too far when it comes to tech/AI/social media and what we may not even realize we are losing in pursuit of likes, engagement, and followers. Thanks to Pantheon & Tertulia co-op for the gifted copy!

For me, the strength of The Dream Hotel was that so many parts of it seemed feasible. It was very easy to empathize with the frustrations of the MC, a regular person, navigating a nebulous system. A black box algorithm weighing things a bit wrong, the wrong (but entirely human) reactions at the wrong time and some bad luck can cause trouble to anyone at any time. I loved the criticisms on how hard it is to navigate legal systems for the incarcerated (though technically the people are only being retained). It’s also an intriguing look at what can collectively come from the data collected about us through the myriad of apps we consent to track us. I thought Lalami managed to hit home with several of the points she was making but I think there was room for more exploration and I really wanted more from some of the subplots.
There was a lot here that reminded me of The School for Good Mothers and with the futuristic technologies (no gladiator fights here sorry) Chain Gang All Stars. Both of these were Read with Jenna picks and I’m unsurprised to see this one is rumored to be one too.

would i sign away my life to get some decent sleep? unfortunately, yes

i'll take speculative fiction about prison that doesn't feel like speculation for 500, alex. in this future surveillance state, people are "retained" on suspicion that they might commit a crime sometime in the future based on an algorithm-determined risk score. i recently read Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI and the author describes very similar predictive policing programs, including a program in amsterdam that predicted the "top 400" most likely minors (!!) to commit crimes, and then proceeded to implement excessive and invasive monitoring for these children, which of course went about as well as you would expect.

lalami integrates late-stage capitalism into this concept in a way that feels both real and terrifying, as dreams are commodified and arbitrary reasons are contrived to keep the "retainees" in their facility and providing cheap labor. sara's alternating frustration, rage, and hopelessness were conveyed so well, and the way dreams are used in the narrative feels fresh.

highly recommend for fans of literary dystopian and speculative fiction!
thank you to netgalley/publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book gave me anxiety--because what if this really could happen! Sara is sent to a retention center because her dreams indicate that she could be harmful to others--especially her family. She and the other detainees are treated like prisoners and their "stay" keeps getting extended for months and months. Very gripping read. Thank you to Netgalley for an advance copy.

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year it did not disappoint.
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami exceeded my expectations; it was both emotional and heartwarming, and the characters were so memorable. I was totally engaged throughout the entire novel.
The book was full of vivid descriptions and vivid imagery to the point where I felt like I had slipped into the pages.

I had high hopes for this book. I was expecting an exciting and gripping dystopian novel but got a story that just dragged on and on and seemed to have no purpose. The ending was a let down as well. There was one chapter that seemed liked it was randomly thrown in. I actually thought the story line would pickup after that chapter but then it went back to the slow prison story. The premise reminded me of P. K. Dick’s [book:The Minority Report|581125] and the predictive policing but it fell flat for me.

I was so excited to see this was selected as the Read with Jenna March book. The book is set decades in the future when technology is so advanced that even your dreams aren’t safe from data collection. The book follows FMC, Sara, whose dreams have elevated her ‘risk score’ resulting in her being retained in a holding facility until her ‘risk’ to others- determined by an algorithm-is decreased. Though she has no criminal record, the seemingly helpful retention center is more comparable to a prison.

The book did an excellent job at keeping my attention. It definitely gave ‘scholarly / tame Orange is the New Black’ vibes, which I loved. The author did a good job peppering in enough scenes from the past without it distracting from the present. There are quite a few dreams describes throughout the book, which I typically don’t like reading dream scenes-often because they are pointless-but they worked out well in this book, and rightfully so considering the novel’s blurb and title.

The underlying messages throughout the book are strong, and the emotion is high. So many times I wanted to yell at the FMC, “don’t do that, just say silent and comply”- easily said from my cushy reading area. Rationalizing with FMC’s situation though, I quickly could see how easy it would be to become frustrated, angry, hopeless, and sad. The topics discussed in this book may seem too futuristic and unlikely but in a world where injustices occur so commonly and technology/AI is incorporated more and more into our daily lives, I pose the question: are we doomed to suffer a similar fate?

I highly recommend this book!!

So unique and thought provoking, a scary glimpse at the continued progress of technology and the government invading our privacy.

The Dream Hotel was a fantastic surprise! From the moment I started reading, I was completely hooked, staying up late to find out what would happen next. The concept of others being able to see and use your dreams is truly chilling, making this story feel both thrilling and unsettling in the best way. It reminded me of my favorite dystopian novels—thought-provoking, immersive, and eerily plausible. The world Lalami builds is so compelling that I don’t think this story ends here. I’ll be eagerly waiting to see what comes next!

The Dream Hotel starts with a woman being detained at LAX after a trip abroad due to concerns about her… dream behavior.

In Lalami's new novel, it looks like the future of data mining will likely be part of our demise as people are “legally retained” for the chance they “might” harm themselves or someone else as dictated by their dreams.

If behaviors that randomly pop through their heads WHILE THEY ARE SLEEPING are deemed too dangerous, they are put in a prison-like facility while their brain activity is assessed.

I love speculative fiction, but also, any sci-fi/dystopia-esque type novels as of late never seem too much of a stretch anymore, so proceed with caution and absorb the new interpretation of what it means to accept technology’s terms and conditions.

Thank you NetGalley and Pantheon for this ARC.

First off, I hate AI so much, always have. This book makes me hate it even more. I'd be good to never hear the words AI again and for us not to go down this path. This dystopian near future hit way too close to home. As I type this on my smartphone I'm thinking maybe I should go off grid after reading this lol

For real though this was a very unique book and definitely felt like an episode of Black Mirror. I loved the journey, the characters, and the story. The only thing I didn't love was the ending. A lot of loose ends were still there and it felt very anticlimactic. Though I don't know how they could have ended it differently.

If you love Black Mirror and dystopian, this is a great read though. The journey is worth it either way!

A very unique book that is set in the near future in a dystopian world - this held my attention and I could not stop reading. Highly recommend this book because it addresses so many different issues related to racism, sexism, and the justice system.

My favorite genre is by far and away speculative fiction, so I was really looking forward to jumping into this novel. The Dream Hotel tells the story of a future where predictive algorithms are used to prevent crime, and individuals can be retained based on the future crimes they could commit. The main character, Sara, finds herself detained when a few recent dreams in which she hurts her husband raise her risk score.

This was so promising, but for me, this was ultimately pretty disappointing due to strange issues with pacing. It drags a lot in the beginning when it spends way too much time establishing just how awful and unjust the detention is. Then there is randomly what feels like a disconnected chapter-long short story about halfway through before it rushes through a quite unsatisfying ending.

There were so many good ideas in here and I just think that the author's writing style isn't a good match for me. I am confident that many other fans of speculative fiction will enjoy this one!