This book was unique and hauntingly beautiful. What would we do if our dreams caused us to be held responsible for what they reflected. It is a scary and haunting thought, yet one I could see people trying to harvest the power of in the future. I love how the book is laid out, incorporating the past, present, and dream world. I think readers are going to be enchanted by this unique book.
Thank you so very much to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

Thanks so much to Pantheon and NetGalley for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review!

Having recently struggled with insomnia, this story felt particularly prescient to me - the speed at which I would sign up for something to help me fall asleep and sleep through the night, fine print be damned...

And I feel that this story has been released at exactly the right time. It's about five seconds into our future, really honing in on how systems of power justify surveillance and how life conveniences can paper over truly questionable and harmful practices. There is also a lot in this story about how resistance starts, the ways that humans in adversity find ways to express themselves and combat injustice.

But unfortunately, the characters and ending really dropped this down for me. Ultimately, I was never chomping at the bit to pick this story up because it was oddly rather boring throughout the middle. The character's inner monologue often didn't seem to match her speech and/or actions. She'd have these revelations and really poignant thoughts about what was going on, complete with steps to take to withstand and even counter the injustices happening to her and others...but when she tries to tell others about these beliefs, it comes out very flat, and many of her plans go unspoken and ultimately unresolved.

The ending is unsatisfying (Spoiler tag on book review websites linked here)

So this falls into great premise, interesting concepts that prove VERY relevant to today, and a lackluster execution.

I would typically pick a book like this from a shelf to read-the genre typically isn't my cup of tea. This book was amazing. Eye-opening, provocative, timely. Not dystopian, but a parallel world in which we teeter on falling into. I do wish that the book was a bit more wrapped up at the end. The release of Sara and Toya seemed to need more discussion as to why it happened. Strike? Norovirus? The knowledge of Einsley? It seemed a bit abrupt.

For a dystopian sci-fi, the world Laila Lalami crafts in The Dream Hotel is disturbingly closer to reality than fiction. While this isn’t a genre I usually consume, I devoured this with a morbid curiosity at the implications that what the main character faces could in fact happen to any of us—if not now, then in the near future. The way this book examines surveillance, privacy, systematic injustice, and the incarceration system are so thought provoking and simultaneously filled me with intrigue as well as dread as I read on, especially when nearing the last 20%.

Although the book seemed to lag in the middle, I really like how the author included various types of media to help tell the story, such as articles and reports. Additionally, the subtle inclusion of drastic climate change patterns helps to build this speculative world that has become a little too close for comfort. The narrative this book presents is so plausible it’s horrifying, posing the question of how free we really are in a world increasingly ruled by technology. The thoughts this book has left me will stay with me for a long time; definitely a required read for how critical our current timeline is.

4.25 stars! Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fascinating book for me, both the book - which is very well written, and the issues of privacy and tech surveillance it raises. Set in a world not far different from our own, it's a frightening look at the way that technology and government can intersect to take our rights away. Four stars for the story, but for the issues it raises, I upped it to 5⭐. Read this!

I received an advanced complimentary digital copy of this book from Netgalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

OOOO This book was so good!! First I want to start by saying, typically I do not like to read anything political. In any way, shape, or form, I just don't enjoy it. However, this book proved me wrong. Although the politics were subtle and not outright in your face, political aspects were definitely there. Overall the story was such a unique plot. An implant that allows you to sleep 4-5 hours a day and that is all you need? Heck yes I would take that too. However, the repercussions and government outreach with this technology is INSANE! I could not put this book down, I had to know what was happening and what was going to happen next! I especially loved all the little snippets throughout, such as the emails, risk score logs, announcements, and meeting minutes. I felt like it added some good fun context to the plot. My only issue, was that ending. UGH, I want more, I have so many questions. I need to know more about the dream sharing and that company. What happens to Sara, what happens to the retention center??? I feel like this book needed and deserved a revolution so bad!!! Fingers crossed that there is a second book, because it is definitely an open ending. 100% recommend the read though!!

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon publishing for providing me an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for my review.

The Dream Hotel is a thought-provoking book that challenges you to think about a seemingly post-apocalyptic world, where surveillance is everywhere from social media apps to chip implants, which is scary to think about given our societal shift towards AI. This book made me pause and consider how much data is truly being collected and tracked based on browsing social media, shopping online, using genetic tests, and writing prompts for AI.

The monotonous subplot and the slower pacing at the middle of the book provided a glimpse into the nature of Sara's exile, along with the unfair bias and micro aggressions that occur for minority groups. I loved how the book set up the world of dreams, identifying crimes before one commits them, and how the high-tech implants provide restful sleep in a few hours.

This book as a series would be very interesting! I wish the book focused more on Sara's life outside of retention, but I think the climatic buildup in this book great, the ending did seem a little short; nonetheless, 'The Dream Hotel' is a great introduction to the future of where medical devices, data privacy, social justice, and moral ethics can take us and its consequences.

I just finished this book and I have so many thoughts. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. This is also one of the most prescient and relevant books I think I've ever read. I feel like everyone alive in 2025 should read this book, because this is where we are, and where we are headed. It felt so current and scary and thought provoking reading this book. At times, I found myself angry at what had been done to Sara and her fellow retainees, all because people had decided we should just what a person might do in the future based on their thoughts and dreams. I wish it didn't feel so plausible! The writing was so effortless to get into, and I found myself at times slowing down my reading, so that I could savor this. But I also wanted to speed through it because I was so invested in where the story was going.

This book was absolutely outstanding, and I highly recommend it. I will definitely be seeking out this author in the future.

The Dream Hotel
by Laila Lalami
Science Fiction Dystopia Speculative
NetGalley eARC
Pub Date: March 4, 2025
Knopf, Pantheon...
Ages: 14+

Sara, a new mother of twins, fresh off a plane after one of her first conferences since coming back to work, is detained by the Risk Assessment Administration because her RAA number (a combination of her life activity, disagreements, and other factors recorded by 'smart' technology, including the chip in her head that monitors and records her dreams) is over five hundred, so it's determined that she is about to commit a crime and is taken to a retention center for a twenty-one day observation period to get her number under five hundred.

But with the strict rules being changed on the whims of her minders, thus adding to her RAA number, she finds herself, like the other women there, denied release because their numbers keep rising. After months of trying to follow the rules, a new resident arrives, and Sara, along with the other long-term residents, is shocked when the woman is released after her twenty-one day observation period, something that rarely happens.


This is a story about the greed of companies and their reasoning for using Big Brother surveillance to prevent crimes while adding money into their pockets from consumers who buy and use these products. Plus if one is put into observation, they are charged outrageous prices for bedding, clothes, and to make calls (which drop after a few seconds), and using tablets to email family/lawyers.

I can see this in our not so distant future because of our heavy reliance on technology, allowing it, and those who create it, to control our lives as we allow it to invade our privacy.

The idea of the story was good, but the presentation wasn't. I was quickly bored because of the lack of history, and also there were a few issues, like people living off the grid/hiding, but the author forgot about the satellites above us; which if the technology was that advanced, would have no problem to find those who are hiding.

But worse was Sara's containment. I get the added drama and shock, but if the technology was that advanced, knew everything about a person, and all factors were taken into consideration as claimed, her medical history of being a new mother to twins, would have exempted her from a stay, instead more of an outpatient check-in.

Little faults like that were irritating as was the lack of details and depth in why the book was titled the 'Dream Hotel'. Sure dreams were a factor, (and the blurb claims the women are dreamers) but not enough was explained to make it fit, until …. spoiler.... Something like 'Tec Hotel for Women' would have matched better.

Even though I felt for Sara, and was angry at how unfairly the system was rigged and treated her, I was disappointed in the story.

2 Stars

Laila Lalami, the author of The Other Americans, is back this March with The Dream Hotel: a literary dystopian novel set in the near future where every part of our lives, including our dreams, are under AI surveillance. Our main character, Sara, is pulled at the airport and detained for three weeks for a crime she hasn't committed but maybe will based on her dreams. Those weeks quickly turn to months as Sara tries everything she can to return home to her husband and children.

What makes us human is at the crux of all great literature, and is certainly at play on every page here. This was eerie and prescient and page turning. Interspersed through Lalami's exquisite prose are emails, reports, etc on Sara and when Sara is told the data doesn't lie, she knows it doesn't tell the truth either. While at times this felt a bit monotonous, that was very indicative of Sara's time spent in the retention center. It made me want to scream when the rules of this chess game Sara is forced to play but the powers at be change the rules everyday.

Thank you @pantheonbooks for the chance to read this ahead of its March 4th publication. I recommend checking this one out!

We generally think of violence as something visible. It’s graphic. It’s gory. It’s easy to identify.

But I think violence has its subtleties. It’s a cruel and quiet violation, but it doesn’t leave a mark that others can see.

The Dream Hotel bursts with a violence that never results in physical injuries. In a society working to prevent violent crime, we see the irony of intrusive assaults that do not fit into a black and white definition.

This is a soft hum of a novel, peeling away at the layers of control that govern the characters while creating a scenario that feels both terrifying and plausible. The message is there, but it’s never screamed at us. We need to think about the content to recognize what it is saying.

We are living in a surveillance state. Technology, despite all of its benefits, is bloated with issues, and as we further embrace it, we discover how those issues affect us. That is, if we are paying attention. Lalami examines this carefully, and while her story never explodes climatically, it gives readers a host of flavors to chew on. This is an important book… no, no… a necessary book, and I firmly believe that everyone should read it.

I am immensely grateful to Pantheon Books and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.

This is a timely and well written critique of surveillance, technology, and what it might mean to be a woman in the near future. I think this book would make a fantastic book club read and I wouldn't be surprised if we see it chosen for some of the major book clubs.

A review of the novel will go up on my instagram account, @stressiereads, on Wednesday.

Thank you for the copy!

interesting premise, clearly written. i liked the subtext about sleep deprivation from parenting and how this could make mothers in particular more likely to be detained. despite all this, the plot felt a little thin and the ending a bit abrupt.

This book really takes the horrors of surveillance culture to a new extreme. A world where government agencies can monitor your dreams is an Incredibly dystopian premise that seems infinitely plausible if technology could allow for. This book dissects the disturbing implications of where society could be headed.

4.5 stars. Lalami is a masterful writer, and her newest novel is a chilling, difficult read. This is speculative fiction set in a world that is closer to becoming reality than I would like to think about. In the world of The Dream Hotel, the Risk Assessment Administration uses a massive and complex algorithm to stop crime before it happens. It pulls data from everything and everywhere, including people's dreams. Sara, a museum employee and mother of young twins, is on her way home from a routine work trip when the RAA pulls her aside and sends her to a retention center, where she is supposedly only monitored until her risk score drops and then will be sent home. Of course, the system is stacked against her and all the detainees, as the retention centers are privately run and incentivized to keep their numbers high. I read this entire book with a gnawing sense of unease, and it certainly was a challenge with the current state of dystopia we're living in right now. But this is an important book, fantastically written, that will make you reflect deeply on our increasing dependence on technology, as well as how corrupt privatized prisons and detention centers can be. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for a digital review copy.

Terrifying book. Sara is held in custody for almost a year based on an AI's determination that she is a future threat to her husband. It uses data out of context, mines her dreams, and allows for no interpretation. The rules of her incarceration are constantly changing so 'infraction' keep her there longer. But because she hasn't been charged with a crime, she has no clear legal recourse. She is stuck. Stuck with the rules she can't obey as they change. Stuck with a system designed to keep her contained for cheap labor. Stuck with technology that works randomly and whose failures have no recourse. Stuck with privileges being removed arbitrarily. You can imagine yourself in this trap, but you know that others are already there, be it the current criminal justice system or other detention camps. This book is terrifying because the incarceration aspect is already in effect with arbitrariness that makes its victims helpless and terrifying because of the overreach of technology. This book is hard to read, but I recommend you do.

The Dream Hotel has two main plot lines.

The first is the futuristic concept of retention, where AI finds patterns to assign each person a “risk score” or their likelihood to commit a crime. High-risk individuals are locked away for monitoring and a chance to reduce their risk score without putting the public in jeopardy. We follow Sara’s experience in retention and the moral, ethical, and logistical challenges of this method of crime prevention. I found this storyline to be fascinating, engaging, and well executed.

The second plot is the idea that a software company can capture dreams and use them as evidence for risk score assessments and other data-driven initiatives. This storyline fell flat for me. It started strong, but dies off half way through, which was disappointing because there was real potential in the concept.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Dream Hotel and would recommend it. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read an early copy.

This story is nightmare.
I had to know how Sara would fair in this story because I couldn’t take it if she didn’t make it out. I never trusted the situation and felt in my bones the distrust she had for the system and how there felt like no answer could be given.
Wonderfully written and giving the reader anxiety, I would definitely recommend this book

Wowow so interesting! Loved this--such a good premise for a book. Glad I got to read it!

Thank you NetGalley and Laila Lalami!

Incredible premise for a book, but I did not like this as much as I was hoping I would. It is bloated with information with barely a resolution. So many holes in the story. This book was incredibly tough to get through because for most of the book, it’s so monotonous. I enjoyed the writing, but I just feel like there was so much missing from this novel that could’ve been explored more. I was surprised with the direction that this book went and the ending was so anticlimactic. I also didn’t really like how this novel was organized. There are several parts to the novel but I really don’t understand why it’s organized like that. There was one chapter in an entirely different character’s perspective and I just really didn’t care for that. I thought the characters fell flat and lacked personality and the conversations between the women were very tedious to get through. Again, great premise though. So much about this book genuinely scared me because it seems like such a close dystopia to the current situation in America- the rise in fascism and technofeudalism. I mean the company is called Safe-X… Like it was very on the nose and creeped me out how close a reality we are to something like this. I really liked the commentary that this novel gave about being too reliant on technology and that really scared me considering we have healthcare companies that use AI to accept or deny claims in real life. Like the premise of this novel is SO close to real life and that’s why I enjoyed it so much, but overall a great premise can’t be your only saving factor for a spectacular novel. I was hoping it would get better as I read but never reached the momentum I was hoping for.

Thank you Netgalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the advanced copy!