If you liked reading “The School for Good Mothers” or you enjoyed watching “Orange is the New Black” then this is the book for you. Imagine a world where not only your actions, your friends actions and your social media can be monitored but for some, who unknowingly signed a disclaimer, your dreams can be monitored as well. Once monitored they can be judged for violence potential.
If it is thought you anger too easily then why wait for you to commit a crime? Lalami sends her characters straight to jail, or the more politically correct term, the Dream Hotel.
Sara is the protagonist in the book and she ends up there as she goes through immigration at LAX. She is inexplicably flagged and then pulled out. What we see here is clearly racial profiling. Throughout the book scenes of misogyny and racism are constants. This dystopian book is unfortunately a little too believable as we see the influence of technology creep into our lives and learn more about A.I. People are seen as objects to major corporations. Once in the system one becomes dehumanized, even to other family members.
Lalami has a great awareness of the world around us and the danger of complacency. I truly loved this book. It pulled me in and I felt Sara’s fear, frustration and anger. Highly recommend this page turner and will give it a 5.
I would like to thank Pantheon and NetGalley for an advance copy of this amazing book. These opinions of this amazing book are my own.

This was such an intriguing concept for me! I wish there was a bit more excitement throughout this book. It was a bit hard to get through, unfortunately.

“The Dream Hotel” is a dystopian novel set in California in the very near future. More literary than action-oriented, it imagines a society very much like ours today but with significant and disturbing differences caused by various technologies. Much of the novel is very well done. Some parts seemed more drawn out than they needed to be. Turns out, there’s a reason for that.

Returning home from a professional conference in London, museum archivist Sara Hussein is detained by agents of the Risk Assessment Administration. An implant Sara wears to help her sleep has enabled the RAA to monitor her dreams. That, combined with various incidents and technologies, including AI, causes the RAA to believe that Sara may soon murder her husband.

She is immediately taken to a “retention center” for a 21-day evaluation. The center is not as dangerous as a prison. Like Sara, the other “retainees” are not criminals and have not broken the law. But the center is very regimented and restrictive with many rules that must be obeyed. Rule-breakers are liable to have their stays extended (and extended and extended). The rules being unclear and open to varying interpretations by the guards, they’re very easy to break. Obtaining a hearing to gain release is difficult since they're subject to all kinds of bureaucratic delays. Sara’s initial 21 days stretch into months, during which time her professional life implodes, and her family suffers greatly. As the novel progresses and Sara becomes more resentful and rebellious, it doesn’t look like she’ll be returning home anytime soon. How will she extricate herself, if ever?

Author Laila Lalami has given readers a well-written, absorbing novel. Her characters are deeply drawn and invite us to identify and empathize with them. The world she builds and the future she foretells are imagined with clarity and specificity. Some of the technology she writes about already exists. Some does not (and may never). Hopefully, the uses to which those technologies are put will never become reality.

I had expected there to be more drama and suspense, even danger. There usually is in stories of this type--novels and films like “Fahrenheit 451,” “The Minority Report,” and “1984.” But Ms. Lalami eschewed that option to focus on the powerlessness, stagnation, frustration, and dehumanization caused by the Risk Assessment Administration, the retention centers, and the incarceration of those technology predicts will commit a crime. She shows us a mundane, bureaucratic kind of authoritarianism. No swastikas or jackboots or torchlight parades; just a complete loss of freedom for crimes never committed. It’s a novel that invites our outrage. It is a cautionary tale.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Laila Lalami, and publisher Pantheon Books for providing me with a complimentary ARC. All of the foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.

wow, this was insanely good!! if you liked school for good mothers you will definitely like this. It’s giving dystopian, black mirror vibes, the kind of story that’s creepier because it’s a little too close to reality. I feel like some parts could’ve been expanded on a little but overall, definitely one of my new favorite books and definitely one that I will be recommending all the time once it’s out. thank you netgalley for the early copy!!!

It would be too easy to say THE DREAM HOTEL is THE MINORITY REPORT meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. Instead, it is, in many ways, the new HANDMAID'S TALE, trading callous christian dominion for callous algorithmic dominion. Laila Lalami's vision of the future is terrifying because it's entirely foreseeable given the surveillance tech being deployed and developed today as well as the politics enabling their use.

The main character, Sara Hussein's, neurolink, which records her dreams? See Elon Musk's Neuralink.

The algorithm that the Risk Assessment Administration uses to determine that Sara's dreams make her a threat to her husband? See Peter Thiel's Palantir.

These two alone, who have Trump's ear and know how to get billions of dollars in government contracts, could make Lalami's Risk Assessment Administration a reality.

Algorithms that know "what you're thinking of doing, before you even know it"? See TikTok and YouTube knowing what you want and feeding you more of it.

Algorithms whose "data doesn't lie" but "doesn't tell the truth either"? See ChatGPT and all the other hallucinating AIs, whose results are taken as "scientific fact" because they're, well, math, despite how biased training data obviously affects them.

Retention centers, in which people are imprisoned, but are not convicted? See Stephen Miller's plans for Trump's horrific pre-deportation Hispanic internment camps and Texas governor Greg Abbott's willingness to provide the land.

Private prisons profiting from these prisoners? See private prison stocks soaring after Trump was elected. Dream hotels are what their shareholders dream about.

Banal American authorities banally keeping their fellow citizens in prison? See EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM. Indeed, everything in the book echoes atrocious practices in the past, such as Bush's callous terrorist watchlists, as much it predicts the future.

Most horrifying of all is how Sara is really imprisoned by her own mind. She can't escape her dreams, which, it should be pointed out, mean nothing, despite the algorithm considering them sworn confessions. (See Musk likely creating a new terrorist watchlist based on an AI analyzing peoples' tweets--especially those written by people who ditched Twitter for the much better, more social, far less vicious BlueSky.)

My problems with the book were mostly quibbles. The book drags a bit here and there, especially in the middle, and I found the dream material too pat. The private prison industry would likely gouge the prisoners even more than they do in the book given what they do today; there would likely be no physical library; there would be more violence; and Sara's strategy for resisting, however smart and hopeful, would be battled more severely, again given what happens to prisoners today who do the same thing. That said, how Lalami depicts the prisons, which is pretty close to the truth, will shock readers, and why the parts dragged makes sense given how the whole world can drag when you're imprisoned.

Finally, the writing is compulsively readable, even if Sara's plight makes you have to walk around and decompress between chapters.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early look.

This book is such an amazing piece of writing!! The themes of women being trapped and isolated and controlled is strong here., The premise of the book overall is so interesting, there is a way that they can tell a crime will be committed before it even happens, it is so futuristic (seemingly) and it was so interesting to read about, I love this book!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Lalami cleverly comments on the terrors of progressive technology in The Dream Hotel. The story takes place in the future where you can be “detained” for the content of your dreams. Even worse, you can be detained under this pretext while actually being subjected to a research study to which you have not consented.

Artificial intelligence is not equivalent to human intelligence until humans acquiesce their unique drive for self preservation. In this novel both the controllers and the controlled are essentially robots with the exception of the creative individual outliers who value their humanity above all else. Self awareness is is a gift not easily acquired and it is beyond the abilities of robotic intelligence.

The opening of this book is an absolute serve, one of the most grabbing pages I've read this year, easily. The premise of this story feels very conceivable in 2024 and I really enjoyed the world-building around all of the technology. It reminded me a little of the Black Mirror episode where your credit is how other's review you – the idea that if you're not an active surveillance participant, you're not able to do simple things like make purchases at a grocery store. The way that they describe the risk score and utilizing the algorithm without any discretion for who an individual was also felt a little too real for comfort.

I do wish there had been more exposition around Sara's relationship with her husband, and with what happened after she was released. I was really interested to learn more about how she reintegrated to society after being released and how her relationship with her family changed.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and I'll definitely recommend it, as it was super thought provoking and I didn't want to put it down!

4.25 stars.

As someone loved Kafka’s “The Trial”, I was incredibly excited to hear about this title which promises, and delivers, a thought-provoking journey through the byzantine nature of “justice systems” and probes (pun intended) how deeply society might rely on invasive technology. This was incredibly engaging from the start and had me tensing with rage and frustration throughout.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Dream Hotel comes out March 4, 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free preview of this book.

Sara is coming home from a work trip when she gets detained by the Risk Assessment Administration (RAA), a government entity whose job is to prevent crime by profiling people based on their internet activity and evaluating their dreams (which they do through a chip inserted into their skull, whose intention is to help with insomnia). Sara is sent to a detainment camp for 21 days, but struggles to get released due to various infractions the guards create to keep her in. This for-profit detainment center makes money off of work the detainees perform while there.

The book is a look into how technology can track us, how algorithms can be wrong, how we should always read the terms and conditions, how government and companies can come together to the detriment of the public, and how delicate freedom can be.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the though provoking questions it brings up. On the face of it, identifying potential criminals for surveillance and retaining sounds like a good idea but the practical application is pretty unrealistic. I think the book had good pacing and kept me locked in, but it was sometimes I wish it was a little more subtle in his messaging and trust the readers to understand.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

This book is such an eerie and thought-provoking read! The concept of a world where even dreams are monitored is terrifyingly plausible. Sara’s journey, being held under suspicion for a crime predicted by an algorithm, feels like a chilling reflection of our data-driven society. Lalami does a brilliant job weaving tension with big questions about privacy, freedom, and humanity. The slow unraveling of Sara’s time in the detention center and her fight against the system was gripping, though at times the pace dragged a little. Fans of speculative fiction with a political edge will really enjoy this one!

My first Laila Lalami book and I can see why she's so revered.

The Dream Hotel is clear, engaging and propulsive but most of all, separate from all the trash that's being piled up in the world. Almost Kafkaesque, save for the ending which is deeply unnerving and satisfying in its simplicity at once.

Sara is a strong character to the point that I found myself thinking of her even while I was not reading the book.

I'll definitely be recommending this book.

This book was such a well written and terrifying take on our society’s obsession with technology. I was rooting for the characters and also anxious for them. Not many books have that ability in my opinion. Such a masterpiece.

BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami, from Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

One of my running schticks, if you will, on Facebook is to post about my dreams.

Some examples of such:

”I dreamed I went to work for a highly functionally integrated, heavily matrixed, cross-platform, full-service advertising agency focused on delivering its clients custom solutions -- in small disposable aluminum pans wrapped in clear cellophane and wide red satin ribbon.”

“I dreamed my preacher tried to take my flannel shirts away from me. 🙁”

“I dreamed last night about drinking cherry Kool-Aid, and man what wouldn't I give for a glass right about now . . . Also, Kiefer Sutherland took my giant metal bowl of lettuce.”

“I dreamed last night that I was covering a Fob James press conference, when suddenly he started throwing Mardi Gras beads at everyone, and then came out from behind the podium and tried to grab me and kiss me. I do not think I will eat my homemade peach/blueberry/red onion chutney that close to bedtime ever again.”

“I dreamed that I survived a vicious vampire attack at a dive biker bar in Milwaukee. After it was over, I was going around asking everyone if they had seen my large purse, which contained my red planner, which I really needed in order to continue with my projects.”

“I dreamed I had to lead a restructuring at work, and Vladimir Putin was one of the people I had to tell their position was being eliminated. I did not know what to wear.”

So, just imagine how worried somebody like me should be if the premise of The Dream Hotel ever becomes fully realized….that The Government can assign you a risk factor score in part based on what your dreams predict that you might be capable of doing.

Good God.

This book made me want to gnaw on my cuticles extra because of how plausible this particular dystopian future seems, complete with the various aspects of commercialization at play. At the same time, I felt no connection with any of the characters, even though I completely expected to with the main protagonist, especially. Everything just seemed emotionally flat.

So, 5 stars for the premise, 2 for the blah, equals 3 by my method of factoring.

PS
At this point there’s no real hope for me when it comes to living off the grid. I’m a junkie. But I do see the wisdom in following that path to the extent possible.

DESCRIPTION
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.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

The Dream Hotel is more about a future nightmare than those sometimes pleasant or sometimes confusing dreams that come in our sleep. These dreams in the future are not private. Nothing and nowhere is private when surveillance cameras, apps and implants monitor every aspect of ordinary life. Generations have lived like this and most not only accept it but welcome it in the name of safety. When Sara Hussein finds herself caught in a web where everything she says or thinks or dreams is looked upon with suspicion, she learns that it's not good enough to be good.

This story could be seen as science fiction, but unfortunately our modern society is coming very close to this as a reality. We display and celebrate the events of our lives via online social media. Our streets monitor our movements with security cameras planted on street poles, in stores and on our neighbors' homes. Financial transactions are electronically recorded in almost real time. Even our DNA has been submitted willingly for storage in databases that can be hacked.

I enjoyed reading this book immensely and it was as entertaining as it is thoughtful. Thank you Laila Lalami, Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a bleak, thought-provoking dive into a near-future dystopia that feels unsettlingly possible. It’s one of those books that sits with you long after you finish, leaving you questioning how much of your privacy you’ve already handed over to technology.

The premise is classic sci-fi: neural implants designed to help people sleep also record their dreams, and an algorithm flags potential criminals based on this data. Enter Sara Hussein, a mother and archivist, who finds herself detained at a private “retention facility” for allegedly planning to murder her husband—a crime she hasn’t committed. What follows is a Kafka-esque nightmare of bureaucratic delays, opaque rules, and the grim realization that the system designed to protect society is broken at its core.

What really makes this book shine is Lalami’s ability to weave big-picture issues like technology, justice, and surveillance with deeply personal storytelling. Sara’s character feels so real, and her struggles as an immigrant and mother add layers to the story. I do wish Lalami had delved into some of Sara's relationships—for example, the one with her husband—more fully. The story also dragged a bit at times, but that monotony kind of worked to mirror Sara’s own experience of being trapped.

This isn’t your typical action-packed dystopia. It’s more about the quiet, creeping horror of compliance—how easily we trade freedoms for convenience, and what happens when those trade-offs spiral out of control. It definitely reminded me of a bit of that Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, as well as The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.

If you’re in the mood for a challenging, unsettling read that blends sci-fi with social commentary, The Dream Hotel is a must. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance review copy!

I wasn't sure I was in the mood for bleak dystopian sci-fi that could plausibly happen in the near future, but for Laila Lalami's writing I'll hold out. This was bleak all the way through and I had a pit of dread in my stomach the whole time I was reading this, but this author's writing style takes intimate touches to illuminate bigger ideas about the legal system, climate change, technology and privacy in a way that I found beautiful and gripping.

I almost gave it five stars but I wanted a little more consistency and depth in the relationships. I felt like I knew Sara Hussein's motivations well and her character development was strong, but I wasn't sure how I felt about her relationship with her husband, for example. I wanted more background on their struggles and history. I also wanted more about her complicated feelings about motherhood. And a lot of the pacing was monotonous.

The premise was a tried and true sci fi device, AI surveillance run amok, and very similar to Minority Report, but less action thriller oriented and more in the vein of women's fiction. The story and writing style also reminded me quite strongly of Hum by Helen Phillips. Add a dash of Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares, the struggles of immigrants to assimilate to be safe, and the inherent bias in technology and the users of algorithms, and you get the Dream Hotel.

In the near future a company has implanted devices in our brains to help us sleep, but it also records our dreams. Data is collected from a variety of sources to help predict crimes. Interspersed with legal questions like due process for retainees vs detainees, philosophy and morality, the story follows Sara Hussein, who is stopped on a routine flight home from a London work conference and retained in a privately owned facility. An archivist by trade with two small children, she is suspected of intending to murder her husband. Bureaucratic delays and randomly applied rules extend her stay far beyond three weeks - because, since this wasn't techinically a prison, it fell into a legal gray area.

The changes were implemented after a large mass shooting at a Super Bowl game.

I usually like sci-fi when it teaches me something new, expands my view of the future with a reality I can't expect. I could predict the reality depicted in this story so it was more of literary exploration of human nature and the dangers of compliance than edgy sci-fi to me.

However, I thought it was fascinating how it illustrated the psychological motivations behind how easily we give up our privacy and freedoms in favor of the protection and convenience of technology, the blind ceding of the terms of service that can easily slide into corporate totalitarianism, and a bleak lesson for our times. Especially when the only solutions to stop it are revolting, thus adding to your criminal culpability, or living completely off grid and sacrificing community by protesting the ubiquity of the TOS.

A beautiful, thought-provoking, difficult, and very intense read. I'd describe it as the dangers of complying in advance to nightmare TOS's. I'm going to be better at reading those TOS after reading this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for an ARC of The Dream Hotel.

I seem to be in a very small minority here based on the other rave reviews, but I just did not care for this book. I had a hard time connecting with the main character because if I was separated from my children in a detention center for a year I would have a mental, physical and emotional breakdown...even the thought is unbearable to me, while the main character complained more about her lack of personal luxuries than she did about missing her infants. I also felt as though the pacing of the story was off as the middle 40-80% really seemed to drag without a lot happening and then the ending was very abrupt and anticlimactic.

Overall, a unique concept for a book that raises interesting questions about right and wrong in the ever-evolving world of technology, but one that ultimately fell flat for me.

2.5 stars

Dystopian novels always have my heart, and this book is no exception. This is an eerily plausible future where technology monitors every facet of your existence - from your social media interactions down to the minute details of your dreams. Personal "Risk Scores" are calculated by the government in hopes to detain criminals before they *may or may not* cause harm. However, that often doesn't go quite to plan, as you could imagine.

There were so many moments throughout reading this that I thought "yep, this sounds about right". Truly, the alternate reality that Lalami created in The Dream Hotel was so scary plausible that it often had my mind reeling. The reason why I love dystopian literature is because it's disturbingly similar to real life. So many important, real-world issues were layered into this story that it makes you sit back and wonder what could be. Beautiful and equally scary!

The book doesn't come without its flaws though. The pacing was too slow for my taste for a good portion of the book. We often bounce from present day back to past memories. While I usually enjoy flashes back to the past, this was done a little too choppily in my opinion and made it feel like the book was crawling at times.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable and resonant read for me! I highly recommend, especially for those that enjoy dystopian fiction.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an advance copy of this book.