This was such an interesting concept that sucked me in! The exploration of a twisted justice system that isn't too far from our reality was disturbing and intriguing. The writing style was nuanced and I really connected with the main character and felt her anxiety and stress throughout the book. This book definitely reads like dystopian fiction but is also deeply rooted in reality making it even more disturbing of a story. My only complaint is I kept getting the side characters and different inmates confused. I wish they had slightly more differentiation or backstory so I could tell who was who throughout. Overall, this was a interesting and haunting read and I really wish it was a series and we could learn even more about the world and the technology.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami was very good and very different. If you like dystopian, sci-fi, frightening technology, introspective, will have you questioning your dreams then you will love this book.

Lalami did such a fantastic job with this book. The story line and plot reminded me of Minority Report. Sara is detained in at LAX returning from a work trip. She is married and recently had twins. She went over her 5 points and they are trying to figure out why. She is sent to a prison like facility for having dreams of doing harm. This book made me angry and also made me wonder what would be like if this were to really happen. Everyone under an AI program to monitor and prevent crime regardless of whether you would act on it or not. So good!! Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions.

I thought this was a really fantastic science fiction dystopia, reminded me of episodes of Black Mirror. The story does a cool thing where it's non-linear, the timing shifts around in a really interesting way. I thought this was a great book overall!

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if every facet of our lives was documented and controlled by AI, including our dreams? The Dream Hotel offers a stark view of how technology, and particularly AI systems can control our not too distant future.

Sara Hussein is used to extra questioning in airports but when she is flagged at LAX after returning from a business trip in London based on her risk score, specifically her sleep data, she quickly learns the consequences of allowing AI to scan personal data for risk. After reasonable pushback on Sara’s part, in combination with the nature of her dreams, she is deemed a risk to her husband and sent to a retention center for 21 days. She had no idea that the digital sleep program she opted to have implanted is actually recording and analyzing her dreams and that what happens in her dreams can be used against her. 21 days come and go and she soon realizes she will remain detained unless and until she figures out a way to disrupt the systems that placed her here.

This story could easily be an episode of Black Mirror, it evokes the scary side of technology and highlights its flaws in truly analyzing and understanding human nature. I loved the characters and found myself turning every page hoping to see Sara, and her friends, reunited with their families. This story evoked a level of anxiety I haven’t experienced since reading the School for Good Mothers. As someone who uses technology to track biometrics on a daily basis (Apple Watch, Oura Ring, etc.) stories like this are a good reminder that we must retain a balance in the use of technology and never trust AI to fully replace the ability to understand the human psyche.

If you’re looking for some motivation to disconnect from your digital footprint or scale it back, this is definitely the book for you. Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for my copy of this book; all opinions are my own.

This book will make you angry, and if it doesn't, it should.
Alarmingly prescient, The Dream Hotel shows the knife's edge of navigating a system designed against you, and how easy it is to slip.
Sara finds herself in a women's retention facility (statedly NOT a prison, but if it walks like a duck...) after her risk score inexplicably rises above the accepted threshold.
Guilty until proven innocent by an algorithm that is actively searching for things she could be guilty of, Sara spends her days trying to move unseen in a heightened surveillance state, and her nights escaping into dreams that can be used as evidence against her.

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

I found myself needing to take breaks throughout reading this because, while it is an excellent read, it can feel a bit hopeless, given that our current affairs are but a hair's breadth away from the book's reality.
Hopeless and angry.
And while us readers are allowed to get viscerally mad for Sara-- frown, scoff, swear aloud at d*ckwad Hinton-- she has to simmer her rage, keep it silently roiling. I think that tangible contrast between us made this story that much more poignant.

Also, Sharp Jello is a great band name.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you Pantheon and NetGalley for this ARC! Always a pleasure to receive a free book in exchange for my honest review.

I was super excited to see that I was approved for this book! The premise 100% gives me Black Mirror vibes and I am HERE for it! Which is why I am so sad to say that this book fell flat for me. I wanted to love it so much......this is a skip for me.


1/5

Holly Collins

Thank you for providing the advanced copy of Dream Hotel. This was a uniquely thought-provoking read, simultaneously terrifying and yet unsettlingly imaginable.

Set in a near-future America where dreams are under surveillance, the story begins with Sara's detention at the airport. An algorithm, analyzing her dream data, predicts she will harm her husband, leading to her confinement in a retention center. Here, she joins other "dreamers," predominantly women, all striving to prove their innocence. As minor infractions lead to extended stays, Sara confronts the oppressive system and the powerful tech companies controlling their lives. The novel compellingly questions the balance between convenience and freedom, and the very essence of identity under constant surveillance.

The pacing of the book felt somewhat restrained. I honestly anticipated a dramatic climax that would challenge and potentially dismantle the deeply disturbing system presented. However, the narrative remained largely focused on a personal level, and the conclusion didn't quite reach the explosive point I had envisioned. While I was immensely intrigued by the world-building and the potential it suggested, I found the middle section somewhat slow, and the ending, for me personally, lacked complete satisfaction. Nevertheless, Dream Hotel remains a very interesting and relevant read that is undoubtedly worth the reader's time.

This book was a wonderful commentary on how our thoughts and every move could become data to be used and taken advantage of by authorities. How might we prevent crime, and might extreme prevention methods, such as that in The Dream Hotel, challenge our humanity?

I found this story compelling and enticing and the events in this book extend the idea and action of profiling, which happens in society every day. This is a great example of what happens when it's taken too far. Then when you are incarcerated or held against your will, the goalposts of innocence move. I thought the book could have been shorter to get the same point across, but overall this is an incredible novel.

I loved the concept of this book and felt it had such high potential, but the execution fell flat for me. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, the story was soooo slow, and in the end it felt like nothing really even happened. So sad that I didn't love this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for the ARC.

Thanks NetGalley, Pantheon and Laila Lalami for allowing me to read The Dream Hotel before it’s March release.

This was a bit disappointing for me, I really looked forward to this read and it just felt short. I felt no connection to the characters and I just it read just meh. So many plot holes, it was almost a DNF.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon publishing for the ARC of The Dream Hotel in exchange for an honest review.
2 STAR

Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel presents a chilling near-future scenario where even dreams are monitored by AI-driven government agencies. The novel follows Sara Hussein, a Moroccan American woman detained by the Risk Assessment Administration, a federal agency that uses biometric data to predict potential crimes. Though Sara has committed no wrongdoing, her “risk score” is deemed high enough to warrant confinement in a retention center, where she and other detainees must prove their innocence.

Lalami masterfully constructs a world that feels eerily plausible, drawing on contemporary concerns about surveillance, predictive policing, and corporate exploitation. The novel’s structure—interspersed with official reports, transcripts, and bureaucratic jargon—adds to the realism, making Sara’s predicament all the more unsettling. I felt Lalami’s vision of this book was so unique her, offering a fresh critique of the ways technology can be weaponized against personal autonomy.

If you enjoy speculative fiction with a sharp social critique, *The Dream Hotel* is a must-read. It’s a novel that lingers in the mind long after the final page, prompting reflection on the balance between security and personal liberty

In a routine flight for work, a woman is initially kept in interrogation by security and moved to confinement with other women. The detained women score high on a personal and societal risk test. As such, The Dream Hotel is a dystopian, maybe magical realism story.

If I can’t get into a book for some reason by about 30%, I DNF it. Also, I have never not finished a gifted ARC. Unfortunately, I had to DNF The Dream Hotel at the 30% or so mark because of recent occurrences covered by the news. I normally love a satirical story or even a story that borders the horror genre to emphasize true events in time. However, the increased news coverage of the American government detaining illegal migrants and legal residents mirrored the plot too closely. For my mental health, I had to put The Dream Hotel down. Maybe I will circle back to it at a later time when the story doesn’t feel so heartbreakingly real.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC. Since I DNF this book, I opted not to share it on my GoodReads account. I think readers should pick up The Dream Hotel because of its important message. However, it was too personal for me, and I don't want my review to deter others from Lalami's newest.

This was a 4.5 star read rounded up. I really loved this story and what it says about our technological world in a near future. At the start we meet Sara as she is being retained because of her risk score. She is sent to a retention center (“not a jail”) where she will be observed and monitored until her risk can be assessed. As her stay continues to get extended we see how terrible society can be and how banding together can help humans make it through.

I liked a lot about this book. It wasn’t perfect but was very eye-opening. I really loved the aspects of community explored throughout. I liked the near dystopian quality of the story and I really liked how realistic it felt.

A woman named Sara is detained at the airport on her way home from a business trip. It's determined that she is a threat to her husband. In short order, Sara finds herself at a former school turned "retention center" along with other women who are deemed "dangerous". This is the gist of The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami's sixth book.

Although the reader glimpses others' lives, the story unfolds mainly though Sara's eyes. As a protagonist, she's a homerun: immediately likeable and easy to empathize with. There's a lot of "everyday" female experiences that Lalami also allows us to see and experience through Sara: micro-aggressions in a facility run by (mainly) men, sexualizing the female body, the tension of needing to be seen as a certain way in order to be credible|liked|"pass" as normal, an imbalance of power in relationships and how labor and care work is divided up at home. I felt myself nodding, groaning, fuming and being embarassed for Sara. That's good writing. Other characters - the guards, other detainees, Sara's husband - are realistic, move the story forward and add to the development of Sara's character.

I hesitate to say the book is "compulsively readable" but I stayed up later than I wanted reading it! I was attached to the story, horrified by the events unfolding and cared what happened to Sara. The Dream Hotel is not only propulsive but feels tense and current. In some ways this book is more alarming than other "classic" dystopian reads (The Handmaid's Tale or a Fahrenheit 451) or those on a "best" list. Sara's United States doesn't feel like a distant future that our kids will have to deal with. The theme of overreaching technology and life in a world run by an algorithm seems real and highly possible.

In the afterward, Lalami says there's a space of 6ish years between when she started The Dream Hotel (2014) and when she finished it (during the pandemic). For me, this gap explains the challenges I did have with this book. Loose ends (characters who don't propel the story, dialogue / observations that adds nothing to the story, not filler exactly but loops that aren't fully explored or closed tightly) an ending that seems not quite right / anti climactic and an overall sense of rushing through the final 30ish pages of the book. It seems to me that Lalami lost her ooomph a bit when she came back to the book. I wonder if others noticed the same?

I recommend The Dream Hotel to readers who liked The School for Good Mothers; gravitate toward dystopian; notice the uneasy nexus between control and "harmless" technology.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC of this book!

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC of this book! The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami was such an engrossing read. I would consider this sci-fi dystopian with an important message for us today. The government has figured out a way to predict crime, and in the interest of “safety” they will detain anyone flagged as likely to commit a crime. Detain is a key word here, anyone detained is practically jailed, with any misconduct extending detainment. Sara, our protagonist, was detained going through the airport. Her dreams, along with other data points, have deemed her a risk to her husband. In a world where surveillance is growing, where we put cameras in our own homes and carry a tiny microphone and camera with us everywhere, where we send our DNA off for analyzing, or track our periods, we should really be thinking about the implications. How will our data be used? Already airports are using facial recognition software, when will it go too far? I enjoyed this book, I will be thinking about it for quite some time.

It took me a little while to get into this book, because I'm a mother of two young girls, and I really have to prep myself for books that involve moms being away from their kids, or any other traumatic circumstance. But once I pushed past that and got into the meat of the story, I started to enjoy it.

This is a near-future sort of sci-fi story about people who are detained because of crimes that MIGHT commit. And they are found because the government monitors everyone's dreams. Once you are in, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to get out, and the reader gets the distinct feeling that there is no actual system in place for release.

This was an interesting one, though I can't say I would recommend it to many readers I know. It is a tough read for emotional reasons, and also because it seems like it's just around the corner in real life. And I can only take so much of that when I'm reading to escape.

The Dream Hotel was one of those books where the concept totally hooked me, but the execution just didn’t land the way I hoped. It wanted to be deep and dystopian and thought-provoking—and sometimes it was!—but other times it felt like it was trying too hard to be profound instead of letting the story unfold naturally. I didn’t hate it (the writing is objectively solid and the themes are super timely), but I was kind of bored and frustrated for a good chunk of it. It’s giving "literary Black Mirror with a side of slow burn existential dread," and that might work for some people—but for me, it was just meh.

This book showed such promise. The first 25% really captured my attention. Then, the author spent the next 70% in a morass of the confined citizens. The author states in the afterward that she started this book in 2014, finishing it during the pandemic. It just feels like she lost her juice when she came back to it. I would give it 3.5 stars if allowed. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was incredible! It was such an interesting concept, especially in today’s political climate, very Handmaids tale, a little too close to reality, but enthralling!