I’m typically quite fascinated by Science Fiction stories written in a realistic manner by an author who grew up in a culture different from my own. I count Indian computer scientist Aniel Menon’s The Beast with Nine Billion Feet as one of my favorites. It’s engaging, enlightening, and intriguing with important things to say about differences amongst people and modern beauty standards.

Laila Lalami, a Moroccan-American novelist and professor, has written several books and essays that depict the culture she was raised in and involve things like immigration, American citizenship, and maintaining your identity. Her latest book, The Dream Hotel, is her first Science Fiction novel and incorporates some of the themes she has previously addressed.

The book takes place in a “near future” semi-dystopia in which individuals can be “detained” for potential crimes they’ve yet to commit. The detainings are based on a risk scores assigned to each individual that are based on a variety of factors. That includes dreams, as Sarah, the book’s protagonist, finds out in the early pages of the book upon her return to LAX.

Some time before her flight, to battle the insomnia she was plagued with, Sarah allows herself to be implanted with a device called a Dreamsaver. Unbeknownst to her, and most others with Dreamsavers, their dreams are uploaded to servers somewhere in the cloud. Those dreams are one of the aforementioned factors used to determine risk scores. A recent dream of Sarah’s in which she murdered her husband is one of the reasons she becomes detained.

The book follows her throughout her time in “The Dream Hotel,” which is a very prison-esque facility that the people in charge of adamantly tell the public isn’t a prison. Sara becomes friends with many of the other wrongfully detained prisoners and eventually plants the seeds of a revolution within “The Dream Hotel’s” walls.

This is an excellent Science Fiction tale done in a very believable manner. I’ve been on a big Severance kick lately and have been on the hunt for books with a similar feel. This definitely qualifies as such. There’s also a SMIDGE of a Phillip K. Dick and Margaret Atwood influence. I highly recommend The Dream Hotel to fans and non-fans of the genre. There’s something here for anyone to love.

I found this book to be so creative and intriguing! It's titled "Dream Hotel," but we soon find out that it is more like a prison. In this work of Dystopian Fiction, dreams are under surveillance by the government. If your dreams indicate that you MAY commit a crime, then you are detained and then transferred to The Dream Hotel for further observation. This is exactly where we find our main character Sara. She and the other women at The Dream Hotel are attempting to prove their innocence for crimes not yet done. The women form a sisterhood of sorts and try to figure out actions they can take that will lead to their release. We really see the humanity in Sara's story, as she is visited by her family. She has a husband and two young children, that she is trying to come home to. This book explores themes of technology, privacy and freedom. I won't soon forget this book. It is truly unique!

We live in a time where total surveillance is become increasingly normalized — as is, unfortunately, hostility towards anyone deemed “other” for any number of inane, societally-fabricated reasons (at least here in the good ol’ US of A). One place that we have managed to maintain a reprieve from the constant barrage of all-seeing eyes (and omnipresent advertisements) is in our dreams, where we float unencumbered — for now. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami imagines a world just barely past our own, 14 years in the future where that final REM-soaked frontier has at last been conquered by Big Sleep and their sneaky financial agendas.

Our main character is Sara Hussein, a museum archivist, wife, and new mother who finds herself detained at LAX after an algorithm pings her as a potential threat to her husband via a system created to sniff out perpetrators of future crimes (à la Minority Report). She is kept in a “retention center” that everyone keeps assuring her is not a prison, despite the fact that she cannot leave of her own volition and no longer seems to have basic human rights. What should be a 21-day stay is continuously extended, with no end in sight. Unfortunately, I fear I would wind up in the same position as Hussein — I would also make a deal with the proverbial devil to get solid, consistent sleep.

Lalami’s writing is subtle but pointed, and hits you in just the right spot to make the most of its impact. You feel more and more claustrophobic the further you wind through the book, soon enough feeling like you are trapped in this shoddy not-prison with Hussein as well. The novel does an excellent job at making you extraordinarily angry at the systems in place, which in turn makes you more uneasy about the world around us right now (because nothing in this book feels impossible, or even implausible, for our near-future). We explore themes of racial profiling, privacy (or lack thereof), a range of injustices within our prison system, and capitalism that goes completely unchecked in their total control.

I enjoy a measure of discomfort when I’m reading, and The Dream Hotel did not disappoint on that front. It was uncomfortable to imagine this as a possible future, which is an important step in an attempt to divert ourselves from allowing this future to come to pass. While I will be recommending this book to friends, there were a few points that seemed to drag a bit, a point-of-view in the middle that felt out of place, and there was less action and momentum than I anticipated (perhaps intentional, to further showcase the monotony and claustrophobia inside of the retention center). For that reason I would label this as more of a literary sci-fi.

Movies and television shows to watch after you read this book: Minority Report, Severance, A Cabin in the Woods (if you know, you know).

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for sharing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5-Star Review of The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami crafts a chilling and thought-provoking premise in The Dream Hotel, exploring the dark intersection of technology, government surveillance, and preemptive justice. In this near-future world, the Risk Assessment Department employs a powerful algorithm to predict who is likely to commit crimes, while the unsettling DreamSaver technology logs individuals’ dreams, using them as evidence of potential criminal intent.

The novel follows a protagonist who finds herself trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare—what was supposed to be a 21-day retention period spirals into an indefinite sentence, a harrowing experience that underscores the dangers of unchecked power.

While the premise is undeniably compelling, the novel’s conclusion left me wanting more. After such an intriguing setup, the ending felt somewhat underwhelming, lacking the punch I had hoped for. Despite this, The Dream Hotel is a gripping, timely read that raises important questions about privacy, free will, and the consequences of a society ruled by predictive surveillance.

It's simplistic to think that this novel is a reboot of "Minority Report," but that's exactly what I feared it would be when I started reading based on the premise. Lalami's novel explores a different variation of what it means to be incriminated and detained for the content of a dream or nightmare. Sara Hussein is detained in LAX on a flight back home, ripping her away from her husband and twin children as they circled the parking lot waiting for her to get through baggage claim. Can you imagine? Lalami asks us to consider the access we give corporations to our most personal data and what they're capable of doing with that information in the name of science and capitalism instead of humanity, care, and empathy. I didn't always feel connected to Sara, her family, or her newfound friends at the detention center, but the novel still made me think about what our constant drive for innovation may cost us.

Sometimes I can be disappointed by the premise of a novel not delivering… but man does The Dream Hotel deliver! It actually went to places I hadn’t even thought of, which can be hard to do with my overactive mind. I sometimes have wild dreams and if I could be detained for them, I could see never getting out honestly. Also, one of my biggest fears is being found guilty of a crime I didn’t commit and no one believing me.

Anyway, the only slight confusion I had with the plot of The Dream Hotel is that Sara is detained because of her dreams they saw through a sleep device she had implanted… which I would assume is the only way they are able to see peoples’ dreams? It didn’t seem like EVERYONE had the devices but who knows.

This was honestly like Minority Report meets Orange is the New Black and it was done so well. I also didn’t see one of the bigger twists coming. It was fast-paced and I enjoyed the interstitials that were included, they really helped pull you into Sara’s world. I received an advance review copy for free and I'm leaving this review voluntarily.

The Dream Hotel is not a comfortable, cozy read, but oh my god is it good. Set in the new future, surveilance society meets crime prevention. Citizens enjoy greater quality of sleep and productivity with their Dream Saver implants, but become unwitting participants - targets - of a crime prevention initiative that props up the prison-industrial complex. Not that the Dream Hotel is a prison. Not that you can actually leave though. This book is engrossing, disturbing, thought-provoking, and compulsively readable.

Set in the near future (2034, to be exact), The Dream Hotel imagines a world where the government can use your dreams to predict future criminal behavior you may or may not commit. With this information, the main character, Sara, has been detained on the premise that she MIGHT commit a crime because of a dream she had one time.
Sara is taken to a center where she is constantly monitored. All women are taken to the center under the guise that it is a 21-day period, where their dreams and behavior will be monitored until they are deemed safe to re-enter society. However, no matter what she does, Sara (or any of the other women) can’t gain enough points to reclaim her freedom. Every infraction is time added to her stay at the center. I felt for Sara as she described her feelings of frustration and anger with the center and her situation overall.

Going into this, I didn’t expect it to be so eerie! The combination of Sara’s POV as well as the behind-the-scenes of the center guards and other staff members showed their true colors, which gives the novel an overall eerie feel. It’s marketed as a thriller, but I would categorize this one as dystopian fiction vs. a true thriller. I noticed several reviews comparing it to Minority Report, which I’ve never seen, but after reading a bit about the movie I can see where the comparisons are drawn.

Thank you so much to Pantheon Books for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Dream House is an unsettling and thought-provoking dystopian novel that lingers long after you turn the final page. The story unfolds in a world where comfort and security are promised, yet something far more sinister lurks beneath the surface. The author masterfully builds tension, weaving an atmosphere of unease that steadily tightens its grip. A woman attempts to re-enter the USA and is held for an undetermined about of time based on her Risk Score which was driven by some violent dreams she had.

If you enjoy dystopian fiction that feels disturbingly plausible, The Dream House is a must-read. It left me both fascinated and deeply unsettled—a powerful combination for any novel.

2.5/5 stars rounded up. I did not like this book. It was too dystopian for me. It centers around Sara Hussein. She is a new mom of twins who is becoming more and more exhausted due to lack of sleep. She decides to try the new device the government is offering called the Dreamsaver. It helps you get a good night's sleep but it also gives the government insight to your dreams. After coming home from a business trip Sara is detained at the airport. After watching her dreams the government thinks she may be a danger to her husband and children. The put her in an observation facility. It is like a prison. You have to obey the rules. They have guards watching your every move. Sara was under the impression she would be held up for 21 days but that is not the case. The books goes in to the everyday lives of some of the inmates. Some are more rebellious than others. Sara is one of those. To be released you have to have a score under 500. Being her rebellious self and not obeying all the rules, Sara keeps accumulating points. The book tends to drag in the middle and the ending is just blah. Just not my type of book.
Thanks to #netgalley, #Pantheon and @lailawrites for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

The premise of this novel was fascinating and one that I could easily see coming to fruition in the next few years. It was not all that far fetched.

In a futuristic society, Sara T. Hussein is being kept at a retention facility (not a prison) run by Safe-X after getting the Dream Saver implant due to the birth of her twins who left her sleep deprived. She is deemed a threat to her husband due to a dream she had, and in order to keep her from committing potential harm she is retained at Madison and deprived of seeing her family as well as many other human rights. 21 days soon turns into almost a year. She is kept there with many other women also trying their hardest to prove their innocence from "potentially" causing harm.

Positives:
I liked the protagonist, Sara
This novel made me feel anger and emotions while reading
The premise is not all that hard to fathom, though it is supposed to be a futuristic and dystopian setting
The underlying story of the companies trying to steal the data using it against the characters was interesting

Negatives:
Secondary chacrters could have been better developed.
The tone shifts somewhere around 2/3 of the way though the book as a result of a fire, and I didn't love that shift
I also didn't love the ending

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early review copy. 

This near-future speculative fiction hits really close to home, and is deeply disturbing.  The events in this story are both outrageous and plausible. This book occupied my mind as I went about my day, I spent A LOT of time thinking about it when I was not reading it.    Just like in <i>Minority Report</i>, the technology has been developed to predict crime before it happens, and detain suspects.  But algorithms are never perfect, they are only as good as the data they are told to process, only as good as the programmers who decide how to weigh decisions within the program ...  and security agents are given broad leeway in deciding who to detain.  Therefore, the detainees are often innocent.  That's both believable, and so disturbing, because it is <i>almost</i> happening right now, today.

The title, "The Dream Hotel," is because some of the main data points crunched by the algorithm are dreams.  If a device existed that would allow anyone to get to sleep easily and wake feeling well-rested, even people working in stressful jobs and people struggling with newborns and people suffering from insomnia, wouldn't everyone jump at the chance?  Even after reading the extremely vague small print, that SEEMS to protect your data (but actually does the exact opposite), wouldn't anyone still want this magical device?  And if it turns out that this device can read your dreams and feed that dream data into the risk algorithm?  well, that's okay, right?  If you have violent dreams, does that mean you will commit violence?  No, of course not, that makes no sense, they are nightmares!  But aren't we, today in the US, seeing countless government actions that make no sense at all?  The senseless is eminently plausible today.

This novel felt so incredibly timely, and I had a strong emotional reaction while reading it. Based on my emotions alone, I should give this five stars.  But now that I've finished and I look back at what I read, the plot is remarkably thin.  A woman is detained on trumped up charges, the detention facility staff are Machiavellian, her hearings are delayed again and again so that her three week detention grows to almost a full year ...  that's really only enough plot to support a meaty short story.  For a full novel, it was thin.  A big chunk of these pages are Sara's dreams.  Sure, that makes sense, in a book titled "Dream Hotel," but I've never been a fan of dream sequences.    A very interesting side story perked me up midway through, just as I was starting to think "this book is starting to sag in the middle,"  but it did not go anywhere after that, and we never revisited those characters, which was disappointing.

Okay wow! This book was crazy, weird and made me feel like I was in a futuristic timeline with a sprinkling of black mirror elements! In a futuristic world where your dreams and what you say and how you act to certain events are under heavy surveillance. Sara gets stopped at an airport by the risk assessment administration. They inform her that her risk score has dropped and that she’s a harm to the people she loves the most. Sara must now spend her days in a facility to rehabilitate, but her normal 21 days of observation and rehabilitation keeps exceeding more and more no matter how careful she is. Will she be stuck in this facility with inhuman conditions and guards who love to bully and taunt people to their breaking point forever? This novel shows just how dangerous and horrifying it can be to have technology be heavily involved in our lives. What’s to stop the government and the big brother tech companies from coming after people just for phrases, thoughts, and dreams that you yourself sometimes can’t control. How do you fight large tech company that’s revolutionary and says it keeps your loved one safe but does more harm than good to others?

Hotel Dream by Laila Lalami is a thought-provoking novel that blends social commentary with an engaging narrative. Set against a backdrop that feels familiar although labeled as fantasy, the book touches on several themes that resonate with contemporary life.

The books setting mirrors the realities of current California, with references to wildfires, powerful winds, and political figures. Lalami’s depiction of a governor navigating these crises feels particularly relatable, grounding the story in a world that feels both authentic and unsettling.

There is a large connection to the show 60 Days In, particularly through the character Julie. The novel explores life in confinement, showing how environments that are not technically jail can still carry the same emotional weight — a powerful stance on control and social structure.

Lalami also addresses the influence of large corporations, highlighting their power over the fate of lower classes. This theme is woven with the book’s portrayal of a society gripped by a spreading virus — a clear parallel to COVID-19 — adding layers of realism to the plot.

The book’s exploration of social media obsession and the creation of “shared dreams” cleverly reflects our culture’s fixation with digital connection and curated online personas. Meanwhile, the mention of a celebrity president making reckless decisions adds a sharp political edge to the story.

I gave it 4 stars because of the ending feeling rushed and not fully thought through. Overall, Hotel Dream is a richly layered novel that offers both compelling characters and sharp social insight. Lalami’s ability to intertwine relatable themes with an immersive narrative makes this a memorable and thought-provoking read I absolutely loved.

Pulled in by the cover art, I was greeted with what I believe will be one our generation's important dystopian novels/cautionary tales. It was terrifying and extremely of the current times with U.S. politics and the ever-increasing capabilities of accessible data and AI technology.

The protagonist being held captive for dreaming of murdering her husband in this dystopian near-future in which women are held in a "detention center" for 21-day infractions based totally on dreams they have had about violence they may or may not commit.

Books like this and shows like "Severance" are important tools in the fight against these assaults on people's rights.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

This book is scary on many levels -- a dystopian near-future in which women are held in a "detention center" for 21-day infractions based totally on dreams they have had about violence they may or may not commit. Sara, the protagonist, is held up at an airport security check because the company that monitors her dreams (she voluntarily had an implant put in her brain to help her sleep better), found that she dreamt of murdering her husband. Now, when Sara finds out about this dream, of course, she is adamant that she would not kill her husband -- despite usual marital spats and annoyances she admits to having with him -- plus, she has two twin toddlers, money problems, etc., which can contribute to marital strife.

But off to detention she is sent, and not just for 21 days -- the cruel and sadistic guards and center manager can extend her "sentence" as long as they like. It's an awful situation, and Sara's lawyers and husband -- who actually aren't much help at all except to tell her to abide by the rules so she can be released sooner rather than later.

I know others have compared this to "Minority Report," and I agree with that. But I thought of "Severance," the AppleTV+ series in which a company's employees voluntarily agree to have implants put into their brains to separate their "innie" lives from their "outie" lives; i.e., their work lives from their home lives.

WIth the increased capabilities of AI, and not to get too political, but the current administration's backlash against women's rights, gender and sexual identity choices, "wokeness," and much more, make the ability to mess with people's minds in the name of various discrimination beliefs and more a possibility than ever.

Books like this and shows like "Severance" are important tools in the fight against these assaults on people's rights.

“Nothing is random,” he said with frightening conviction. Didn’t she know that dreams were windows into the subconscious?”

Thank you @pantheonbooks and @netgalley for my free e-galley

Imagine a world where people are tracked and rated on a scale by how risky they are to society. Getting a traffic ticket, a minor altercation with a stranger, all of which can raise your risk score. In this world in the not so distant future, even your dreams are tracked.

After being stopped at an airport security, Sara is told she will soon commit a crime. She is then sent to a Safe-X facility—a retention center where many other women are kept under surveillance for 21 days. But every act of defiance, whether intentional or unintentional, extends their retention until it seems there is no hope to ever be free again.

“I have done nothing wrong, Sara thinks. It’s only that the line of legality has moved, and now I’m on the wrong side of it.”

This book was absolutely riveting. I was equally moved by Sara’s story, with flashbacks to her childhood and her recent months of being a twin mom. I liked how the author used various mixed media such as emails, risk reports, and other documents in order to more fully immerse the reader. I don’t often read speculative fiction, but this one will easily remain a favorite of the genre for me. I also think this would appeal to a wide audience—so it’s no surprise this was a @readwithjenna pick as well.

⭐⭐4.5⭐⭐

"The mission of the RAA is to keep American communities safe. We are committed to identifying public-safety risks and investigating suspicious individuals in order to prevent future crimes."

What happens when we give the government too much access to our data? Lalami explores this idea in her new novel The Dream Hotel. It is a dystopian/science fiction book in which future crimes are avoided by putting people in retention centers who have risk scores that are considered too high.

As you read, it becomes pretty apparent that everything affects your risk score and your dreams can be used against you. It is a fascinating read that I would recommend to anyone who like science fiction or 1984 type books. We get to see a snapshot of a women's retention center as we follow Sara who is old enough to still remember life before all of this technology, but young enough that she even admits that she had never seen a problem with it.

Devices to help cure insomnia and make it so people only need 3.5 hours of sleep to feel fully recovered, machines to scan people in the airport to help speed along security lines. Things that on the surface appear to make life easier for people, but on a deeper level continues to give the government more and more control over everything we do and how we interact with one another.

While I love the idea of how much access is too much, at some points it was a little hard to follow as it jumped around with very little distinction or acknowledgement to the change in moments. I think following Sara's journey from beginning to end was well done and really showed us the intricacies of the struggles between trying to follow the rules and how easy our own information can be used against us. It certainly had me debating if maybe taking notes from the people who are already going off grid.

"The system is never satisfied with the data is already has. It always seeks more, in new formats or from new sources."

A powerful and thought provoking dystopian novel. The main character Sara is detained for what she might do, not for any crime committed. Very relevant today as we become more open to tracking devices AI and data collection.

4..5 ⭐

The Dream Hotel is an incredible story with a unique and thought provoking premise. I've always been fascinated by the mind and the mysteries of our dreams, and this book takes that concept to a whole new level. Set in an undisclosed future where technology has advanced in astonishing ways, it paints a chillingly believable world in which even dreams are monitored and controlled.

What struck me most was how seamlessly the author weaves in details about scientific advancements. They aren’t over-explained or treated as spectacle. Instead, they are casually mentioned as if they are just a normal part of life, which makes the world feel all the more immersive. The scariest part is that none of it feels too far-fetched. I could genuinely see this happening in the future.

Beyond its sci-fi elements, The Dream Hotel also offers a compelling exploration of grief, isolation, and sanity. The parallels between being detained in a "retention" facility and being incarcerated in prison are deeply unsettling, especially in the way the relationships between detainees and attendants mirror those between prisoners and guards. The novel also touches on themes of womanhood and the experience of being a child of immigrants, adding even more depth to the narrative.

It is fascinating and terrifying to see how technology can be both a tool of oppression and a source of convenience. This book made me feel EVERYTHING, and I loved every moment of it!