The DOJ and US Department of State are already deeply immersed in using predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI to make decisions. The premise of The Dream Hotel therefore doesn’t require a huge leap to imagine a fictional future where every piece of data, including data from dreams, is used to analyze every person for any future risk to commit a crime. This data is used to assign an individual a corresponding risk score. If your risk score goes above 500, you can be involuntarily “retained” and sent to a retainment center to further assess if you are a danger to society. The Dream Hotel had many aspects that I enjoyed: a dystopian future, a strong female lead, excellent plot pacing and character development, a malevolent company (or three) to root against. Lalami demonstrates the inherent cruelty of involuntary institutionalization, where an individual’s liberties are in perpetual legal limbo.

I was really intrigued by the blurb here, but the story just didn't resonate with me at all. I struggled from the beginning unfortunately, and never found my way into the story. The writing felt unnecessarily dry and the book just wasn't for me.

This was a compelling and stressful read as this “near future” scenario of dream monitoring and citizen scores doesn’t seem as improbable as it should. I was captivated by Sara and her inner turmoil as she tries to make sense of her life as a retainee. The writing is powerful and while not all of the various threads come together or are fully explored, I think the flow and conclusion makes sense for the story. Recommended to anyone looking for a smart, tense read. 4.5 stars.

Thank you very much to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

First and foremost I received an e-arc from NetGalley.

The Dream Hotel has an interesting concept but falls short of my expectation. The end of the book feels rushed with too many plot holes. It’s definitely missing something that is needed to fulfill the story. Hopefully, the final version will be better.

I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of this book, and for the most part, it did not disappoint. It is (unfortunately) a very timely book, and it is one that will make anyone second guess how they operate in the world, even in private. I was very interested in the environment of the book and the world that the characters lived in, but the characters themselves, other than Sara and Hinton, fell a bit flat for me. I wanted to know more about all of them, and was left with more questions than answers.

Overall, I really loved the writing in this book, and I applaud Laila Lalami for creating such a beautiful and thought-provoking piece of work. I just selfishly wanted to know more at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC!

3.5 stars

We've all experienced moments when life seems like a waking nightmare, but what about when your nightmares are responsible for drastically altering the course of your life?

Sara heads off to an international conference for work, and upon her return, she is detained at LAX. Anyone who has ever flown in or out of LAX and especially those who do it regularly know there are few better locations on the planet for a scene of frustration and despair and a sense of being at the mercy of bureaucracy. What a genius choice!

Sara has been flagged because her dreams and behaviors have the Risk Assessment Agency convinced that she poses a threat. This results in her disturbing (because it seems extremely realistic) incarceration in a facility that makes her life worse in all of the expected ways. The general ineptitude, slow and dysfunctional processes, and the dehumanization present in this and related systems comes through so clearly here, and it really does add to the sense of a waking nightmare both for Sara and for readers who can so easily imagine themselves in a society and even situation like this.

I love _The Other Americans_ so much that coming into any new Lalami read has me hopeful. While I enjoyed this one, I wanted more depth in Sara's characterization, more tying up of loose ends, and perhaps even a bit more expansive cultural commentary (this last part is what I thought was accomplished best in this list - I still wanted more, though).

I remain a devoted fan of Lalami's and look forward to what we get to read next!

This was a very interesting story, especially considering the political climate we are living in. It really made me stop, look around, and appropriate the freedoms I have while also making it clear that there is a fine line between our country today and the situation described in the book. I thought the author captured the struggle of whether to go along with the flow or fight for freedom regardless of the consequences very poignantly. A great story with a powerful message!

Readers/viewers of Minority Report will recognize some aspects of this novel; the direction Lalami took this idea in for our contemporary times was interesting and highly readable.

Thank you to Net Galley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC. I wish I could rate this higher because I really enjoyed the themes being explored. The first half is strong but the ending is unsatisfying because the book feels incomplete since many threads which were brought up in the beginning do not get resolved. Also the ending felt super convenient and random. But otherwise the writing style is good, and I enjoyed following the main character's time in retention.

Ok starting off the year STRONG with this one. Set in a dystopian present/near future where everyone gets assigned a risk score, and you can be detained at any time if the government deems you a threat, even going so far as to track your dreams. Very Black Mirror/Orange is the New Black/School for Good Mothers vibes, I love this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for sending me this book!

Thank you NetGally for this book!!

I throughly enjoyed this book! This brand of sci-fi and speculative fiction had always been very fascinating for me and from the first chapter I was intrigued by the setting and by the narrator. Laila does an amazing job of having this read like literary fiction, it makes the book that more accessible and fast to get through. I literally could not put it down.

3.25 ⭐️
While I did want more from this book, it was very readable. I would recommend this book if you’re interested in a story about a woman’s incarceration and you’re not hoping for something heavy on the dystopian/ sci-fi end of things.

This somehow felt both totally far fetched and super rooted in current times and the unfortunate ways of society today. I felt mixed about it all, but would be interested in other works by this author regardless.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book! This was a well-written futuristic Thriller that really makes you think about the role that technology plays in the world today and where it could be going in the future. It was fast-paced, engaging and interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy!
This started out sliiiiightly slower than I expected, but gripped me in around 20% through and I couldn’t put it down. This has dystopian/science fiction-y elements and themes, but it reads like literary fiction IMO — and something about that combination really worked for me. While not necessarily fast-paced (I would actually call it rather slow), there is *juuuuust enough* happening to keep your attention and keep the pages turning.

Xoxoxxoo, a girl scared to dream now

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did, but it offers an interesting exploration of the surveillance state, the limits of AI, and how easily we surrender personal information without fully considering the consequences. These themes make it a worthwhile read, especially for anyone intrigued by such topics. However, my main issue was that the characters felt one-dimensional, and the exploration of these themes, while relevant, came across as somewhat surface-level.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

It was overall a great read. A few slow parts, but not many.

I read it over the course of two days.

Recommend.

This novel is very close to modern day real life -- and not in a good way. The novel is a well-written telling of life where people's dreams are monitored and misinterpreted. with sometimes dire consequences. The person's authorization for dream monitoring was hidden in the very small print of a contract for a brain implant to help insomniacs sleep. The atmospheric story telling depressed me as I read it. Denouement was vague.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

The Risk Assessment Administration has its greedy fingers into everything. In the not too distant future, everyone has a Risk Assessment score and getting too far over 500 on the Risk Assessment rating puts a person on a watch list if it doesn't go even farther to put a person into a retention center. These retention centers seem to be for profit outfits and they have their prisoners (oh, excuse me, you don't get to call them prisoners) as slave (oh, sorry "not" slave) labor on contracts that the centers have with companies. Ideally someone who is forced into a retention center will be out after the initial required stay of twenty one days but that seldom happens. The retention center powers that be have a huge number of fuzzy rules that can be easily broken, easily changed, and not even stated which leads more retainers than not to have much longer stays at the centers, thus giving the centers a somewhat stable work force for its for profit endeavors. How convenient, how shady.

Add to all of that is the fact that a large number of people have devices installed in their bodies that both help them have better sleep but also record their dreams. The dreams are monitored by powers that be to supplement a person's risk assessment. Violent dreams can land a person in a retention center and violent dreams can keep a person ensconced in a retention center indefinitely. Sadly this "retention center fuzzy not prison but it sure seems like one" situation can make for anxiety induced nightmares that certainly don't help risk assessment scores. This is the world we enter into at the start of The Dream Hotel.

This dystopian story does the genre in a way that I enjoy. So much that goes on in this story could happen in the future. Even now, devices are implanted to improve sleep, government departments and businesses abuse their powers for all kinds of greedy reasons. The common everyday person can have little recourse to fight the huge bureaucracies that can govern their lives and their ability to get through life without a lot of wasted time, money, and effort. I like the way the author handles Sara's story and the only thing I ask is that there will be a follow-up book to this one. The story isn't over, I want to know more, I have questions, and I think there is a lot of room to explore what is happening and what happens next. The feeling of unease is strong for me because I don't think the author had to reach too far into "fiction" to write this world.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon and NetGalley for this ARC.

What a ride!!

Imagine, you’re coming home from a work trip to reunite with your husband and twins. Suddenly, you get pulled by security and within hours and told you’re taken to a retention center and told you’re guilty of soon committing a crime. How? Because in this near future, even your dreams are under surveillance.

Sara Hussein. What a character. And year ???? in the future. What a dystopian setting. Every dystopian book I read has started to feel like more and more of a real life future and this one was no exception. The discussion of AI and privacy with technology and government boundaries and imprisonment for profit… this book has it all.

I could’ve read another 100 pages of this book and I actually wish it was a bit longer just to flesh out some parts that felt rushed to me. The end felt very sudden and I still don’t 100% understand why there were a few chapters from the other POV.

All that being said, however, I flew through this book in 24 hours and really enjoyed it. This would make for a fantastic book club pick as there’s so much to discuss!