Laila Lalami has written a powerful character-driven novel in Dream Hotel, a novel that I found hard to put down. Incarcerated for an indefinite period - until some imaginary score descends to an "acceptable level, Sara Hussein and her fellow "retainees" are monitored by cameras, by close observation, and - most damningly - by devices they had purchased prior to their retention that helped overcome their insomnia while monitoring, and perhaps altering, their dreams. Sara's insomnia was brought on by her recent birth of twins and she was "retained" while returning to California after attending a conference for her employer, the Getty. Lalami artfully weaves Sara's stories with others and with the meaning and importance of one's dreams. Set in the near future but evocative of today's changing enviornment and culture, Dream Hotel hits too close to home. Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

Oh, my...I can't get over the disturbing realistic quality of this book...

This is a dystopian thriller that could very well be something our future could turn to. It felt so eerily realistic and left me beyond frustrated and feeling helpless as I read the nightmare situations our characters were subjected to.

After a Mass shooting that took place at a Super Bowl there was a program established to curtail potential threats. Through an algorithm it determines through various factors (including dreams) that a person may be a threat...

Sara (mother to infant twins) is red flagged at the airport when her numbers are slightly over what is acceptable. She is deemed an imminent threat to her husband and sent to a retention center for observation for 21 days. As we are reminded, this is not a prison, and yet, the lack of freedom and rights is gut wrenching. Then extensions are added on continuously for random reasons with no action to remedy the situation. Reminder, the person has never been convicted of a crime! There is no trial to prove innocence because no crime has been committed!!

While I appreciated the end, I wish we had a grand show down, and a way to get justice and to shut down the insanity! A book two would be great!! Hint, hint...

A modern day 1984. I think this is very timely and very frustrating. Such an interesting concept and amazing character development. I loved this book!

The plot of this book is powerful and scarily prescient, filled with bone-chilling references to events that are so horrifying yet entirely probable (a televised mass shooting at the biggest live televised event of the year, for instance) that it's actually breath-stealing. "Enjoyed" might not be the right word for this book, but it's well-written, with a very urgent POV, and I totally understand why it made the Women's Prize Longlist for 2025. That said, this is very much a slow read, focused mostly on the characters and the exploration of what society could look like in the near future thanks to our technological overlords. I did find that I was craving for a bit more propulsion to the plot once I got past the 50% mark; things pick up a bit toward the end but there is a chunk in the middle that does drag a bit. There is also a small section that shifts perspectives, and while I liked where that was going, I didn't feel like the author ever really fleshed that out. Overall, I will be thinking about this one for a while and I got a lot out of it.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage catalog and Laila Larami for the copy of The Dream Hotel. As soon as I started this book I was hooked. I could feel the rage Sara felt throughout the book at the injustices she faced. In a world where risk scores can determine if you are placed in detention centers to be watched, even dreams can be used against you to show you are a risk to others. Sara is out in a detention center after her risk score is determined to be too high; she is stopped by TSA when entering the country after a work trip. Extension after extension as a result of minor, and often made-up infractions from guards, leaves Sara doubtful that she anyone will believe she is truly not a threat to society. The ending of this book felt satisfactory and realistic. I love how the author was able to nod to current issues in the prison-industrial complex while adding a layer of sci-fi that truly feels it could happen in the future.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel is set in the near future in LA, where every individual has a Risk Assessment score that calculates their potential of causing a future crime, based on data extracted from social media, public records and surveillance, medical records, genealogy (including if you’re distantly related to anyone who has committed a crime), and even dreams.

Dream Hotel is the nickname of a women retention center where Sara is being retained for a future murder that the algorithm predicts she will commit. Conformity and docility are valued in a society like this. As someone who used to live in LA, the references to LA and surrounding areas are also very well done.

If you’ve seen/read The Minority Report, seen the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror, or read 1984, then this story will feel familiar. Like these works, the story is pretty intense as Sara suffers a lot of indignity and injustice. There’s not much left to interpretation as the messaging about how easily our personal data can be manipulated is very clear. I also thought the switch in character’s perspective for one chapter was pretty unnecessary. Overall, there’s a ton of important themes, but the story kind of leaned a little too pedantic in the middle.

Special thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest, independent review.

Fascinating premise with a disappointing execution. This seemed unsure whether it wanted to be literary fiction or sci fi. Though the emphasis was character over plot, the protagonist didn't have a particularly unique motivation and her realizations often felt spoon fed (if I'm reading a dystopia, I don't need to be told that the character is seeing more of herself in the oppressed than the oppressor). The overuse of fictional technobabble was superfluous and disorienting. The perspective shift midway was out of place, ultimately setting up a later reveal that would have been just as effective without the interlude half way through. After a very slow build, the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying, leaving many plot points unresolved and opting for what felt like the simplest and most logical conclusion.

The Dream Hotel || Laila Lalami

3.5 stars

"Entire generations have never known life without surveillance. Watched from the womb to the grave, they take corporate ownership of their personal data to be a fact of life, as natural as leaves growing on trees. Detaining someone because of their dreams doesn't exactly trouble Americans; most of them think that the RAA's methods are necessary."

"'What does my sleep data have to do with crime?' 'Some entries showed a high risk of violence.' 'Entries? You mean dreams?'"

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

Sara Hussein finds herself at detained on her way home from London after her risk score deems her a danger. Months before, Sara had a neuroprosthetic implanted to help her sleep. As a new mom to twins, and working full time, she was desperate to get a restful sleep. However, she didn't read the terms and conditions fully, and the government is using dream data to predetermine if someone is a danger to others.

She finds herself brought to a facility with other women who also have risk scores requiring them to have extra surveillance. Her stay was supposed to be only 21 days, but here she is, nearly 300 days later without an end in sight. As she becomes more and more desperate to get back home to her husband and children, she joins with others in the facility to form a strike, as she has learned that the facility needs their cooperation for essentially free labor, and to potentially have free guinea pigs for research.

I really liked the concept of this story, but at the end of the story, it feels incomplete. There were some plot points that felt unfinished and left me yearning for more. This story also had such slow pacing that I would lose interest. The first 50% was a bit of a drag to get through. It was an eye opening concept that reminds readers to take time to step away from technology and to always read the terms and conditions. If you enjoy books like 1984, chances are, you'll enjoy this one.

-sci-fi
-dystopian
-surveillance
-big-brother
- injustice
- single POV
- 3rd person POV

Absolutely phenomenal read. Had a hard time putting it down and was a good palette cleanser after my last read. Worth the recommendation and read, 100%!

This book was a really interesting take on dystopia, not only because it's not far from being plausible, but also because it alluded to the time when women were placed in asylums for no real reason and every attempt at proving her innocence was met with gaslighting. It also shows the ineffectiveness of incarceration in terms of rehabilitation.

The premise here was SO interesting and it was definitely a thinker, but I think it may have had more of an impact if it was a true sci-fi/thriller and less literary fiction.

Sara is “retained” in a facility when she is classified as a risk to her husband based on a score calculated using all sorts of her surveillance data as well as her dreams; she is initially supposed to be held for 21 days, but somehow continuously finds her stay being extended. It tells a story of the use of artificial intelligence to deem people an increased risk for crime and some of the potential consequences and touches on power dynamics of incarceration.

I found this story to be mostly build-up without a whole lot of payoff- there was endless plot development and the tensions were high so I was intrigued, but where the story is meant to peak, it came to an abrupt end and left me with a different message that what I thought was intended though out the entire novel.

I did like that the writing style was straightforward while still offering a sort of provocative prose that wasn’t too lyrical or difficult to understand. I’d recommend this one if you’re looking for an eerie speculative sci-fi/literary fiction about the use of technological surveillance and its potential ramifications, and if you’re okay with it not being an outright thriller.

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for the eARC!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I was disappointed in this to say the least. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a book is labelled sci-fi, but turns out to just have a skeleton of a sci-fi story. This is a literary fiction book with whispers of sci-fi. We spend a majority of the time in the main characters head, reading about her experience. Yes, it is set in a somewhat "big brother" futuristic world where dreams are used to convict someone of a crime before they even do it, but the sci-fi aspects are never fleshed out. The tech that is brought up is never explained. We don't get to understand how the government is able to use the dreams.

When I first read the synopsis, I thought it would be similar to Minority Report and their PreCogs, but where that was fast-paced and we actually get to see the sci-fi aspects, this instead was introspective. It never really picked up pace. It was like Lalami focused entirely on themes (racism, big brother, controlling tech, etc), and not on plot whatsoever. I am a very plot-based reader, and prefer the books I read to go somewhere. This went nowhere. Sara was just doing the same thing the entire time. Yes, there were flashbacks, but it was like things were happening to the character, rather than the character doing things.

One of those books where your enjoyment comes from thinking through the ideas posed by the characters and their circumstances, and not necessarily the story of their journey itself.

Plotwise this was a hard book to get through. These characters are angry, frustrated, and trapped. Not only do you witness their experience, you actually feel it. It's 300 pages of feeling increasingly infuriated and increasingly helpless to do anything. Is it an enjoyable headspace to be in? No. Does it make you think? Yes.

While I've read similar "big brother" themed books, I thought this was particularly well written and well presented. I especially appreciated the author's commentary on the power of collective action. In American culture we're often encouraged to be independent, to be an individual, and to only act in the interest of ourselves, family, country, etc. This book gives an example of how over reliance on that mentality actually works against the common person, and can help keep harmful institutions in place.

Would recommend if you're looking for an immersive, slower paced read with thoughtful commentary. Would not recommend to those looking for a high action, plot heavy book.

A thought-provoking premise about sacrificing privacy for convenience, with engaging writing but slow pacing and characters that could have had more depth. The idea of detaining people based on dreams of future crimes raises compelling ethical questions. While some parts were hard to follow, the unique concept makes it an intriguing read for fans of speculative fiction.

The Dream Hotel is both a cautionary tale and a comment on government control, technology, and power imbalances in detainment centers. It was an incredible read, and I will certainly be using it for a book club pick in the future.

Thank you to the publisher for the e-copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

@pantheonbooks | #gifted How to tell you about 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠 𝗛𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗟 by Laila Lalami without telling you too much? That’’s a tough one! I’ll start with the genre. Edelweiss lists it as literary fiction and I agree with that. The story is very much character driven, primarily following one woman who finds herself quite unexpectedly “detained.” But, it’s so much more than just that. This novel also has a heavy dose of sci-fi? Fantasy? Dystopia? In fact, we’d have no story without this element, so perhaps one of those is its true genre.🤷🏻‍♀️⁣
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Regardless of all that, this is a book that just might leave you haunted. I’m going to tell you very little about it because it’s one best gone into blind. I will say that it takes place at a future time that’s not all that far away. It’s a future where people have less control over their own lives than they think they do; a future that’s easily imagined arriving at. THAT makes it scary. Very scary. (Could this be horror?) We see this future world from the perspective of Sara, the woman who’s been detained for reasons she’s completely unclear on. As the story progresses Sara begins to piece together the larger picture, but what can she do?⁣
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That’s all you get. While I found this book frightening in the potential realities of it, I was also completely drawn into the story and couldn’t wait to see what Sara would do next. Like her, I wanted to know the “why” of her detention, the “how” of its onset, and the “when” of its resolution. I’ve always found Laila Lalami to be a gifted storyteller and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘏𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘭 further cements that opinion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Just wow! The Dream Hotel hit the ball out of the park with its unique exploration of the consequences of intrusive technology in the most intimate parts of our daily lives.

In this originally written masterpiece Sara Hussein is interrogated by LAX officials upon returning from a work conference. The mother of young twins is not only interrogated but subsequently detained based on data collected from her dreams. Placed in a locked detention facility and alienated from her family, Sara tries to follow the ever changing rules in hopes of release. What starts as a 21 day hold quickly evolves into a months long battle for freedom. But how does one prove they won’t commit a crime they haven’t committed yet?

Oh boy! I loved this gripping story and the internal turmoil it caused me. Lalami does an excellent job exploring the desire, necessity and ease we have to make technology a part of every facet of our daily lives while simultaneously highlighting the invasive and dangerous effects of technological perception.

Rich in character development and plot, The Dream Hotel will pull you effortlessly into its elaborate web.

Thank you to NetGalley, Pantheon Books and Laila Lalami for an early digital copy.

Ooh this hits just a bit too close to home, in a sci fi future that’s not too far off. Where crimes are “prevented” and everything in our lives are digitally monitored—including our dreams. This dream saver software that guarantees rest and better life quality with fewer hours of sleep sounds allllllll too lovely. And it’s one slippery slope away from this type of timeline. This one is a thought provoker. It’s not fast paced but it keeps moving. You feel the desolation and despair. You feel the ache and hope. And you start to pray this isn’t our future.

This book is so disturbing because I can imagine this actually happening.. and those are some of my favorite stories. The social commentary on technology and surveillance to social injustices is intriguing.

WOW this one is a stunner. I had never read any of this author's work before, but I'll certainly be seeking it out now. It's like Minority Report meets Jessamine Chan's THE SCHOOL FOR BAD MOTHERS. It's dystopian fiction that feels distressingly close to something that could actually happen. Lalami's prose is stunning, clear and vivid, and her character work is truly excellent. I was deeply unsettled by this book in a way similar to hjow I felt when I finished NEVER LET ME GO by Ishiguro--a high compliment!