DESCRIPTION:
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.
New word for me: predations - the preying of one animal on others; the action of attacking or plundering
AI is everywhere. Let’s face it. We can’t escape it. Even casual browsing online drops us into algorithms that seem impossible to evade. But if that level of intrusion feels unsettling, imagine living with an implanted device meant to monitor your sleep… one that suddenly becomes a tool for predicting crime.
The Dreamsaver implant was originally created for a medical purpose: to help users achieve deeper, more restorative sleep. For Sara, a mother of twins exhausted by sleepless nights, the promise of rest, with the promise of an immediate boost in her quality of life, made the device irresistible. But the technology evolved, and what began as a harmless aid became something far more ominous. Now tied to a crime-prediction algorithm, Dreamsaver generates “risk scores.” And Sara’s score has risen past the acceptable threshold.
Despite having committed no crime, she’s sent to a retention facility for 21 days. Dreams themselves aren’t illegal, but the Risk Assessment Administration believes they could be. According to them, the algorithm knows what you’re thinking of doing even before you do.
As days stretch into weeks, and weeks turn into months, Sara begins to lose hope. Her life has been dismantled by the very device that once promised relief.
I experienced The Dream Hotel in both audiobook and Kindle formats, a combination that made the story incredibly immersive. I couldn’t look away. Sara’s journey is gripping, but the interspersed CRO announcements and transcripts are just as chilling, adding layers of tension and realism.
The Dream Hotel is a powerful speculative mystery that asks important questions about technology, control, and the cost of convenience. Designed to help, the technology in this book becomes something deeply dangerous—and the result is dystopian fiction at its best. This is a story that will stay with me for a long time.
Many thanks to Pantheon and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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