The Dream Hotel

By (author) Lalami, Laila
Short description/annotation:
A gripping, inventive and terrifying speculative mystery about privacy, freedom and survival – from the Pulitzer Prize and Booker Prize nominated author
Description:

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 *
* A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *

Sara is at the airport, travelling home from a work conference. Out of nowhere she’s pulled aside by agents from the Risk Assessment Administration. Their algorithm has determined that she’s an immediate threat to her husband, and must be kept under observation at a retention centre for twenty-one days.

The evidence? Data collected from her dreams.

When she arrives at the centre, she discovers that each slight deviation from their strict and ever-changing rules – loitering in the hallway, a ‘non-compliant hairstyle’ – results in her stay being extended. Desperate to return to her family, Sara must make a choice. Does she play by their rules, or risk taking matters into her own hands?

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Well-written, meticulously conceived, richly characterised and terrifying as hell. It’s just close enough to be imaginable ... She’s a master storyteller, Lalami, and I can’t work out why she isn’t better known. The Dream Hotel just made the long-list for The Women’s Prize, so hopefully she will be soon
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A gripping new novel ... Intriguing
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The Dream Hotel is so cleverly conceived, so relevant, that everyone should read it and sweat ... It gave me a lot to chew on. Next time I download an app, I’ll be scrutinising the terms of service. Because any of us can fall foul of the algorithm
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In the current political and technological climate and the seemingly endless colonisation of data, Lalami has managed to tap into the human psyche on a level that everybody can relate to. The Dream Hotel can deservedly and comfortably sit somewhere between Phillip K Dick’s Minority Report and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. A powerhouse of a book that will live long in the memory
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Addictive
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A captivating imaginative feat, taking our familiar world and carefully nudging it just a few degrees closer to the nightmarishly plausible consequences of constant, inescapable surveillance
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With its tense and engrossing narrative, The Dream Hotel is both a page turner and a salutary warning about putting our trust in big tech
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I love this book so much ... I read it in a weekend. I could not put it down. It is really relevant. It’s a meditation on free will, sisterhood, the power of love, and the power of hope. It’s so good
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Skewers notions of supposed privacy and freedom ... [A] gripping allegory for our times
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She can world-build with the best of them
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With its tense and engrossing narrative, The Dream Hotel is both a page turner and a salutary warning about putting our trust in big tech
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I was utterly gripped, caught up, as if I was living the same nightmare as Sara. It felt terrifyingly and convincingly close
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A terrifying, thought-provoking and timely exploration of the inevitable march of algorithms and data-harvesting into our innermost lives. The Dream Hotel offers not only a real-feeling diorama of an extensively-surveilled prison population, but a masterclass in the art of cortisol-raising - to be filed alongside The Trial and The School for Good Mothers
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The Dream Hotel