The Dream Hotel

A Novel

De: Laila Lalami

Narrado por: Frankie Corzo, Barton Caplan

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

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.

©2025 Laila Lalami (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

A TODAY Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

Longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction

A Best Book of the Year So Far from The Economist

One of the New York Post’s 30 Must-Read New Thrillers

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from Goodreads, People, TIME Magazine, TODAY, The Washington Post, New York Times Book Review Podcast, Esquire, Men's Health, Marie Claire, The National, New Scientist, Literary Hub, Business Recorder, Deseret News, Kirkus, Screen Rant, The OC Register, Electric Literature, ALTA, The A.V. Club, Language Arts, and The Crimson White

"Brilliant...Makes you question why we aren’t doing more to protect our privacy right now."—Ann Patchett in TheSkimm

“A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future where data collection penetrates interior life, The Dream Hotel is also an elegant meditation on identity and what we sacrifice, unthinkingly, for the sake of convenience.”—Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House

“Powerful, richly conceived…The book’s corporatized reality is slightly more twisted than ours but entirely plausible…Lalami plays out the shiftiness and uncertainty of reality when dreams are given more predictive weight than facts to stunning effect…Here, rendering this edge-of-nightmare world, Lalami skates along at the height of her powers as a writer of intelligent, complex characters…As with her other novels, there’s a softhearted universalism to Lalami’s treatment of surveillance capitalism. Hers is one in which humans retain the ability to trust one another enough to forge working solidarities and authentic collaborations. Although it relies on a speculative technology for its plot, The Dream Hotel is astounding, elegantly constructed, character-driven fiction. Lalami’s realistic approach to Sara and others, inflected with leftist politics and history, elides any sharp division we might imagine about where we’ve been and what we face ahead…Within the latter part of the novel, it’s not the stuff of tragedy or alarm about the human condition we encounter, but surprising, unadulterated hope.”—Los Angeles Times

A must read about our new totalitarian present. Must read and terrifying

How close we are to a technological brave be world and how we must. Resist!!!!

Characters that are fragile or brave you decide

This book was so amazing and heartbreaking it makes you think just how fragile life is and the moments that define us and cause us to endure are the moments that define us the most. I couldn’t believe that the characters had to be locked away for as long as they were and no one did anything or questioned that the corporation that caused the people to have to serve time to they say protect others. It was never questioned for fear of retaliation it makes me wonder how we as a society just accept things as they are to not have to fight for what maybe not be a good thing. Good thing these characters knew how to be brave.

Narration was great

I enjoyed this storyline and liked the overall writing style of the author. I would recommend.

Excellent Dystopian Novel - highly relevant given current events

The book was well structured. We share so much data with the companies and the government, it is not too much of a stretch to envision people being imprisoned for their thoughts and dreams. How much of our privacy are we willing to give up? And what happens to vulnerable people when the wrong folks get their hands on that data? The book is also a commentary on the immigrant experience and life in prison. There is a lot to dig in to!

Although this book has a sci fi, it does not get into any of the science - a little bit more about the tech would have been interesting.

I highly recommend this book - for a book with so many layers, it flowed very well and was a quick read.

Intriguing Read

Exceeding well read, this book considered a society that retained people who hadn’t, but might, commit a crime. The main character was intelligent and insightful and the other characters colorful yet believable. A read that truly makes one ponder when, in the name of safety and profits, a society goes too far.

The next parable of the sower

This book was amazing! I can see it being the next parable of the sower or 1984. It really makes you think about the data you share, even unintentionally.

Terrific and Disturbing Story with Characters that you care about

The characters were so very real and their situation all too possible in the very near future.

Worth a read

As scary as the premise of being imprisoned for your dreams is, just as scary is the bureaucracy the main character faces--not to mention all the other BS things that keep her in detention.

I found myself appreciating this book on a structural and writing level that started in the background and eventually emerged into my consciousness. The writing/structure mirrors what's happening to Sara, which was both good and bad. It contributed to feeling what Sara was feeling (claustrophobic, every day is the same, and so on) but also made it feel a little repetitious. And it was a fairly long book considering it's not exactly action-packed. Still, I was never bored.

For me, a 3 is a high rating so take this for what it's worth.

It had too much detail that droned on

The story moved very slow. It is rare for me not to finish a book, but it didn’t grab my attention after hours of listening.

Good story idea but fell short

This was a good story idea with so much potential but it fell apart along the way. There were quite a few loose ends left open. Also the format of meeting notes within the story line was distracting and unnecessary. I wasn't happy with ending either.