A 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 …
A 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.
initially thought I wasn't gonna be able to get into this because the surveillance tech/private prison dystopia is barely altered from the one we're currently in, and that's not super appealing literary escape right now. But I got sucked in and enjoyed the read overall. My gripes are that I found some aspects of it really heavy-handed, and there were also a few lines of thought/plot points that were cracked open but never fleshed out, which in some ways made things feel more realistic and less tidy but was also kind of weird and disappointing.
A solid thriller -- not action-packed, but pretty gripping. With its dystopian uncanniness, it reminded me of Hum, by Helen Phillips (the mood, not the plot), although this is a bit more sinister, and set in California as opposed to New York. It's all too easy to imagine these things actually happening, which is a frightening warning. The book addresses some timely and important issues, like the power and camaraderie of collective action, the dangers of government/corporate surveillance, and whether it's really better to keep your head down and comply, as various people repeatedly advise Sara to do. The email back-and-forth between Sara and PostPal customer service made my head want to explode; it so perfectly captured the feel of those frustrating interactions. I also liked the ending.
A solid thriller -- not action-packed, but pretty gripping. With its dystopian uncanniness, it reminded me of Hum, by Helen Phillips (the mood, not the plot), although this is a bit more sinister, and set in California as opposed to New York. It's all too easy to imagine these things actually happening, which is a frightening warning. The book addresses some timely and important issues, like the power and camaraderie of collective action, the dangers of government/corporate surveillance, and whether it's really better to keep your head down and comply, as various people repeatedly advise Sara to do. The email back-and-forth between Sara and PostPal customer service made my head want to explode; it so perfectly captured the feel of those frustrating interactions. I also liked the ending.
