The Dream Hotel
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2025) |
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| Author | Laila Lalami |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Pantheon Books |
Publication date | March 4, 2025 |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 978-0-593-31760-0 |
The Dream Hotel is a 2025 literary science fiction novel by Laila Lalami. It received positive reception from critics.
Plot
[edit]Sara Hussein is a Moroccan American woman who, upon her return from a trip to the United Kingdom, is detained by a government agency tasked with determining citizens' propensity to committing crimes. She is detained in what starts as a temporary arrangement but, through bureaucratic hiccups and intentional mismanagement, begins to seem more and more permanent.
Development history
[edit]Publication history
[edit]The Dream Hotel was published in the United States on March 4, 2025, by Pantheon Books.[1] It was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing.[2]
Reception
[edit]The book received mostly positive reviews from critics. Kirkus Reviews was positive, drawing comparisons to Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale.[1] In a starred review, Publishers Weekly described the book as "chillingly original" and "all too plausible."[3] Francine Prose wrote a positive review for The Washington Post, praising the novel's plot and relevance to modern politics.[4] Vulture was also positive, drawing specific attention to the book's symbolism but mildly criticizing the abruptness of the ending.[5]
Mark O'Connell, writing in The New York Times, praised the book's originality but criticized the writing for being politically unsubtle and the plot for being repetitive.[6] In a review written for The Guardian, Daisy Hildyard described the novel as inducing "a sense of powerlessness and frustration" and praised the book's tension.[2] The Los Angeles Times noted that the novel did not rely on "speculative technology" and was instead a character-driven book, while positive reviews were also published in the Associated Press and NPR.[7][8][9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "The Dream Hotel". Kirkus Reviews. 2025-03-04. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ a b Hildyard, Daisy (2025-03-26). "The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami review – what if AI could read our minds?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
- ^ "The Dream Hotel". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ Prose, Francine (2025-03-04). "The imagined future of this vivid dystopian novel feels eerily close". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ Worley, Sam (2024-03-04). "The Minority Report Gets a Trump-Era Update". Vulture. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ O'Connell, Mark (2025-03-04). "What if Your Dreams Could Land You in Prison?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ Felicelli, Anita (2025-02-27). "Forget thought crime. People are incarcerated for dream crime in this near-future novel". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ Snow, Anita (2025-03-10). "Book Review: 'The Dream Hotel' is a dystopian world in which people are detained for dreams". Associated Press. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
- ^ Miranda, Carolina (2025-04-23). "AI eavesdrops on your sleep in this nightmarish 'Dream Hotel'". NPR. Retrieved 2025-06-20.