Welcome, friend! Ariel and I both came across The Dream Hotel separately and felt it would be discussion worthy. We were right! Take a look at what the book is about and then read on for our thoughts.
Laila Lalami | Goodreads
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.
The Dream Hotel – Discussion
Ariel: I first saw Dream Hotel mentioned in this NPR review. The premise immediately stuck out to me as one that we would enjoy discussing on the blog and here we are! Thank you so much for diving into this weird and horrifyingly too-real thriller with me.
Kriti: You’re most welcome! I came across the book on several Canadian media too once you mentioned it! We don’t often pick up hyped books but this was the kind of genre that we enjoy discussing.
Exactly! We have a history of finding books that are near-future dystopias like The Farm, which was our very first buddy read discussion! The Dream Hotel follows the main character, Sara, as she is incarcerated in a facility due to the fact that an AI algorithm has determined she is too risky for public and community safety.
Like The Farm, The Dream Hotel presented a reality that could be true. We have been inundated with AI in the last few years and maybe the future is not far off where everything is outsourced to algorithms and people are just following their leads. What a horrible position to be in for Sara! She is bidding her time for a crime she did not commit but the algorithm thought she could have. The disruption this caused to her family life and her mental health was massive.
Totally– this was a tough book to read at times as I was empathizing for her experience and how those can echo real-life experiences today. Her initial interrogation when she is first taken in at the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) felt reminiscent to real-life accounts to border enforcement checks of people who are not deemed “American enough,” with or without the proper paperwork. Sara has done nothing wrong, yet every ounce of frustration she mistakenly shows is ultimately turned against her, and her “three week” stay begins.
The algorithm demands perfection. You cannot look frazzled during an investigation and to ask for a phone call is deemed unreasonable?! The interrogation set the tone for the book. Racial profiling still continues in the world of AI and I think there is something to be said about that. At the end of the day, algorithms are trained not just on raw data but also on what actions humans have taken and, ultimately, want the AI to mimic. No wonder Sara gets flagged. A decade ago when I first started traveling from India to Canada, via the UK, there would be so many things I would do to not get dinged by the security sensors. Sara had similar anxiety and though previous years had gone smoothly for her, it didn’t take long for her body and mind to go on high alert when she was singled out. From the start, she was treated as someone guilty and this just continued throughout the book.
It’s evident very quickly that the algorithm keeps finding ways for her to be over the 500-point risk margin, extending her stay to the better part of a year. There are stark parallels here to the injustices of incarceration, specifically ICE (US Immigration & Customs Enforcement) holding facilities where people wait, often indefinitely, for their trial hearings.
I love that The Dream Hotel exposes these parallels in such a masterful way.
Another major theme is the idea of constant surveillance. While Sara is incarcerated, her behavior changes because she is aware of the RAA always watching her. Her posture, method of speaking, the way she does her hair– they all change. She doesn’t want to be perceived as an outlier– therefore increasing her risk. It does bring to mind how every move we make online is being tracked (unless specific steps are taken) so companies can make more money off of us.
Sara is a mother to young children. She wasn’t getting much sleep as is the norm with being a new parent and she chose to get an implant of a device that would give her rest. It was a dream come true! And then the RAA twisted this device for surveillance, monitoring her dreams and also sneakily changing them to influence her buying habits. That was such an outrageous breach! A novel device that had a good premise was used so awfully. Her twins were barely a year old when she was put in the facility. Those first three years with a child are pivotal in forming bonds and she lost previous time over a hypothetical crime, living under the tyranny of the facility operators, who were inhuman. Sara had to keep a journal for her dreams and her own interpretation of them so that they won’t be used against her. I was going nuts reading about her.
Me too! Overall, the plot has twists and turns, and while we are hoping for Sara to be let out, we also see glimpses behind the scenes into email logs, meeting transcripts, and other found files that flesh out the Risk Assessment Administration– and ultimately showing its goals are ultimately to make a profit, not make any community safer.
Yes, the different ways of storytelling were suspenseful and innovative. I also enjoyed how the whole ordeal gave Sara courage to do something against the injustice, even though it was really hard to fight the system. She was surrounded by women who were in similar situations as her and the system actively discouraged them from unifying. I loved her passion and hope she doesn’t stop fighting!
I have noticed that I enjoy Jenna’s Picks and this is one of them! The Dream Hotel is too real, tense and stressful. I am glad Ariel recommended it and we got to share about it together on the blog! Go pick it up if it sounds interesting to you!
Thank you for joining us!
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