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A review by p4chen
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
4.0
Longlisted - Women’s Prize for Fiction - 2025
The Dream Hotel is a chilling vision of big brother surveillance where our dreams are monitored and commodified. The prose is charged with intensity and the structural shifts build tension.
It explores themes around privacy, freedom, and resistance. The main protagonist is complex and her initial compliance gradually transforms into frustrated resistance.
Her relationships with fellow detainees - particularly her close friendships, form the emotional heart of the narrative. Through their solidarity the author illustrates how human connection can flourish even under extreme surveillance and control.
That dreams can be monitored and used as evidence of criminal intent, serves as a powerful metaphor for the erosion of privacy in this digital age and through surveillance of our most intimate thoughts, dreams and experiences.
The impact of and separation from family members is difficult to read. The main character struggles to maintain her sense of self while being labeled a potential threat to them, specifically her husband, highlights further the dehumanising effects when algorithmic predictions are used.
Although the premise of this novel might seem far-fetched, the narrative is grounded in existing, real-world, technologies, which feel like natural extensions of current surveillance and AI concerns. It is unsettling. Especially the awareness of how technology reshapes privacy and human autonomy.
The prose was well crafted although sometimes unnecessarily repetitive.
The character development was nuanced, and coupled with the social commentary about surveillance and technology's growing reach make this a very compelling and thrilling read.
The Dream Hotel is a chilling vision of big brother surveillance where our dreams are monitored and commodified. The prose is charged with intensity and the structural shifts build tension.
It explores themes around privacy, freedom, and resistance. The main protagonist is complex and her initial compliance gradually transforms into frustrated resistance.
Her relationships with fellow detainees - particularly her close friendships, form the emotional heart of the narrative. Through their solidarity the author illustrates how human connection can flourish even under extreme surveillance and control.
That dreams can be monitored and used as evidence of criminal intent, serves as a powerful metaphor for the erosion of privacy in this digital age and through surveillance of our most intimate thoughts, dreams and experiences.
The impact of and separation from family members is difficult to read. The main character struggles to maintain her sense of self while being labeled a potential threat to them, specifically her husband, highlights further the dehumanising effects when algorithmic predictions are used.
Although the premise of this novel might seem far-fetched, the narrative is grounded in existing, real-world, technologies, which feel like natural extensions of current surveillance and AI concerns. It is unsettling. Especially the awareness of how technology reshapes privacy and human autonomy.
The prose was well crafted although sometimes unnecessarily repetitive.
The character development was nuanced, and coupled with the social commentary about surveillance and technology's growing reach make this a very compelling and thrilling read.