Synopsis:
In a world without privacy, what is the cost of freedom?
Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport and inform her that she will commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she presents an imminent risk to the person she loves most, and must now be transferred to a retention centre for twenty-one days to lower her ‘risk score’.
But when Sara arrives at Madison to be observed alongside other dangerous dreamers, it soon becomes clear that getting home to her family is going to cost more than just three weeks of good behaviour. And as every minor misdemeanour, every slight deviation from the rules, adds time to her stay, she begins to wonder if there might be more here than first meets the eye.
Then, one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and setting off a chain of events that lead Sara on a collision course with the companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how much we can ever truly know those around us – even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.
Review:
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.
A surreal and compelling book that focuses on Sara Hussein, a scientist who is detained at an airport when she is flagged as a potential threat to her husband. What exactly is it that makes her a threat? Her dreams. We are in a future where nothing is private. Companies have access to everything you do, see and say, even while you sleep.
This story felt so possible, so close to our reality, that it was unsettling to read. The technology we explore isn’t far-fetched; it’s so close to what we use today that it was all too easy to imagine it. It’s one of those novels that just sticks in your mind afterwards as a cautionary tale to take with you into the real world.
We flip between Sara’s current experiences and the wider world, which helps add the layers of social critique and the exploration of power, injustice and personal freedoms that underpin the novel. This dual presentation also helps to keep the novel moving nicely, since there are some sections in the middle that are slower, but I feel that this is intentional, and it does work, for spending time incarcerated is unlikely to pass by quickly.
I liked following Sara, seeing her develop and her thoughts change as time stretched on in the facility. Her determination to maintain her identity and autonomy within a system that wants her to conform and blend into the masses was compelling to read and reflects situations we do see around us today. Other characters were less developed, and I would have liked to know them a little more, but again, I wonder if it was purposeful given the situation and the themes in the novel.
Overall, I was thoroughly sucked in to this novel. Timely and intense, it is definitely a quiet alarm call to those who read it – pay attention to your own privacy, your own freedom.
Thank you to @Bloomsbury for the #gifted copy!
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