The Dream Hotel cover art

The Dream Hotel

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Dream Hotel

By: Laila Lalami
Narrated by: Barton Caplan, Frankie Corzo
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £14.92

Buy Now for £14.92

About this listen

Bloomsbury presents The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, read by Frankie Corzo and Barton Caplan

‘A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future’ JENNIFER EGAN
‘Extraordinary’ RUMAAN ALAM
‘Absolutely unputdownable’ SANDRA NEWMAN

Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming her husband. For his safety, she must be transferred to a retention centre, and kept under observation for twenty-one days.

But as Sara arrives to be monitored alongside other dangerous dreamers, she discovers that with every deviation from the facility’s strict and ever-shifting rules, their stays can be extended – and that getting home to her family is going to cost much more than just three weeks of good behaviour . . .

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 well we can ever truly know those around us – even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.

©2025 Laila Lalami (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Dream

Critic reviews

A thought provoking and compellingly plausible novel. Totally immersive and unputdownable (John Marrs)
I was utterly gripped, caught up, as if I was living the same nightmare as Sara. It felt terrifyingly and convincingly close (Esther Freud)
A terrifying, thought-provoking and timely exploration of the inevitable march of algorithms and data-harvesting into our innermost lives. The Dream Hotel offers not only a real-feeling diorama of an extensively-surveilled prison population, but a masterclass in the art of cortisol-raising - to be filed alongside The Trial and The School for Good Mothers (Jo Harkin)
All stars
Most relevant
Story overly long and ending very quick Didn't particularly enjoy or reccommend. Just don't bother

Didn't really go any where

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Uncannily the events are played out on our daily news. Epithets of our daily lives becomes a profitable business that is utilised to control the population.

Dystopian novel reflects fractured USA

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It was a disturbing tale made even more so as algorithms get used more and more in our own lives. The author weaves a futuristic narrative with skill, ensnaring the reader and leaving them inside the detention centre contemplating their own dreams. A very good read

Disturbing but a fascinating read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the idea and it's well written and well narrated. I ended up feeling like I was serving the retention extensions as well, maybe that is the point?

id love this as a short story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was definitely a ‘curate’s egg’ kind of read for me. I loved the beginning: feeling our way around the ‘not a prison’; trying to work out what it really was, and the events that led up to its creation. Learning why the main character was in there was also a fascinating insight into a world that really doesn’t feel very far out of sight at all. The characters were a great mix and it was a new and different kind of read.
But oh, the ending! I was at best, underwhelmed.
I felt important questions weren’t answered (I can’t list for fear of spoilers, but to do with the main character and her husband’s behaviour while she is in the hostel - would have preferred his life without her to have been bigger in the plot) and I also finished the book feeling that it just sort of petered out. Again, tricky to explain why without spoilers is tricky (!) but I felt it needed something bigger to happen regarding the lives of the characters and the life of the hostel. An interesting read, at parts entertaining and thought-provoking but after its brilliant opening, I was left a bit disappointed.

Great premise and characters

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews