Minority Report meets The Trial: a review of The Dream Hotel

In the near-future world of The Dream Hotel, sleep and dream data are nefariously obtained by a surveillance agency that obviously doesn't have anyone's best interests at heart. When our protagonist has violent dreams, she is labeled as a potential security risk. Since no crime has been committed yet, she is left in a complicated legal limbo as she's imprisoned in a facility that isn't technically a prison. That premise is, in my opinion, fantastic. The execution of the premise is okay too, though not perfect. There are some loose threads that could have probably been further examined (especially with side characters), and the actual prose and writing is nothing to write home about. However, flaws aside, The Dream Hotel is engaging and clever, exploring surveillance capitalism, data, AI, racism, guilt, family, motherhood, the legal system, the prison-industrial complex, and more. There are random passages when the book decides to directly explain these themes to readers, but for the most part, everything is introduced gently -- or at least with as gentle a touch as possible when dealing with extremely relevant topics that we all already have strong opinions about.

The book is at its best when developing its characters, though the character work is not going to be for everyone. For me, every single interaction in the story generated so much paranoia. I kept going back and forth debating who I could trust and who I couldn't. It really captures why it's so profoundly unsettling to lose faith in -- well -- everything: political systems, social arrangements, bonds with close friends and family, and even your own memory. A lot of your enjoyment will depend on whether you actually feel this distrust and paranoia notching up as the story progresses. If you don't feel it, then the novel might get repetitive. I can't accuse the book of being slow and boring; the writing is too engaging and readable, and at times, it even reads like a psychological mystery thriller. But I definitely can accuse the book of getting static. You need to have the patience to follow characters who lack the agency to drive much of a plot. And you need to forgive the author for not really dedicating any attention to what little plot there actually is. Most of the tension comes from the increasing paranoia, and very little of this unease is made to be explicit. The book isn't interested in spoon-feeding emotional subtitles to readers. You either feel it, or you don't.

Basically The Dream Hotel should work best for readers who enjoy claustrophobic speculative fiction, where conflict stems from institutional inertia and from psychological erosion. If that description sounds up your alley, I recommend this one.