
The Dream Hotel
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Frankie Corzo
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Barton Caplan
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By:
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Laila Lalami
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original 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.
©2025 Laila Lalami (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A TODAY Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
Longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction
A Best Book of the Year So Far from The Economist
One of the New York Post’s 30 Must-Read New Thrillers
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from Goodreads, People, TIME Magazine, TODAY, The Washington Post, New York Times Book Review Podcast, Esquire, Men's Health, Marie Claire, The National, New Scientist, Literary Hub, Business Recorder, Deseret News, Kirkus, Screen Rant, The OC Register, Electric Literature, ALTA, The A.V. Club, Language Arts, and The Crimson White
"Brilliant...Makes you question why we aren’t doing more to protect our privacy right now."—Ann Patchett in TheSkimm
“A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future where data collection penetrates interior life, The Dream Hotel is also an elegant meditation on identity and what we sacrifice, unthinkingly, for the sake of convenience.”—Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House
“Powerful, richly conceived…The book’s corporatized reality is slightly more twisted than ours but entirely plausible…Lalami plays out the shiftiness and uncertainty of reality when dreams are given more predictive weight than facts to stunning effect…Here, rendering this edge-of-nightmare world, Lalami skates along at the height of her powers as a writer of intelligent, complex characters…As with her other novels, there’s a softhearted universalism to Lalami’s treatment of surveillance capitalism. Hers is one in which humans retain the ability to trust one another enough to forge working solidarities and authentic collaborations. Although it relies on a speculative technology for its plot, The Dream Hotel is astounding, elegantly constructed, character-driven fiction. Lalami’s realistic approach to Sara and others, inflected with leftist politics and history, elides any sharp division we might imagine about where we’ve been and what we face ahead…Within the latter part of the novel, it’s not the stuff of tragedy or alarm about the human condition we encounter, but surprising, unadulterated hope.”—Los Angeles Times
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- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Casablanca's stinking alleys are the only home that 19-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, he dreams of escape - until, one day, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive and whisks him from the slums into the luxurious life of Casablanca's elite. But as he leaves the poverty of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a starkly unglittering reality...
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Intimate story of identity and family
- By Steve on 02-03-23
By: Laila Lalami
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Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
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Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
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Dream Count
- A Novel
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sandra Okuboyejo, A'rese Emokpae, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship.
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Listening sounded like a conversation in my mother’s kitchen . . . .
- By Ms. Esq. on 05-14-25
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The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
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Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
By: Laila Lalami
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The Unworthy
- A Novel
- By: Agustina Bazterrica
- Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.
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The detail
- By Alexandra on 05-25-25
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Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain, author Laila Lalami asks: What has driven them to risk their lives? And will the rewards prove to be worth the danger? There's Murad, a gentle, unemployed man who's been reduced to hustling tourists around Tangier; Halima, who's fleeing her drunken husband and the slums of Casablanca; Aziz, who must leave behind his devoted wife in hope of securing work in Spain; and Faten, a student and religious fanatic whose faith is at odds with an influential man determined to destroy her future.
By: Laila Lalami
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The Strange Case of Jane O.
- A Novel
- By: Karen Thompson Walker
- Narrated by: Jay Myers, Alex Sarrigeorgiou
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
A year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. Three days after her first visit to a psychiatrist, Jane suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.
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The performances were soul-reaching
- By Laurie E. Barshay on 03-29-25
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Wild Dark Shore
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.
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Please speak up!
- By Sarah on 03-12-25
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O Sinners!
- A Novel
- By: Nicole Cuffy
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, SEVAN
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult called “the nameless.” Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, the nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.”
By: Nicole Cuffy
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The Persians
- By: Sanam Mahloudji
- Narrated by: Donia Bijan, Lanna Joffrey, Nikki Massoud, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet the Valiat family. In Iran, they were somebodies. In America, they’re nobodies. First there is Elizabeth, the regal matriarch with the famously large nose, who remained in Tehran despite the revolution. She lives alone but is sometimes visited by Niaz, her Islamic-law-breaking granddaughter, who takes her partying with a side of purpose and yet manages to survive. Elizabeth’s daughters wound up in America: Shirin, a charismatic and flamboyantly high-flying event planner in Houston, who considers herself the family’s future, and Seema, a dreamy idealist turned housewife.
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Beautifully written. A balance of humor and depth.
- By Varsha on 03-28-25
By: Sanam Mahloudji
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Tilt
- A Novel
- By: Emma Pattee
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.
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Over enthusiastic, snarky narrator who can't...
- By NMwritergal on 03-27-25
By: Emma Pattee
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Deep Cuts
- A Novel
- By: Holly Brickley
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night. Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years.
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Music infuses every note of this book
- By meredith quill on 04-22-25
By: Holly Brickley
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Fundamentally
- A Novel
- By: Nussaibah Younis
- Narrated by: Sarah Slimani
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When Nadia Amin, a witty and bighearted PhD, publishes an article on deradicalization, everything changes. The United Nations comes calling with an opportunity to put her theory into practice and lead a rehabilitation program for women caught in the crosshairs of harmful ideology. And why not? Abandoned by her mother and devastated by unrequited love, she leaps at the chance.
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Narration was Fantastic
- By Ameera on 05-15-25
By: Nussaibah Younis
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Audition
- A Novel
- By: Katie Kitamura
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day–partner, parent, creator, muse–and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.
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Bizarre
- By Kevin on 04-23-25
By: Katie Kitamura
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This Is a Love Story
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Soffer
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
For fifty years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now. Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew.
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A waste of time — not worth the credit
- By E. Zimmerman on 03-12-25
By: Jessica Soffer
A must read about our new totalitarian present. Must read and terrifying
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Characters that are fragile or brave you decide
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Narration was great
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Although this book has a sci fi, it does not get into any of the science - a little bit more about the tech would have been interesting.
I highly recommend this book - for a book with so many layers, it flowed very well and was a quick read.
Excellent Dystopian Novel - highly relevant given current events
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Intriguing Read
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The next parable of the sower
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Terrific and Disturbing Story with Characters that you care about
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I found myself appreciating this book on a structural and writing level that started in the background and eventually emerged into my consciousness. The writing/structure mirrors what's happening to Sara, which was both good and bad. It contributed to feeling what Sara was feeling (claustrophobic, every day is the same, and so on) but also made it feel a little repetitious. And it was a fairly long book considering it's not exactly action-packed. Still, I was never bored.
For me, a 3 is a high rating so take this for what it's worth.
Worth a read
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It had too much detail that droned on
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Good story idea but fell short
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