The Dream Hotel

I found this book under a “books you may like quiz” I found on TikTok. Upon acquiring it I also noticed that it was a Jenna’s Book Club Pick. None of this mattered to me of course, as I was determined to read “The Dream Hotel” ever since its description promised a riveting story of dream surveillance and false imprisonment. After reading the novel, however, I was deeply disappointed in the story’s execution given such a promising concept.

Though I wanted to love this book, I spent the whole time reading it rolling my eyes wondering why she was being so difficult. I understand, we all have the right to be tried for our alleged crimes, but this character had me sympathizing with the prison state.

At first I was onboard with the main themes: it’s wrong to profile people, the surveillance state is dangerous, down with the prison industrial complex. Although quite transparent and thinly veiled, I could see the merit of the direction the book was heading. I really struggled with the lack of resolution at the end. Once the main character discovered their labor was fueling the prison and stopped working, she was swiftly sat in front of the judge and released back to her family. What did this represent? In a realistic prison system, the rebel would be punished, not promptly released. What are the implications of these actions on the rest of the women who had begun to notice and partake in the labor strike? Would they hope to be released soon to?

Overall, while I can see where the author was going with this, it left nothing to the imagination due to overselling the story. The book was pretty one-dimensional, a seemingly mellow introduction to the perils of capitalizing on prison labor. Not bad, but definitely not good.