The Dream Hotel

Sara Hussein is the protagonist and primary point-of-view character in the novel. She is a 38-year-old museum archivist and historian, with a specialty in postcolonial Africa, but as of the novel’s opening, she has been detained for 10 months in a Californian facility called Madison due to having a high “risk” score. Sara is intelligent, thoughtful, and meticulous, with a deep understanding of psychology and a desire to see other people as their best selves, even if she fails from time to time in doing so out of a competing desire to escape from Madison as quickly as possible. Sara’s compliance and capabilities are often reflected in her physical appearance; when she is trying to fit Madison’s standards, she obeys their rules regarding her physical appearance, but when Madison’s own standards begin to break down, she breaks down with them, as in the scene where she is forced to take off her pants because they refuse to allow her to use the restroom until she soils herself.

Much of Sara’s characterization within her own mind comes from her role as a wife and mother; her separation from her family is hard on her and forces her to be vulnerable with her own identity as an independent person, despite the dual pressures of Madison and Safe-X forcing her to conform.