Megan Goldin

The Escape Room

Cori

Kenzi Linton

I read two chapters and the next day, read the rest because it was so good. It was not what I expected, and my only wish is that the ending had a little more to it.

For my full review: go to @delicatedayreads on Instagram

Petaco

I liked the first 2/3rds but the last 3rd required some EXTREME suspension of belief. Still enjoyable though.

Jennifer mitchell

warning: don’t read this book if you have any interest in working a corporate job. I can promise you won’t want to do that any more.

Heather Miller

Coworkers are trapped in an elevator for the weekend, disguised as an escape room, and forced to solve puzzles and learn to put aside uncomfortable secrets and truths that are revealed in order to survive… or so they believe.

Usually, I am bothered by a story taking place in one location the entire story, but the author balanced it well by weaving in the past side story within the main story.

The business aspect of it all is kind of boring, but I was entertained enough to keep going because I knew it was all building up to something, and I just had to know what it was. About halfway through I started to expect what was going on and ended up being right. It can be very dark and mysterious at times.

All characters have a good amount of backstory. Some more than others, and it keeps me worried about what happens to some and not the others, even though basically every single one of them was extremely unlikeable.

I honestly didn’t expect how it ended to happen. The twist was really good, but as usual, quite predictable.

I definitely enjoyed this book and very much recommend it!

sophia n

ok originally picked this up because it was on a list of books to read if you'd liked severance, and to first talk on that: yeeeaaahhhh naur. i get why someone made the comparison but it's a loose thread at best. mostly i'd say the connection is just with the workplace + shadiness. maybe a little about playing personas at work and work becoming your identity? though i'd say that's just a part of the story here, that's about where the comparison ends.

that being said i super enjoyed this, despite the fact i actually guessed the ending like 5% in. except i was actually surprised by some things in way the ending played out, even having guessed the "reveal" so that was really great. overall it was a lot of fun, especially for me having consulted for a company very much like the fake one laid out here 👀 lmao. i love a well researched and realistic book! this author clearly had a good grasp on the industry she was writing about which came through and made it feel even more grounded. i think i just wanted like a LITTLE something more from the tension, but overall, really solid thriller.

Nicole Dykeman

Okay, I think I’m learning that I only enjoy adult books/thrillers when they have a magical or supernatural element. Because this was literally just a cast of unlikeable characters doing ridiculously unbelievable things. I’d rather an author outright create a new world that works differently than ours than try to make me believe that stuff like this is remotely feasible. I spent half of the book rolling my eyes. 

Maybe it wouldn’t have even been that bad, though, if the book delivered what it promised—an escape-room-inspired thrill. As a lover of escape rooms, that was the premise that really drew me to this book. The execution was lame and basically a lie. They’re not doing an escape room. They’re stuck in an elevator. Not the same thing at all. 

The final straw was just the writing itself. It’s just not good. It’s juvenile, it’s dull. The reveals were not shocking or surprising. I have to say I’m just overall very disappointed by this. If it wasn’t so short, I would have DNF’d it.

annie

** spoiler alert **
           I want to give this 3.75 stars. A friend and I picked this book up from the bookstore one day thinking it would be a fun book to read together. Neither of us had heard of it before but we thought we would give it a try. It did end up being a fun read. The first 120 pages or so seemed like a steady pace and kept me interested. Lots of development. From pages 120-300, I was seriously enthralled and glued to the book. I couldn't put it down once the mystery started to really unfold. Then, the last 50 or so pages were just... what in the world? The last portion just felt so rushed, far-fetched, and utterly unbelievable. It was still a good read, but I cannot get over how it all ended.

Ley Stanton

Well I didn't mean to binge this but...
I couldn't put this book down. Absolutely loved the reveal at the ending. I'm sure some people would see it coming but I certainly didn't. Really enjoyed this thriller and looking to read others from this author.

Arianna scasino

This book was good, the build up was amazing. However, I felt like the end wasn’t the best. 

Cindy

This is a fast paced book that flips between past and present in a seamless manner, it is a thriller/mystery. The writing style of this author is so good that I was literally pulled in on the first page. It was impossible to even sympathize with Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam, the characters in the elevator that were part of the Escape Room team building exercise. I definitely felt like I was in the elevator with Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam as they tried to solve each clue as it was presented to them. The elevator is dark and things go downhill pretty fast for these finance wizards.

The story flips between the elevator and the story of Sarah Hall who worked at the company. I was intrigued by Sarah's story and enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out what exactly was going on in the elevator. Between trying to figure out what happened to Sarah and what was happening in the elevator I was very entertained. While the ending was not a huge shocker it was appropriate and satisfying.

This book definitely is a thrilling ride!This review was originally posted on Cindy’s Book Stacks

Sierra Bradley

For a book called “the escape room”, there’s a surprising lack of puzzles or mysteries. Most of the escape room part of the novel is rich, obnoxious people whining at each other, with a few puzzles that the characters ignore for most of the time they’re in there. The other two thirds of the book is the tale of an up-and-coming female investment banker and her trials and tribulations working with the aforementioned rich, obnoxious people. I came into this expecting something like Saw but more psychological, but I couldn’t have been further from the mark. The ending was predictable and the characters were pretty unbelievable and over the top in how terrible they were (also, as a side note, why can’t anyone have a normal hair or eye colour? It’s always “ice blue” eyes and “silver blonde” hair). What few mysteries or questions there were in the plot were drawn out due to the characters’ stupidity, such as them spending long periods of time complaining about being locked in a room, yet not solving the puzzles that are the only apparent way out of the room. Or like a character ignoring objects in their possession for months and years without examining them, then finding obvious, important information inside them once they finally bother to look. Overall, I was compelled enough to finish the book to see if it would surprise me in the end, but it was pretty disappointing.

"One of my favorite books of the year." —Lee Child “Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you'll be caught in your own escape room—the only key to freedom is turning the last page!” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) "A sleek, well-crafted ride." —The New York Times In Megan Goldin's unforgettable debut, The Escape Room, four young Wall Street rising stars discover the price of ambition when an escape room challenge turns into a lethal game of revenge. Welcome to the escape room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive. In the lucrative world of finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are at the top of their game. They’ve mastered the art of the deal and celebrate their success in style—but a life of extreme luxury always comes at a cost. Invited to participate in an escape room challenge as a team-building exercise, the ferociously competitive co-workers crowd into the elevator of a high-rise building, eager to prove themselves. But when the lights go off and the doors stay shut, it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary competition: they’re caught in a dangerous game of survival. Trapped in the dark, the colleagues must put aside their bitter rivalries and work together to solve cryptic clues to break free. But as the game begins to reveal the team’s darkest secrets, they realize there’s a price to be paid for the terrible deeds they committed in their ruthless climb up the corporate ladder. As tempers fray, and the clues turn deadly, they must solve one final chilling puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?

A Novel

Natalie Sypeck 

Anyone feel like they're going to take the stairs for the next few months? LOL 
I really enjoyed the rage this book made me feel, I like when thrillers do that. I also like the slight film of discomfort that surrounded me during many parts of this book, another sign of a good thriller, in my opinion. I always love social thrillers the best. This book does an excellent job of depicting that way greed eats away at your heart and soul. There were a few points where I wished things moved along a bit quicker, but overall, this was an enthralling story that had me hooked from page one to the final line. 
This is my second book by this author. Night Swim was a 5 star and a top book of 2021. Definitely looking forward to more books by this author. 

TW: reference to drug use, alcoholism, cheating, domestic abuse, sexual harassment/assault, death, including death of parents, drugging, gaslighting. (check for others, since I may have missed some)

chloe mcpherson

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin 
4/5

Getting rich is all that matters. Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are ruthlessly ambitious high-flyers working in the lucrative world of Wall Street finance where deception and intimidation thrive, and they'll do anything to reach the top.
When they are ordered to participate in a corporate team-building exercise that requires them to escape from a locked elevator, dark secrets of their team begin to be laid bare.
The biggest mystery to solve in this lethal game: What happened to Sara Hall? Once a young shining star—”now gone but not forgotten”.

:Lately any book or movie that includes an escape room, I am all over it! and I am so glad I picked this one up. We follow past when Sara Hall worked in this company and in present time when Sara no longer works there but a new girl.
Lots of twists and turns in this book which I loved. 
I read this as an audio and when I get a physical copy I will be giving this one a re-read.

Lauren Attaway

The Escape Room, or toxic masculinity runs free in Wall Street. By the pitch- After a dismal year, a Wall Street financial team is invited to do an Escape Room, and all four show up because they’re afraid of losing their jobs, of course things go awry-I thought this would a spin on a locked-room mystery. It’s a thriller about the links people will go to protect their own interests. The book is noteworthy because a lot of the action or the story is just watching a group of coworkers scheme and plot against each other. A fun, fast read, that would make an entertaining onscreen thriller.

Caitlin Snyder

This book reminded me a bit of John Grisham's The Firm. It was a really fun read even though it is completely unbelievable and all of the characters are horrible people.

Fiona Coffey

This book completely sucked me in. I didn’t love it quite as much as I loved The Night Swim, but the premise was really interesting and I couldn’t stop reading it! If you like thrillers and murder mysteries you probably will like this! The author’s writing style is so crisp, as always, and I can’t wait to read more of her stuff!

Maxime van der Wal

2.5 stars
Reality aside, this was a really entertaining and compelling psychological novel. The narrative structure was definitely a little odd and confusing in the beginning, but once I got past that I couldn’t put the book down. A fun and easy read.

Whitney Leno

What a ride... and I loved it. I highly enjoy books where characters are not likable. While I fairly quickly figured out who was behind the hijinxs the motivation I did not figure out. I also loved how in the end it was every ones own ego and greed that was the downfall. 4 stars because it was slightly unbelievable but I a good read.

Ruth Parker 

Ok first things first... if you want a realistic, grounded thriller then this book is not for you. It’s absurd, it’s unbelievable and you have to read it with a pinch of salt.
But if you can cope with horrible characters and suspend your beliefs for 350 pages then this is a treat! It’s a load of fun and even though the characters in the elevator are horrid horrid people I was intrigued as to what they had done! It also shines a light on the way women can still be treated in business if they are unfortunate enough to be stuck with men like Eric Miles.

I previously read an ARC of this and didn’t leave a review because I got about twenty pages in and couldn’t stomach all of the spelling mistakes. This was so much better, it felt like a different book and it had clearly been edited properly by the time it was published.

In Megan Goldin's unforgettable debut, four young Wall Street rising stars discover the price of ambition when an escape room challenge turns into a lethal game of revenge ...

Makayla Reed

This book is not what I originally thought it would be like. I was surprised by the way this story panned out and the way it focused on Wall Street. When I started this book I was unaware that it was about Wall Street Bankers and the corruption and misogyny that comes with being in the finance industry.

I think that this is a fantastic book filled with twists and turns but also a book that is an interesting game of who will win in the banking world. Who beats who and what sinister thing did they have to do to get where they are now in their career. Whose ass did they have to kiss to get where they are. If you are looking for a book that isn't too heavy and just a fun escape room book, I do not recommend this novel. This is a novel filled with thought and formulated to a tee. This is a very calibrated book and makes your mind really think about what is going on behind the scenes. Wall Street's antics are truly revealed in this novel.

Megan Leprich

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press for providing me with a free copy of this book and for inviting me to participate in the blog tour!

I’m a huge fan of game-type thriller and suspense novels and I absolutely loved this book! I went into this book not knowing much about it and I think with this book, that’s what you need to do. I devoured this book in less than 24 hours and was reeling from it for a while.

This story follows a group of employees that work in the cutthroat finance world and each of them seems to be at the top of their game. They all live the life of luxury, but luxury comes at a cost. When they are all invited to participate in an escape room challenge for team-building purposes, they have no idea what they’re in for.

I loved the beginning of this book and how it flipped back and forth between the characters so you felt like you really got to know them. They were all well developed and I had a love/hate relationship with each of them for different reasons.

If you’ve ever seen the horror movie Devil, it has those types of vibes. A group of people stuck in an elevator, trying to figure out how to get out, and they start dropping dead one by one with no idea who the real killer is.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the incredibility of some of the things the main character did as revenge. It seemed a little far fetched for me and that’s the only reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5.

Ally Wagner

Krystal Campbell 

Despite 4 wisdom teeth being removed I still couldn’t put this book down. I needed to know what happens. When you finally do it’s worth the wait!