The Escape Room: A Novel
"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?
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Readers say Megan Goldin’s *The Escape Room* offers a compelling glimpse into the ruthless world of Wall Street, with tense, claustrophobic scenes tha...
I first read this book in June 2019 while recovering from personal trauma. At the time, I was desperately trying to use books as a form of escape and I had completely forgotten to write and submit a review for NetGalley. So here am, almost exactly four years later, rereading the same book and finally writing a review.
Synopsis:
“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 to survive?”
I went into this book with so much anticipation. I love a good locked room mystery, secrets, and deadly games. Soon into reading this book, I realized that as much as an elevator helps encapsulate the feeling of claustrophobia, it’s not the best setting for an “escape room.” There just wasn’t enough in that space for the character to interact with, to seem plausible.
I found that Sara’s POV was the most interesting part of this story, but for a book called “escape room” and for the synopsis to say it’s a “dangerous game of survival” and a “competition,” I found all of that to be VERY misleading. I’m my opinion, this was just a bunch of corporate gossip and manipulations, not the fast-paced deadly game of a book, that the synopsis eludes to.
Overall, I rated it three stars both times I read this story. It was fine, but I just wanted what was promised.
I read The Escape Room in about 24 hours! I was very intrigued by the concept of this book. The idea of being mislead to believe you're participating in a typical escape room challenge, only to discover it's very real, was a terrifying one. Other reviewers have noted that most of the characters were very unlikeable, which was very true, but I also felt like that was kind of the point. It was still compulsively readable, allowing the reader into the cutthroat world of the upper echelons of Wall Street.
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