Title: The Escape Room
Author: Megan Goldin
Series: N/A
Dates Read: 16 – 17/08/2024
Published Date: 30 July 2019
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 356
Content Warnings (May contain spoilers)
Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide.
Who is this for? Young Adults, Adults
This book covers:
Format/Disclosure:
Rating: 2.0 ⭐
Review:
I had such high hopes for this book – my family and I love escape rooms and generally complete a few each year, so we’ve gotten quite good at them. Seeing a book based on an escape room definitely piqued my interest, and the blurb made me very excited for it. In actuality, the book is just disappointing. It’s not even really an “escape room” in the traditional sense, and although they try and make it seem like one, it just falls flat – it almost comes across as though written by someone who has never completed an escape room and only has a vague idea of how they work (Even the explanation given by Sam, who had previously completed one, felt a bit off.)
The book alternates between the POV of the 4 colleagues in the elevator and of a colleague of theirs, Sara Hall. The main 4 colleagues are rude, selfish, and put simply.. they suck. Sara is meant to seem like the better option – she’s kind, hardworking, and has morals (At least in the beginning), which they constantly tell her needs to be quashed if she’s ever going to get ahead in the industry. Speaking of the industry, the book is based on finance (Investment bankers? I’m not even too sure) and has far more detail than is necessary in a lot of the chapters. There’s probably 50% of filler that could be cut out and this book would’ve made a great novella.
The ending is fairly disappointing – although you’re told a certain thing, it’s fairly obvious who the “villain” is (I say villain, but really I mean the person behind the “escape room”).
Lucy was probably the only likable character in the book, and even she felt clunky – She was a badly described version of what autism is, and it was like there was a checklist of “autism traits” that the author went through and check, check, check, Lucy had them all! That entire part of the book just made me feel real icky.