The Escape Room
By
Megan Goldin

Escape rooms seem to be all the rage these days! Well, this Escape Room is outrageous! How hard can it be to escape an elevator? Right? Just take this elevator ride and it all becomes clear how difficult it really is. It's a "ride" that took me into the dark side of the financial district in NY and the "behind-the-scenes" of the cut-throat business of this fictional company called Stanhope & Sons. It's eat or be eaten in this story. Each person for themselves.
An escape room sounds like the perfect corporate team-building activity to bring colleagues together for the betterment of the company. This team-building event takes place in an elevator from which the four co-workers, Vincent, Sylvie, Jules and Sam find themselves trapped in. It's their "mission" (which they have no option to refuse) to figure out the clues that are hidden in the elevator in order to escape. They have no idea what's in store for them!
This story alternates between two POVs. The first, of course, is the group stuck in the elevator. The second is Sara, a co-worker who is the last to be hired by the company. The gaps in the story are filled in as the group in the elevator find themselves learning things about each other that they don't want revealed. Sara's part of the story is what happens that leads up to the team-building event. It works well by weaving the stories together and how each character affects the others. It's not always a good thing especially trapped in an inescapable elevator.
The characters, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are perfect for this story. Greedy, vindictive, snooty and mean. They aren't welcoming or someone I'd personally want anything to do with. I found myself not caring if they "escaped" at all. Then there is Sara. She's been dealt a rough way to go but she tries her best and I wanted her to succeed. She is the good to the bad in the book.
The whole book had me trying to figure out why these four were called to the Escape Room. What was the point? I had to keep turning the pages to know what was the reason. Each person had no clue what they were doing in there and why. What is the motive? Oh, the secrets that come out! Suspicions abound!
"That he was the architect of some twisted Machiavellian plot to lock them together in the tiny claustrophobic space-an escape room from which they'd been unable to escape."
This book is a captivating scenario that would be a worst nightmare of being trapped in a pitch black elevator. It's an unimaginable elevator ride! I will probably never think of an elevator the same way again. BUT.....I'm thinking there might be more to this ride? I would love if there is.
I want to thank St. Martin's Press for a copy of this book, Netgalley for an ARC of this book and Ms. Goldin for writing this book!