You need to read this book. This is one of my favorite reads this year. The story is not predictable in any manner. The story is amazing. I couldn't put the book down. I read the entire thing in one sitting. Goldin's style of writing reminds me of Ruth Ware, the author of The Women in Cabin Ten. The story follows a limited number of characters who are stuck in an elevator escape room. For those who are not familiar with escape rooms, essentially an escape room is an game. In this game, individuals will take turns solving puzzles with the ultimate goal of breaking out of the room. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much is because it's so relatable. Five stars!

The Escape Room is part novel, part mystery and part thriller. Megan Goldin did a great job of telling the story of a young woman names Sara Hall, who graduated 4 months ago from her MBA program, and is desperately searching for her first real job, while she is making ends meet by waitressing. As she leaves a terrible interview, with someone who was likely just there to check the box that states that outside candidates were interviewed before giving the job to whomever her planned to give the job to all along, a man in the elevator strikes up a conversation with her about her resume as he looks at it over her shoulder. It turns out that this is someone who may very well be able to give her the job of her dreams on Wall Street. When Sara is gainfully employed, she very much enjoys the ride, with all the perks that the job comes with, like tickets to broadway shows, free gym memberships and fresh squeezed juice when she arrives in the morning. The crazy hours, stress, and inability to maintain relationships with her friends back home all seem to pale in comparison to the thrill of it all. All is well in Sara's world, despite some of the difficult characters she works with, Jules, Sylvia, Sam and Vincent. For them, getting rich and then richer, is all they care about. Sara works hard so she can take care of her parents medical expenses, and afford her rent. She is not worried about having the best new car, watch or clothing. Everything changes when her one friend from work ends up dead. The ride picks up speed from there. Be ready for a wild ride!

I cannot tell you more without there being a spoiler alert, but I will tell you that this was a great read. With two stories being told simultaneously, Sara is telling her story and in other chapters, the story of the 4 people she works with, who are all ordered to show up for a team building exercise, which requires them to escape from an elevator, based on the clues they are given. Each story helps to explain part of the other, and both are equally gripping. This is a story of intrigues, back stabbing, and what some people will do to walk away with the money.

First of all, there seems to be some kind of problem with the version i received and it made it very frustrating to read that book. Apart from that fact, wich i am sure will be fixed in the futur, i liked it very much. The story was very good, four people who are coworkers are stuck in an elevator, needing to solve some clues in order to get out. There are chapters that bring us in the past to see why these people are connected. Il loved sara and Lucy, they were very very well described characters that are easy to imagine. It'a good page turner

Thank you Penguin ebook and NetGalley for a fantastic psychological thriller. The story is about a Wall Street firm that literally kills employees who have managed to keep their integrity. Four of their staff
are trapped in an elevator and must figure out clues in order to survive. Their work past is why they are going through this ordeal. The book kept me up until very late as I had to finish it. Excellent read.

This was the kind of book that was hard to put down and hard not to because the story was so intense. It is told in two times, the current and the past. In the current time, four cutthroat Wall Street financiers are trapped in an elevator, their ‘escape room.” In the past, we see naive and intelligent Sara Hall, seeking to build her fortune and her name with these four who have no moral compass. Vincent, Sam, Jules and Sylvie go to work knowing that they are facing a challenge, but they didn’t know that it would be in an elevator. Nor did they know that in order to escape, they would actually have to work together and solve clues. This is a different psychological thriller, one in which you actually don’t care if anyone in the elevator survives because they are all so greedy and corrupt. Although the characters were not likeable, the book was highly entertaining, so I can recommend it without reservation to anyone who enjoys thrillers with surprise endings.

Where to begin? I LOVED this book to the point it's become my favourite book of 2019 to date. The characters are rich and so well developed. There's a great balance of (many!) villains to loathe as well as characters to really get behind. I really loved the insight into the banking world, it was utterly thrilling and fascinating and Stanhope was a great setting for the majority of the book. Sure, there's a lot that is superficial in the book and money is a core subject but I think that is the author's point. I enjoyed the alternating chapters between Sara and the elevator and these worked so well alongside each other, with Sara able to offer a lot more of a detailed story and helping the reader really get a feel for her time at Stanhope. I'm still unsure how I feel about the ending as it seems incredibly far fetched but I can't deny it was incredibly thrilling and fast-paced. I really like when I feel excited about actually getting to read a book and I experienced this and more with The Escape Room. I cannot recommend this book more.

Awesome Revenge! Incredibly fast paced, first, you think someone else is guilty, then another, then the shocker hits you in the face, it feels like the wind has been knocked out of you! No way, not this person! Why; how did it happen? Then revenge, it is supposed to be best served cold, who knew it would be served on a beautiful beach, with iced champagne! I could have told them all, The root of all evil is the love of money! Unlike Nancy Pelosi, that Scripture is in the Bible! Excellent read, I enjoyed it immensely!
I highly recommend! Thank you Netgalley!
carolintallahassee.com

This novel takes place in two separate timelines. In one, Sara Hall is a recent graduate of business school looking for a job in finance. She’s got student debt, parents with medical issues and a job in a bar that isn’t paying the bills. She is delighted when she is hired to work at Stanhope, a powerful Wall Street firm. Although delighted by her high salary, she is less thrilled by the long hours she is expected to work and the resulting lack of a social life. She quickly realizes that the firm’s powerful executives are not especially trustworthy.

In the second timeline, those executives Vincent, Sam, Sylvie and Jules, are summoned to an empty building for a mandatory team building exercise. They step into an elevator but when the doors close, they are trapped. At first they believe that the elevator is an escape room and solving the clues will allow them to escape. Soon however they become suspicious that something more sinister is going on. Why do the clues point them in the direction of deceased co-workers?

This book is suspenseful and a lot of fun at the same time and is tied up nicely with a satisfying conclusion. It would probably appeal to people who enjoy Joseph Finder or other novels about corporate malfeasance.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book.

The Escape Room, not exactly named appropriately, but a fantastic read nonetheless. This is my top read out of the last 20 books on my shelf. Honestly.

Sara, the main character, has worked hard and now realizes it’s not what you know – and she knows a lot! – but who you know that gets you into a top Wall Street firm. Problem is, she doesn’t know anybody. While others with little hassle walk their way onto easy street, Sara has to work double time, and she does with no complaints. However, where others don’t see the struggles of day to day life, having never lived it, Sara does. And Sara sees a lot of other stuff to, some things maybe she shouldn’t see…

Sara tries to fit in and thinks she is with the other big dogs on her team, but they only tolerate her as she comes to realize. And when the tables really turn, she sees just how little they care. This is where the author really pulls the reader in and unleashes the emotion. Because now, the reader wants retribution. And get it they shall! How it happens and why it happens is the true makeup of the book. Anger, hurt, sadness, and in the end, payback is all there. But who did it? The author artfully twists and turns the story around so the reader is wondering just how it all really happened. Read it. Oh yes.

I strongly suspect that the reason I enjoyed this book so much is because we all have worked in a soul-sucking company and have to put up with hostility, gaslighting, sexism and career sabotage. We rarely get to act on our fantasies of burning it all to the ground together with all the people who made work life a misery for us.

That's The Escape Room in a nutshell. Four ruthless investment bankers found themselves tricked into an escape room scenario in an elevator. Faced with clues that alluded to people who were once part of their team, their secrets boiled to the surface as they tried to solve the mystery of getting out of the room and who could have possibly set them up to this slow torture of each other's company.

This book was easy to read and hard to put down. While it required the type of suspension of belief that you need to watch most movies, there was satisfaction in watching deserving individuals get their comeuppance with no clue where it's coming from. Revenge is a dish best serve cold indeed.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

I loved the premise of this book- It sounded like it could be the plot of an episode of criminal minds! For some reason, the book took me a bit longer to get through than usual. I think there was just too much information, too many backstories that weren't really tied to the actual plot and not enough suspense to make it a really exciting read. That being said, I enjoyed hearing about the cut-throat world of finance. The characters are greedy, power hungry and will do whatever it takes to get ahead. I wish the backstory on these characters would have been more relevant. I realized when I got closer to the end that I read a TON of backstory and still knew close to nothing about the main characters. But to be fair this kept me from humanizing the characters so maybe this was intentional.
I felt that the book started to pick up about 60% of the way in, more clues were sprinkled, there were many possible characters to blame for this, things were looking up. That is until the slightly insane ending. Too much information, the situation was so unbelievable that I lost interest in finding out how the book ended.
This was a 3.5 star read

Short and fun, this is exactly what I expected coming into this thriller. When I read a thriller, I expect two things: I want to be surprised by something in some way, and I want to enjoy my reading process and be entertained. Although I wasn't immensely surprised by any of the plot points, I did remain thoroughly entertained throughout my reading journey. This book did not stand out to me in terms of thriller favorites, but it was fun and I'm happy that I read it.

I give this 4/5 stars because in the end I was fully engrossed in the story. The concept gets a 5. But the story itself really gets a 2.5. There were so many things that did not make sense. Apparently the main character is college educated and can get hired at a top-level finance company, but aside from that the only jobs she can obtain are the lowest of the low server positions, or one very sketchy accountant job. Seriously? That's all she is qualified for? She travels the US and over the course of years this capable college educated woman can only get a job as a dive bar waitress?? This is a serious problem for me.
This revenge is plotted over the course of several years, and the main character puts her entire life on hold for those years while she obsesses over it. I found this problematic. I could not make myself root for her. The plan was insane, it wasn't believable, and it just took way too long to carry out.

But yes, in the end I gave it 4 stars because I mostly enjoyed reading it, even when I was frustrated at the actual plotting. I think it would do better as a B-level thriller film, where logistics and time periods don't pose such a problem.

Megan Goldin's The Escape Room is excellent. Ms Goldin takes the reader back and forth in time, from the "escape room" today and back to explain how circumstances brought the 4 people together for this experience. Difficult to say too much about this story without giving something away. Looking forward to reading more by Megan Goldin. I was given an early copy to review.

What an amazing thriller! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!
A team of 4 high powered, investment firm employees show up to a seemingly still in construction high rise for an important, compulsory meeting. The team has had some major setbacks lately, losing millions for their firm, and they are worried this meeting might be the end of their careers.
Once they step inside the elevator they begin receiving clues, and think they must be in an "escape room." They begin to think this is a final test, and if they can get out within the hour their jobs maybe safe. However, the clues begin to point to two former teammates, Lucy and Sara, who are both now dead. What could their deaths possibly have to do with them now?
Sara Hall is a smart, ambitious MBA graduate without a job. She has a ton of student loan debt, and as on only child, helps her parents with medical bills. When she runs into Vincent, the head of the team now stuck in the elevator, he offers her a position on his team. The work is hard. Very hard. She dedicates herself to her firm, and begins to slowly climb up ladder. When Lucy dies, she begins to blame herself, and while looking into her death, begins to discover things about her team that are not adding up.
The novel switches back and forth between what is happening in the elevator escape room, and Sara's ascent at the firm. Adding up to a final climax that I didn't see coming.
Highly recommended!

The publisher provided me with the opportunity to read this in exchange for providing feedback. (via NetGalley)

I struggled with the arc formatting making it hard to follow but I'm glad I stuck it out. This was a bit of roller coaster that really picked up towards the end. The author did a great job at writing characters that were awful people and made it easy to dislike them.

This book just wasn’t my kind of book. The switching point of view and the slow pacing made it difficult for me to connect with the characters and the story. I’m sure some will enjoy it simple for entertainment value but I like to connect with a book a little more than this book offers.

Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of The Escape Room, in exchange for an honest review.

A four person team of hot shot high power finance colleagues are called to the office late one evening for a mandatory team building exercise, an escape room. They all have other things that they would rather be doing and other obligations to attend to but they have dedicated their lives to the company and would never want to be passed over for a lucrative promotion by not attending. On their way up the elevator stalls on around the 70th floor and the game begins. For a normal escape room groups work together to solve clues and free themselves within an hour but for these four trapped in the confined space the game has turned and its now a mission is to escape with their lives.

The story is told from different perspectives of the four trapped inside the elevator and flash backs narrated by Sara Hall, a former assistant who died a while back. As a fan of escape rooms myself I was very excited for this thriller but didn't love it. I liked the "games" and definitely the concept of the story. The background detail on all of the characters was a little tedious and didn't add much to the actual narration. I enjoyed more of the action of the characters in the elevator than the reasons why they were there. I had trouble connecting to the characters and let's be honest the four are not good people and deserved everything they got. I thought the person behind the game's tactics and plans were a little convenient and not believable. Overall an okay thriller.

Thanks to Megan Goldin, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley, for providing me with a digital advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In The Escape Room, four high-powered New York investment bankers find themselves trapped in an elevator for what they think is an escape room team-building challenge, but they soon realize that it is not a game, and that they may actually be fighting for their lives.

I’m torn about this novel, because it has a good hook and I was immediately drawn in. I think if you are looking for a quick beach read and are not too focused on the details, this could be a fun diversion.

However, the plot is completely implausible, the characters are all unlikable, and the writing is marred by entirely too much “telling” and not nearly enough “showing.” Huge blocks of exposition/backstory really slam the narrative to a halt. Also, the author is not American, and it shows in the use of phrases that no New Yorker would use - “milk teeth” instead of “baby teeth,” “retrenched” instead of “fired” or “terminated” (a minor issue that hopefully will be fixed before publication.).

Interesting story - not a lot of suspense, but a good twist at the end.
Liked how it kept flashing back and forth - giving background info on the characters in the elevator as well as the two not included.