What a fun book! Kept me guessing and reading through the whole thing. I saw a movie called Escape Room at the theater and enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading this book. It's a different story but just as interesting with a lot of problems that need solving. Highly recommend it.

Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are investment bankers and elite members of Wall Street's rich and powerful. They have what it takes to blend into the ruthless and cut throat world of high finance, including the capacity to turn the other cheek on misconduct and to do anything to get their next big bonus.

But the tables are turned when they receive last minute invitations to a team-building escape room activity, and they slowly begin to realize that the clues in this room are a bit too personal and deadly. True to form, they turn on each other and go into self-survival mode as they race against the clock to solve the clues and save their lives.

This is an intense psychological thriller with ruthless characters, fatal secrets, and a riveting plot from start to finish.

Wall street executives at their worse. Four financial wizards from the same company vying for their own self interest enter an elevator which becomes an escape room. While trying to escape things get messy quick as they try to determine who thought of this 'team building activity.' Sara Hall, wanting to pay off all her debts and finally landing a job with the company, ends up dead, or is she? The characters were not likeable or relatable nor the story believable.

In the cut throat world of finance, sometimes the throat cutting turns literal. This story floes off the pages, setting up each new twist by digging in to who each of these characters are. Skipped many hours of sleep to get this one topped off. Wasn’t disappointed!

An interesting "team-building" adventure. This book has you guessing what's coming next through its entirity. The characters were relatable and well-defined. A modern twist to the classic who-done-it style.

So, you arrange for four money-hungry wall streeters to be stuck in an elevator for a few hours, what could go wrong? I really liked the telling of this thriller and I liked the Sara Hall character. Sara Hall is a very smart and nice person who finally gets a break and lands her dream job in New York at a prestigious financial firm. She's never worked so hard in her life and the monetary rewards are great, but, Sara is hardly prepared for the ruthlessness and 'win-at-all-cost' competition and greed she encounters with her success.

I could not put he book down and actually read it through the night. Tense, strong, only for people with strong nerves. Will read more books from this author.

I am a huge fan of Escape Rooms and was super excited to have a chance to read The Escape Room by Megan Goldin!

Four extremely successful investment bankers whose elite jobs are potentially on the line show up on Friday night to what they think is an Escape Room game planned by their company. As they begin to solve clues, but remain trapped in an elevator, tensions rise and old secrets come to light that have potential deadly consequences. Who has summoned them to this "Escape Room" and will they make it out alive?

Chapters alternate between the elevator escape room, and Sarah Hall, a team member who is not present, who details what happened previously that lead to the team being trapped in the elevator.

You may wonder how a whole novel can possibly be set in an elevator, but trust me it can. There is so much going on in that tiny elevator and the rich backstory augments the tiny setting.

This one definitely kept me turning the pages!

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of The Escape Room.

This was a revenge thriller set in the cutthroat world of high finance. Using the recent trend of escape rooms as a plot device, the heroine devises an intricate revenge plot against her former co-workers and boss for the death of a good friend.

When Sarah Hall lands the job of a lifetime in the city, she is elated. She has school loans to pay and two very sick parents to care for.

She is excited, smart, and yes, a bit naive, but then she's from Chicago.

Her co-workers are less than friendly, consumed with making money, more money, and oh, right, MORE money.

Sarah ends up bonding with the least likely person on the team, a brilliant young woman named Lucy, whose social awkwardness is overlooked by her talent with numbers.

When Lucy dies from an apparent suicide, Sarah is naive enough to let it go; the guilt over losing her friend nearly overwhelms her until she speaks to Lucy's mother and she realizes something sinister has been going on under her nose all this time.

As a result, Sarah plots to avenge her friend, but first, she needs to plan.

The plot is nothing new; a bunch of greedy, disgusting, near sociopathic finance analysts whose only priority is to make money and the do-gooder who discovers the truth and seeks to rectify the wrongs that has been done to the innocent.

I enjoy a good revenge story as much as the next person, and this one was satisfying.

Nothing is scarier than being trapped in an elevator, in an enclosed space, with people you hate.

My main caveat is Sarah's sudden acquisition of her James Bond-like abilities; yes, I know she's smart, she got into medical school, but I don't believe she's that 'smart.' Spy smart, street smart, diabolical smart. Nope, not buying that.

But for the sake of this story, I was willing to suspend disbelief, because I wanted the bad guys to get their comeuppance.

Most times, I wanted to shake some sense into Sarah, for her naivete, her wide-eyed innocence, and sheer dumb ass need to trust.

Does she really know nothing about high finance? The blood and tears? The evil machinations people do to dominate, achieve and win?

I guess she doesn't read the news, either.

I enjoyed the scenes in the elevator, the breakdown of each person's mental state, the secrets and revelations revealed, and the timeline jumps into Sarah's past to explain how it all led to the present was handled well enough.

Flashbacks and timeline jumps are not easy to write seamlessly or incorporate into the present narrative.

Overall, a decent thriller with unlikeable characters.

Read this if you hate corporate, money grubbers; the ending is predictable but satisfying.

This book was extremely entertaining. Twisty and turny. Filled with deception and lies. The ending was...wow.

All in all I enjoyed it immensely. Is it believable? Not so much, but isn’t that why we read?

This book was great. I enjoyed it. It was intense, and I couldn’t put it down. It makes me think twice about doing an escape room in real life!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This was a pleasant surprise. It was a fun, engaging read and it kept me wanting to turn pages (actually to keep swiping pages on my Kindle, but it's just semantics)

A group of Wall Street high roll investment bankers are summoned on a Friday evening for what they believe is a team-building exercise or activity. Considering that there are rumors about possible layovers, they don't dare to question anything and promptly show up at specified location. As they are ascending to where they think the meeting will take place, their elevator just stops and they quickly realize that they are now in "escape room" scenario. Whoever is behind this "exercise" starts giving them clue and it becomes obvious that this person or persons know a whole lot about them and their work in the company. Now, their alliances are tested, who can they trust, who is setting them up, are they ever going to be saved?? And most importantly, who is behind their nightmare?

The Escape Room by Melissa Goldin was a fast-paced and intriguing thriller. In the high stakes world of investment banking, four coworkers are summoned to an elevator escape room. They're familiar with the team builder, and they assume this one will be a similar endeavor. They quickly realize that will definitely not be the case. The story is told through alternating timelines. First, there is looking back at Sara Hall's experience at the company. Sara was a recent graduate who was sucked into the cutthroat and complex world of finance. She couldn't believe she got the job, and she begins to navigate the high stakes world finding it quite full of all the stress and sacrifice to get ahead. Then, there is the escape room experience. In the elevator, "clues" are revealed, as our long-kept secrets (and lies) between the quartet. With each passing minute and clue, the escape room elevator becomes a more concerning and complicated situation. This one was intense in the best of ways. The scandalous twists and turns of this one kept me reading. This one will be on shelves in August, and a thanks to NetGalley for the super early preview. I really dug how this book used an escape room as a plot device, and the reveal at the end was just so wonderfully sensational. It was everything I love in a good thriller.

In this book, a group of employees are told to meet for a team building exercise at an escape room. They are locked in an elevator and given a few clues but nothing seems to add up. An hour passes. And then another. They become suspicious of the situation and of each other.

I thought I had the ending all worked out, and then it turned on me 😂 It’s a good thriller and I’d give this one a 4/5!

The Escape Room will be out on August 6, 2019. Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
#bookreview #currentlyreading #theescaperoom #megangoldin #stmartinspress #bookshark

Ok, I went into this book not really knowing what to expect, and ended feeling pleased with the whole story. Definitely different than my usual reads, I would categorize it as somewhere between psychological thriller and horror novel, although not sure even that accurately describes it.
Sort of like a team building exercise gone wrong, The Escape Room follows four people in an elevator, who are given “clues” to to escape. But that is where normalcy ends.
To say more would give it away. I enjoyed the unexpectedness of The Escape Room, and read it pretty quickly to see how it would end. May make for a good book club read for a more exciting storyline than usual.

Thrilling concept of revenge, destruction. I found that I didn't like any of the characters but was nevertheless fascinated and couldn't put this book down til the end.

This is the first time I have read anything by Megan Goldin and I have to say that I was quiet surprised at this one. I didn't really know what to expect but this one was a good read. It was easy reading and easy to follow along with which made it even more enjoyable. You won't want to put it down once you get started though so just be prepared for that!

Megan Goldin wrote this one to where it is alternating between Sara Hall and the elevator. Sara is a young lady that has just graduated with her MBA and is in pursuit of a good job right out of college. After an interview gone horribly wrong, Sara has an encounter with Vincent in the elevator and he asks for her resume. He never promises anything but does tell her that if her has any jobs open up, he will give her a call. The elevator scene is Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam all trapped in an elevator and they think that they have been called to an important meeting that has turned into an Escape Room team building exercise.

Sara eventually lands a job with Stanhope and Sons, one of the big financial investor companies. Sara is required to work all the time and expected to never make mistakes. They have to look spotless as well, but that is hard when you work extra long hours and get little sleep. Sara doesn't make friends too quick, but she has resolved to do her job and whatever else she can manage to fit into her very little free time that she has. Sara is helping pay the medical insurance for her parents because they can't afford it anymore so she knows that she has to keep this job now that she has landed it. Sara just had no idea how crazy things were going to get for her.

There are lots of twists and turns that I did not see coming in this one and I for sure never could have guessed the ending! I highly recommend this one if you like a book that will keep you turning the pages and unable to put it down. I will be looking forward to more from Megan Goldin for sure!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thanks for Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an advanced copy of this book!

This might be the most thrilling, exciting, mind-effing, twisted book I read in 2018. Seriously.

I’m not into finance or Wall Street. I barely know how to make a budget (thank God for my financial planner husband) and I definitely know nothing about the stock market. So originally, I didn’t think this would be the book for me.

Turns out, I was so, so wrong.

Let me put it to you this way. I was on a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean the week before Christmas. I started this book poolside one morning while having a pina colada. By the end of the day, my husband, cruise passengers and bartenders had all heard about this story. And yes, I finished it by the end of the same day I started. It was so, so, so good.

I’m really not sure how to talk about it without giving anything away. I love how I really got to know each and every character – what motivated them, what made them tick, what drove them to get to where they were present day. All of them were flawed and twisted and corrupt. And rich – very rich.

The elevator escape room concept created a lot of anxiety and claustrophobia for the characters, and let’s face it – I was having anxiety too. I also loved that it was told from multiple points of view – one present day in the elevator, and one that took place in the past. This caused me to speed read, racing to get to the point where they met up in the middle.

Goldin created a fast-paced read that I devoured and can’t recommend enough. Go read it!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Wow! I practically inhaled this book and read it in one sitting. Fabulous premise and totally engrossing tale of revenge and destruction. Megan Golden has created a world and characters of intense dynamics which leave the reader breathless at the fantastic conclusion.

This book will be a hit with the psychological thriller / new adult crowd! I was hooked quickly and abandoned all the other books I was reading to power through this one.

The twists are good, but what I liked most about the book was the psychological character study. There are elements of social experiment, transformation, and the effects of trauma on personality.