To be honest, I did not expect to like this. Honestly, I don't even remember why I requested it! That being said, I really did enjoy this, and it exceeded my (albeit low) expectations.

What happens if a group of Wall Street stock brokers, who work together are trapped in an elevator? In this book, they are forced to follow clues to escape from the elevator. Each clue relates to their crimes or misdeeds in their lives. As the time in the elevator drags on, the tension rising is palpable in each page. I, along with the characters, was trying to determine who was responsible for holding them captive.

There are two plots within the story. There's the drama unfolding inside the elevator, which takes place in the present. Then there is what happened in the past told to the from the voice of Sara Hall, a former coworker. As the two plots unfold, they collide for an exciting story that is both disturbing and intriguing.

This was an intriguing story and it kept me on the edge of my seat with twists and turns. I did,
however, find the characters unlikeable.

I agree with all the other reviews that this is an incredibly suspenseful and well written book!! Holding my breath while I read and couldn't put it down. great ending

A thrilling read! I am telling y'all... once you pick this book up you will not want to stop reading! This was my first novel from Megan Goldin and I am excited to read more from her! The story line was fantastic... the characters were truly amazing and she just did such a good job at really capturing the essence of them. Great read!

Wow... this was such a fun ride!!

I wouldn't categorize The Escape Room as a psychological thriller per say. But, it definitely keeps you turning those pages and wondering what is going on!!

Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are the pure elite that work for Wall Street in Finance. Talk about having more money then you could dream off with these four. Nothing matters but getting more and more money to them while making their way to the top.

The four of them are required to complete a team building activity in an elevator called the "escape room". They have to try and get out of this locked elevator... but somehow it no longer is a team building activity and they're all fighting to stay alive.

What could possibly go wrong in this dark elevator between the four of them? Oh..... darkness unfolds at every wall and crevice between them that will leave your mind shattered with the end results!!

I can tell you... those greedy ass characters will get their cake and some ;).

This was a purely fun and entertaining ride! I thoroughly enjoyed Megan Goldin's writing style and appreciate how unique this book was in all.

Definitely recommend this to be on your TBR... one not to be missed!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Pub date: 8/6/19
Published to GR: 1/9/19

3.5 stars rounded up. This was an absorbing, crazy and enjoyable read. Sure it's not going to win any literary awards, but the plot - albeit somewhat unrealistic at times - was gripping and I thoroughly enjoyed the protagonist.

4 Stars!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing the ARC for an honest review :)

Hold your breath...don't let it out. Turn up the heat-go in a small space, lock yourself in along with 4 people you tolerate but also cant stand...and stay there until I say so...doesn't that sound amazing?? Yeah... NO. Seriously, just typing that made me feel sweaty and claustrophobic....



Its a dog eat dog world in the Corporate Banking Industry. The story follows four top investment bankers who are sent an email to meet for a very important meeting. When they get there- they enter an Escape Room elevator thinking its for a team building exercise. The longer they are there trying to escape,


they become desperate facing thirst, hunger, fear, heat, and rage. They start to wonder if the whole "exercise" is really what they are there for.

The escape room was thrilling and character driven, the stakes are high as anxieties rise. The book is told in two alternating POVs: third person and real time. I swear the whole time I read this book I was in a constant state of anxiety..



I usually binge read but I couldn't with this one. A part of me COULD NOT WAIT to find out what the heck was going on, but the other psychotic part of my brain thought it would be fun to drag it out... so that I could continue to feel the thrill of it. I know- what the hell Brittany?? I'm strange sometimes, what can I say. Overall, I really enjoyed it- it was a bit fluffy at times but it worked. I know for dang sure- the last thing I want to do is go to an escape room. And an elevator?? No thanks- I'll be taking the stairs.

they thought it was a game, but they never signed a waiver….for <b>MURRRRRDERRRR</b>!!!!!

<img src="https://media1.tenor.com/images/f80e769af5bd2ac67c53c68739ef8d6c/tenor.gif"/>

this is what a christopher pike novel looks like when it grows up.

this is <i>Saw</i> in an elevator.

if you think either of those comments are made disparagingly, let’s never be friends.

this book is pure freaking fun: it grabs your attention from the outset and keeps you locked in for the duration of the ride, action flipping between past and present, frequently switching character POV so you’re always slightly off-balance, distracting you with new information so you don’t squint too closely or follow one lead too far along the path to discovery, muddying the waters beat after beat until ta-DAAAA all is revealed and even though you’ve figured out some bits along the way, the final scene’ll surprise everyone, including those orchestrating this overly elaborate revenge scheme.

will this book win all the literary awards and go down in history for being the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book anyone has ever written?

dude, no. but if you’ve been watching the news, getting sick of seeing shitty people get away with shitty things, do you want challenging and upsetting or do you want to see some smug, entitled monsters get their comeuppance for once?

it’s four competitive people with big ambitions, shaky moral compasses, career-ending secrets and a lot to lose, trapped in an elevator, with a gun.

popcorn me.

Oh the simple joys of a financial thriller, they are all here for us to enjoy. The overbearing company, the high priced drones out for money and power, the brilliant thinker who doesn't quite fit in, the deaths that may or may not have had help, the egotistic pride of the entitled, all mix together to provide an exciting ride. Top it all off with the newest form of entertainment, the escape room puzzle, and you have a great read.
Sara Hall is a new graduate in financial management. She isn't a friend or relative of the members of the firm she wants to work for, but she has hope. Her hope is realized and she joins a tight working group. Vincent is her manager. He leads the crew of Sylvie, Sam, Jules and Lucy. Sara joins them but only makes friends with Lucy. Lucy doesn't fit in, and that leads to her death. Lucy does leave information but not proof for Sara. The other four circle the wagons and push Sara out, destroying her life in the process. But someone is out for revenge for Lucy and for Sara and maybe for the other hundreds of lives these four and their company have damaged.
I really enjoyed reading this story. Sara came alive for me in a way many victims don't. I highly recommend this book. I read the copy of the book for this review on NetGalley.

The Escape Room delivers on everything I want from a thriller: it was compulsively readable, with some tried & true tropes, but enough twists to keep me guessing, and most importantly of all: characters I could invest in.

The book is told in two alternating "POVs": in third person and real time, four Wall Street strategists enter an elevator in an abandoned building to engage in a mandatory escape room--or so they think. (There's trope one, which introduced a delightful sense of dread, as a reader, helped along by the book's prologue which indicates a grim ending)

Then, we get 1st person flashbacks from Sara Hall, a former member of the team, who takes us from the very beginning of her career at Stanhope up to... spoilers! Contrasting Sara's rise at the company to the situation unfolding with her four colleagues in the elevator gradually builds the tension and mystery to a fever pitch--I hit about the 60% mark on my Kindle and raced through to the end, desperate to finish. (I even snuck a few chapters at work in my desperation)

Sara is essentially our protagonist, as she's our outsider to the big, bad world of finance, and it's her story that directly impacts what's going on in the elevator. She has to fight hard to get her foot in the door at Stanhope, and through her eyes we experience the high-stakes world there--a world I found fascinating and infuriating. I won't share more for fear of spoilers, but I can say that Sara's story was simultaneously what I expected and a huge surprise--I found her compelling to follow, and several twists were just gut-wrenching for me. I cared about Sara, as well as Lucy, who is her only friend on the team/at work. (Lucy is, in fact, my favorite character) Still high-key mad at Kevin--if you've read it, you'll understand why.

The third person elevator sections jump between the four protagonists, so you get backstory on each of them and a glimpse "inside their head" at appropriate intervals. They feel like real people--enough details are given to engender sympathy, but there's also just enough in their heads, interactions, and then in Sara's chapters to give good reason to their being trapped in an elevator by an unseen force.

Was I shocked by the ending? Not really--it's pretty clearly telegraphed shortly past the mid-point, but to me the key to a 5-star thriller isn't a shocking ending but a satisfying reading experience--because I was emotionally engaged with the protagonist and by the initial twist (at the midpoint), the book had me all the way through. I wanted to see the story come to it's logical conclusion, and so even though the last few chapters lean on the side of over-the-top kitsch/bonkers, I enjoyed the reading experience. I also really loved Megan Goldin's writing style and was super disappointed to find this is her US debut, and thus her only book available in print! I hope St. Martin's snaps her up for more books (or publishes her 2017 Australian release?) because I would put this author on my auto-buy list.

WOW! What an amazing story.. it had me guessing until the last page.. The characters are great! So ruthless, greedy and cutthroat! This book villainies them but also makes you feel sorry for them at the same time.. what a combination. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend!!!!

Personally, I have never done an escape room. I do not have any desire to do one. I couldn’t take being stuck in a room with 4-5 other people and need to decipher clues to get out. Nope, not for me. BK, on the other hand, has done one. He said it was exciting to do.

So, when I saw that the plot of The Escape Room centered around an escape room in an elevator, I got interested. Talk about the ultimate escape room. Think about it. You are crammed into a small space. There is no way out. No water. No nothing. No thank you. That is one of my phobias, being stuck in an elevator. Even reading the scenes when they were stuck in an elevator freaked me out.

I liked that Sara’s chapters of the book were written in the first person. I got a better sense of how she was as a person. I understood what drove her to take that position on Wall Street and what kept her there. I am not going to go much into her story from that point on because I will be giving away some major spoilers.

The escape room plotline was very well written. Each person in that elevator deserved to be there. I wouldn’t go as far to say that they were bad people but I will say that money doesn’t bring out the best in people. The longer that they were in the elevator, the more I got to know their demons. I will say that each person showed up in Sara’s POV too. Not going to say how but they were a major part of everything that happened to her.

The storyline with Lucy broke my heart. I couldn’t believe what she was put through. I don’t think I truly understood what she went through until it was brought up (by a clue) in the elevator. Let’s just say that it was a despicable thing to do to a coworker.

I am not sure if I agreed or liked how The Escape Room ended. I will admit that the whole plan to get those people into the elevator was well thought out and executed. As was getting that money. But I didn’t agree with the mastermind not knowing what happened after that person left the country. There was no closure. Only a scene in the water and a sense of a job well done by the mastermind.

I would give The Escape Room an Adult rating. There is no sex (there is mention of sexual situations). There is language. There is violence. There are triggers. They would be sexual assault and assault.

I would reread The Escape Room. I would also recommend this book to family and friends.

Told from multiple character's points of view, The Escape Room is a "can't put down" book. With some of the characters trying to navigate the Escape Room, others provide both the back and future story. It's full of twists, turns, and puzzles. Some characters are so heart-wrenching familiar and others -- you really hope they get what's coming to them. :-) I really enjoyed this book and thought the ending was very fitting and wonderful.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. What is more terrifying than being caught in an elevator? Add a few greedy finance executives and you've got the basis of a plot that will keep you guessing. I found it a bit slow at times and it was very hard to relate to any of these individuals but nevertheless it provided an entertaining read!

I really wanted to like this book. It starts off with an prologue designed to hook you and keep you reading. And it did! But as the book went on, I didn't buy in. The characters trapped in the elevator are all certainly unlikable, which was the design. But I didn't buy the metamorphosis of the main character into a computer hacker genius capable of trapping these people into an elevator. It is a shame because the first 70% of the book was really intriguing. But in the end, it was just too far fetched. I won't be able to recommend it.

Think 'The Escape Room' meets 'ATM'.
A character-driven suspense novel that seriously had me turning pages quicker than these four* turned on themselves!

I LOVED this one! The story follows *four high-flying investment bankers who meet up for what is meant to be a team-building exercise in a locked elevator and soon find themselves trying to escape for a whole different reason. *DUN, DUN*
This had a whodunnit/what-TF-happened type feel and I was here for it! THE ESCAPE ROOM is definitely more character-driven and I've found that I've come to love this style of thriller more this year, as well as the multiple POVs and flashbacks that were in this one. It was a mix of a thriller with its happenings in white-collar crime and it had me by the neck! Though at times it felt a bit lengthy, I can't say I was disappointed by the time I reached that sweet, sweet ending.

AND of course, *TW for sexual assault*

I was reluctant to read this book – ambitious Wall Street bankers and financiers – an escape room setting. It just did not really appeal to me. So I hesitantly put one toe in the water…then splash! I was all in by the end of the Prologue. Six pages! After that I did NOT want to put it down!

Vincent, Sylvie, Sam and Jules are living their dream. Financiers on Wall Street they make mega bucks. They are cold and ruthless. Masters of deception and intimidation. Their work is their life.

All four are “ordered” to a mandatory meeting on a Friday evening at an isolated office building under construction. Vincent knows they will be doing an escape room scenario as a team-building exercise. He thinks they will be fighting for their jobs, when in actuality they are fighting for their lives.

The four have worked together for years. They think they know each other’s secrets and lies. But now all the dirty secrets will truly come out when the elevator becomes their escape room. With no cellphone coverage they are truly isolated; their only hope lies in the clues provided within the elevator.

Hunger. Thirst. Heat. Cold. Fear. Anger. Desperation. All niceties melt away like the sweat running down their bodies. Their true characters emerge.

A story of deception and revenge, it kept me guessing. Who was behind it all? Suspenseful. Intriguing. Nail-biting.

The chapters alternate between the point of view of those trapped in the elevator and the story of Sara Hall, a former workmate of theirs. What is the link?

Megan Goldin is sure to be a big name in the publishing world with the release of this book.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing a review copy of the book.

This was a fun weekend read suspense/thriller. A little white-collar shady characters who you have to hate but wait one of the protagonists (Sarah) is one of them and you kind of like her. Duel timelines where one is over YEARS the other is over not even 48 hours adds to the mystery and the suspense. Seeing the characters through Sarah's eyes (the over years timeline) really helps you understand how they ended up in the 48 hour timeline and why you hope they don't meet a happy end.


It was a bit of a 'fluffy' suspense book to me but that is NOT a bad thing. It was a great weekend read. I don't think I will ever look at an elevator or an escape room the same way again. If I say too much more it would be spoilery so if you need a fun easy and good thriller this is a good one to read!

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

A solid escape read, The Escape Room does a lot of great things including building tension, expansion of character yarns, and a climax that, while a bit obvious, is nevertheless satisfying.

See full review on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2656009249

While I enjoyed the start of the book. I quickly found that the story of the executives stuck in the elevator to be much more boring than the story Sara. Overall the book is fine and a quick read. I do think a chunk of the elevator chapters could be trimmed to cut the book down ~20 pages.