I wanted to like this book but after reading about 100 pages I just could not finish... I have read some of the authors other books and liked them but unfortunately could not get into this one. Sorry I just couldn't spend the time to read the balance

What happens when too much is not enough? Is it possible to navigate the greediest profession in the world without succumbing to its evils?

Set within a competitive Wall Street investment banking firm, this book highlights the cutthroat nature of a handful of investment bankers. Vincent is the team leader, blindly worshipped and followed by the rest of the group. Jules and Sam are two men under Vincent, which makes them each other's competition. Sylvie is the group's token gorgeous women, and Lucy is the underestimated, ill-fitting outcast on the autism spectrum. Last to join the group is Sara, the youngest, newest recruit, whose non-Ivy League background renders her open to criticism and doubt. Sara desperately needs her high-stress, high-volume job to pay her parents exorbitant medical bills, and this book is told from the alternating perspectives of both Sara and the anonymous narrator.

The author skillfully alternates between each character's backstory and the collective characters' real-time plot without causing confusion or boredom. I love that the book alternates between one character's perspective and an anonymous narrator's perspective, and I love that the book foreshadows the deaths of two characters early on, leading the reader to eagerly unravel the story.

And the best part of this book: the escape room! Escape rooms are a thriving business, and a fun, modern form of entertainment and "team-building". This author chose an excellent, timely topic for this mystery/thriller. The author impressively weaves an intriguing mystery within a mystery in this book. How do the characters get out of this escape room, and WHO put them there?

This book was a page-turner. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this free ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I wish I could give Ms. Goldin and The Escape Room more than 5 stars because it was absolutely brilliant!! I could not put it down. When I did, I was thinking about it and I couldn't wait to return to The Escape Room that the characters were trapped in. I was absolutely hooked before I even finished the first chapter.

The story is told from 2 perspectives - "The Elevator" where Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are following the clues to get them out of the elevator alive and "Sara Hall" once a shining star in Wall Street finance but is she truly gone?

The characters in the elevator all have places they would rather be than this corporate team-building exercise they were all ordered to attend. None is them know who set it up, they all suspect that it was Vincent but he's as much in the dark as they are.

It's while they are solving clues and arguing that the truths come out about just how ruthless each of them has been to get where they are.

Sara Hall was a smart recent graduate with an MBA who after a disastrous interview just happened to bump into Vincent in an elevator and a few weeks later given a chance to work her dream job at Stanhope and Sons, a firm that is almost impossible to be hired at. She soon learns that you don't make friends in this world, people are bullied and made to feel like they don't belong. When her only "friend" at Stanhope commits suicide, Sara realizes that it just would not be something that Lucy would do - her days at the firm are quickly numbered. She sets out to avenge Lucy's death, no matter what the cost.

I'm eagerly awaiting what Ms Goldin writes next because this novel just blew me away.

Great corporate thriller! Great characters that were easy to distrust. Very intense with a nice twist at the end!

Well this was a pleasant surprise.

I started reading around midnight with the intention of getting in a couple of chapters before I went to sleep and the next thing I knew my morning alarm was going off.

This is one of those kind of stories that you read purely for the entertainment value. This book won't win any literary awards and it certainly won't change your life, but if you're looking for an absorbing read with a unique plot featuring despicable people that get their just deserts, then this is the book for you.


Thank you Jordan with St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a book!
I was given this book from NetGalley for an honest review -
Imagine being locked in an elevator with your co-workers - provided with clues for your escape, the tensions run high, everyone gets on each other's nerves, you find out some have gotten better bonuses than you, the elevator gets hot, then it gets freezing
Why are you here? How will you get out?
A must read for an ending you won't expect!!

I am going back and forth on my review for this book. Is it 3 stars or is it 4? Is it 4 because it kept me reading and I actually enjoyed it? Or is it a 3 because I found some parts needlessly tedious and the "clues" simple and predictable?

I'm sticking with 4 because, in the end, I did enjoy the read. Four people that you hate almost at first introduction get stuck in an elevator "Escape Room". Now, you know before they even enter that someone doesn't fair well in an elevator. We get a peak at how that ends for them before it even starts. Then we get a little story telling about these people and their past. This is where the "clues" get obvious, though maybe they were obvious and easy for me only because I am reading the background in tandem (and because I do a lot of puzzles and mystery boxes myself).

While Jules, Vincent, Sam, and Sylvie are trapped in a box we get to see them from the point of view of Sara from the time she meets them until, well, the end. I loved the pacing of most of the book. Going back and forth helped that along. Sometimes it just became bogged down in details I didn't need. Yes, I got it, his wife spends a lot of money. Yes, that guy is a real jerk. Which was in such contrast to the end of the book, which just whipped us through may years of plotting and planning that I would have liked to know more about. Get why it was kept until the end, but I already figured who was behind all of this, so it was a waste. Move that along to earlier in the story and let us know more about that, the interesting part, than about how many horrible things the other characters have done. I was already convinced.

But I couldn't stop reading. I knew what was going to happen to these people, I knew who was doing it to them, and I wanted to see how they got there. That is, in my estimation, the real measure of a good story. I still wanted to go on the journey.

Totally enjoyed this, it kept me interested right from the start. I don't usually like when stories bounce back and forth between current and past but this one worked. I really liked how it all unfolded.

This book was a different kind of mystery/thriller, and one that I enjoyed. I did find part of the mystery predictable, but it didn't take away much from my overall enjoyment of the story. Even though I have never participated in an Escape Room, I could really see where the author was drawing from and liked the spin she put on it. Overall, I think this is a good book that I would recommend.

Loved the book! Characters were well written and fleshed out. Good story line! Although guessed "who dunnit" early on, did not ruin the twists and turns.

Really enjoyed this book! What would you do to get to the top and walk away with all the money? A look into the world of high finance & what employees will do to each other to rise to the top & deceive everyone. But, watch out for the quiet ones who always win in the end!

This book was decent but I definitely didn't love it. I reviewed it on my goodreads but don't think I will be posting it on my social media because I truly wouldn't give it that great of a review. I think this book would be good for some people but it truly wasn't my thing. I didn't care for the style of writing and felt confused from the very beginning. I felt like I was having to re-read too many sections to actually enjoy the book. Normally this is exactly the kind of book I love but I couldn't get into it at all.

This one was a cool concept and I was entertained throughout even though I saw the ending coming a mile away... It would make a very entertaining movie, and was a quick read. I enjoyed it well enough that I had a tough time putting it down - the pernicious selfishness of the main characters was surprisingly entertaining rather than irritating, as I was afraid it might be - even though ultimately there wasn't anything particularly novel or original in its execution or resolution. Still, it's always interesting to me to see how quickly "society" breaks down once people are put in highly stressful situations without the protections of their social expectations (civility, reputation, the armor of "stuff"), and the elevator definitely served as a broken environment!

Probably more 2.5

This was a good concept but the execution was a bit lacking. Two plot lines (Sarah’s, the more interesting) weave back and forth with the two settings.

This story had intriguing moments but then it also dragged at points. The world of high finance and the commitment it requires (though fiction) was fascinating.

The characters, as a whole, were unlikable. Their background is told through info dumps, extremely clunky. The conclusion was ok. I plugged along to the end because I was curious how this would play out so there’s that.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and St. Martin’s Press for a copy in exchange for a review.

I wanted to love this book because my favorite author, Harlan Coben, recommended it. But it just wasn’t great for me. I found the story kind of dragged on with unecessary information. I also wasn’t a fan of the different point of views. While that works really in some stories, I didn’t like it here. I think maybe my expectations were too high going into this one. It wasn’t a total flop for me, but just not great. Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Goldin has given readers a novel of slow building suspense around the inner workings of a high power investment banking firm. The narrative points of view alternate between first person Sara, a new hire at the firm, and a universal view of others already working there. We know from a prologue that there is some suspense in the end. The narratives, however, go back in time. Sara's narrative goes back to when she was hired and progresses a few years from there. The universal narrative goes back only a few days to when four of those who had worked longer in the company were told to participate in an elevator escape room exercise. That exercise goes terribly wrong.

The double narratives with different time periods may sound confusing but it does work out pretty well. We know from those experiencing the escape room that by their time Sara was “gone” but not forgotten. In reading Sara's narrative then, we anticipate some kind of trouble. In reading the escape room narrative, we know from the prologue it ends in disaster. The suspense in the novel is mostly psychological as we find out how the prologue comes to pass.

This novel is a good character driven story revealing the pressure and danger of working for a cut throat firm. Designing acquisitions, takeovers, and selloffs can be brutal, exhausting and dangerous. Decisions are made with only profit in mind and not what happens to workers who may lose their jobs. There is stiff competition within the firm as people work toward advancement. Murder is not out of the question.

I recommend this novel to readers who enjoy a character driven novel revolving around individual greed in high finance corporations.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was kept in suspense for quite a bit of it, which i liked. It did get tedious reading the escape room scenes, yes I know that made it realistic, but it felt like what was the point. I didn't like the characters trapped there and no one had a lot of depth., a lot more of their back stories might have helped. I enjoyed the "second" story more and it gradually came together. If I could give half stars, I would have rated this 3.5.

I really appreciated the different POVs used here and think the author did .a great job of balancing them. I definitely was surprised at the ending but parts of this book fell flat. I lost interest about a third of the way through but it did manage to pull me back in before I set it down for good. It's a fun, quick read.

I'm not quite sure what it was about this book that kept it from grabbing me, but it never took off. I get that the intention was to show that these women work in a chauvinistic/misogynistic environment, but so much attention was given to describing the way female character's blouses stretched across their breasts that I checked to see if it was written by a man. The writing style was fine, but unfortunately the story never seemed to go anywhere unique or interesting enough to hold my attention.

I LOVED this book. Finished it in under 4 hours because I literally could not put it down until I read the last page. It is gripping from the first page and the reader is quick to discover this is not an ordinary Escape Room Challenge. This book is dark, twisty, and very thrilling. Have not read this author before...but this will not be my last book by Megan Goldin.
Thank you Net Galley for the advanced reader copy of this book.