The Cursed Castle: An Escape Room in a Book

"The Cursed Castle: An Escape Room in a Book" is a great idea! I'll definitely be recommending this title to patrons and friends.

I love this book. It has taken the choose your own adventure to a new level. It isn't just reading the text, but you need to solve the text before you make a decision about what you are going to do or where you will go next.

I’ve wanted to explore an escape room ever since I first learned of their existence. The need has been even greater since I saw ‘Escape Room’ and watched the Roses navigate one in ‘Schitt’s Creek’. After reading this book it has become abundantly clear that I should never be allowed to enter one.

That skeleton in the Alchemy Room? That’s me. It took a little longer than expected for me to solve the puzzles. Please say ‘hi’ to me on your way past.

Make sure you pay attention to both the words and the details in the illustrations in each room. Although none of them will explicitly say, ‘Hey, you! This is how you solve this room!’, there are clues that will tell you what you need to do. Some are much harder than others and attention to detail is key. There are word, sudoku, counting and logic puzzles included, so it helps if you’re a bit of an all-rounder.

Handy Hint: You’ll find clues for solving each room’s puzzle near the end of the book. It would have been super helpful had I known this earlier. In the print version, these will be hidden pull tabs.

And if all else fails … there are answers at the very end of the book. If you’re really stuck please know you have the option to cheat your way to the next room. You don’t need to become a skeleton like me!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and becker&mayer! kids, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group, for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

I love choose your own adventure books and escape room games. This is a combination of both in one book! How awesome is that?!

I really enjoyed this book and so did my kids. Brain teasers and challenging puzzles are great for improving your thinking and deduction skills, therefore, this book gets top score for providing entertainment as well as educational content.

The full color illustrations are gorgeous and add to the enjoyment of the book.

I would definitely recommend this book for kids and adults of all ages who enjoy puzzles and adventure stories.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book for an honest review.

The artwork looks great and the puzzles are good but doesn’t work as an e-book, think it would work much better in book form.
Would make a great Christmas present, something the whole family can enjoy.
Reminded me of books from my childhood.
Thank you Netgalley for a copy of this in return for my honest opinion.

This book is a lot of fun. It’s a choose your own adventure and try to escape book and some of the pages are laugh out loud, whilst others are more serious, My younger children really enjoyed this.

This is a super fun book! Although, it was a bit difficult to read in an electronic version. I think the actual copy would be much easier to navigate.