Review: 3 out of 5 ⭐️
Title: The Escape Room: A Novel
Author: Megan Goldin
Published: 2019 (St. Martin’s Press)
Pages: 356 (Hardcover)
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Wall Street
CW: Sexual assault, alcoholism, violence, cancer, trauma
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Hello all! Have I been posting more often? Yes. I only realized that today myself as I’m writing this review. I’ve been taking more time for myself, and for reading and reflecting due to mental health reasons so if you see me posting a lot more often, that’s why. It doesn’t help I’m on a reading kick too since there are so many books I want to read/am waiting for on my library’s waiting list.

“Exactly. I pointed to the f*cking rock on her finger and told her that investment bankers don’t need religion. We don’t need to wait for the next life to enjoy paradise, not with the money we make” – Megan Goldin, The Escape Room

The quote above basically summarizes the entire vibe of this book. Australian author, Megan Goldin’s thriller centers around a sinister plot, greedy implications and a destructive cast of characters. The narration flips between a team of four Wall Street finance powerhouses, and a woman whose connection to them we don’t fully understand until the end. An elevator in a brand new building in the South Bronx becomes a prison for four employees at a fictional financial firm called Stanhope and Sons, who are trapped in an ‘escape the room’ game after their company deems their participation as a ‘mandatory team building exercise’. As the story unfolds, the reader learns more about why the team becomes trapped in the elevator, along with the realities and problems with working on Wall Street. Do I know if these realities and problems are truthful? No, but I imagine they may be given the author’s investigative journalist background. I also kept picturing Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street the entire time I was reading this book, by the way. Not that it’s similar, but I kept connecting the issue of too much greed from wealth.

I saw a lot of reviews that said this book was cheesy, and I agree. The story painted a vivid picture of what it could be like to work in finance on Wall Street. I did not get a lot out of this one, but I was grossly entertained. I finished this book in 3 days, which doesn’t happen to me a lot. But I kept getting pulled in, and I really wanted to know how this book finally ended. It dragged on, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, but more like a ‘this has gone on long enough, how does it end??’ kind of way. I do not like revealing spoilers, so I won’t go into what I thought of the ending.

Why should you read this book? If you like cryptic thrillers and twists from horribly behaved characters with just maybe a hint of revenge, and can tolerate reading so much about Wall Street, read it! I honestly think this book could be a blockbuster mega-hit thriller movie or a cheesy B-rated horror/thriller movie.. either way it should be a movie.

I give this a 3 out of 5!

_Elizabeth

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