The Escape Room
by Megan Goldin
Blurb:
In the lucrative world of finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are at the top of their game. They’ve mastered the art of the deal and celebrate their success in style―but a life of extreme luxury always comes at a cost.
Invited to participate in an escape room challenge as a team-building exercise, the ferociously competitive co-workers crowd into the elevator of a high-rise building, eager to prove themselves. But when the lights go off and the doors stay shut, it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary competition: they’re caught in a dangerous game of survival.
Trapped in the dark, the colleagues must put aside their bitter rivalries and work together to solve cryptic clues to break free. But as the game begins to reveal the team’s darkest secrets, they realize there’s a price to be paid for the terrible deeds they committed in their ruthless climb up the corporate ladder. As tempers fray, and the clues turn deadly, they must solve one final chilling puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?
My Reaction:
Eh... No. This didn't do it for me.
I finished this a while back and am just now getting around to writing my review, but here's what I do remember: This didn't impress.
The escape room element is essentially a bait and switch; there is no escape room, and the "puzzles" are negligible. Worse, the characters are cardboard cliches of Bad Rich People, and I defy anyone to actually care what happens to the group trapped in the elevator. Unfortunately, even the "heroine" is utterly unlikeable and dismal to spend time reading about. She's just boring!
The last bit of the book was laughable and completely unconvincing, but at least something was happening then—a character was doing something (other than whining or being obnoxious 24/7)—so it was more interesting to read, even if it was basically the same thing you've seen unfold dozens of times on page and screen, except this time it was even more unbelievable than usual.
Nitpicky things that bugged me more than they should have:
- Descriptions of nearly every single character's clothes and hair. Seems so amateurish... A little of it? Fine. It can reveal something about a character to know how they present themselves, but after a while, it was just dumb. I don't care what they're wearing! I don't care if some random character has red hair!
- Characters in the elevator sometimes can't see a thing; at other times, when it should still be pitch dark, they manage to see just fine, even observing glances between other characters! It changes based on what the author needs at the moment, either a stress-inducing situation to push a character closer to the edge or the chance for one character to spy on another. Irritating inconsistency.
- OH MY GOSH. Yes, we get it. High-flying investment bankers are apparently all evil. (Talk about an easy, risk-free target, though. Few will jump to the defense of an investment banker!)
The next bit is slightly spoilery. (Slightly.) So be warned... (Or better yet, make the decision now to spare yourself this book and just read the slightly spoilery content.)
This description of what's-her-name's apartment after she's been unceremoniously ejected from the high life is just...SIGH...:
"I rented a small room on a short-term lease in a dingy apartment above a burger joint. During the evening rush, the whole apartment smelled of grease. When I went to job interviews, I had to spray myself with perfume so that my clothes wouldn't smell like a grill. My roommate, Fiona, was a college dropout whose deadbeat friends hung out in the living room on a semipermanent basis, watching television at full volume. I'd wake up in the morning to an apartment smelling of stale cigarette smoke as well as grease, and littered with dozens of empty beer cans. Dirty plates filled with cigarette butts were scattered around the room. The bathroom stank like a public urinal, filled with the stench of sour urine from guests too drunk to aim properly."
...This is just ridiculous.
First, she was employed for years on a high salary (and she got some sort of severance package), yet she's reduced to this? I know there are supposed to be reasons for her inability to afford anything better, but to put it bluntly, I'm not buying it.
Second, this wallowing, "poor me" attitude is just miserable to read and makes me strongly dislike this character.
Third, all of the book seems to be like this, like there's no middle ground. Whether it's clothes, jobs, apartments, or anything else, there's either luxury or the scum on the bottom of the barrel. Either you're a high-flying wunderkind surrounded by the trappings of wealth and privilege (but working your tail off 18 hours a day, of course), or you're barely one step above homeless, with zero prospects for employment except some crappy minimum wage job working for a loan shark. I'm sorry—what?! She has a fancy degree. She's (supposedly) brilliant (though evidence is in short supply). She's worked for a couple of years at a famous bank (or whatever it is). Yeah, yeah, she has no references, but don't insult my intelligence by asking me to believe she can't do better than this! It's crazy. She could easily have gotten even a basic job in retail, put in some effort, and been earning much more than that, but no. No references? You're stuck earning minimum wage with a scummy loan shark—and consider yourself lucky you're not digging ditches, instead, missy! (This plot point really bugs me, in case you couldn't tell.)
Later on—because our heroine has no gumption at all—she's still living in the dump with her druggie roommate, and we get this gem:
"I'd fall asleep to the smell of greasy fries cooked in rancid oil which wafted into the apartment from the fast food joint downstairs..."
Truly a LOL moment. Oh, you thought greasy smells permeating her room and clothes wasn't bad enough? Well, what if I told you it was the smell of disgusting greasy fries cooked in rancid oil? What's next? I'm surprised there weren't descriptions or roaches or rats.
...Hm. What else?
Here's a bit I noted:
"They were like capitalist soldiers in their two-thousand-dollar suits, pressed razor-sharp. ... But no one gets to make the kind of money those four did without tarnishing his soul."
Everyone who's rich is evil, then? Is that true for famous actors, musicians, and athletes, too? Don't get me wrong—I'm not a fan of Wall Street types. They don't need me to defend them, but the idea that anyone who makes a lot of money must have sold their soul is just stupid.
"They thought I was no better than the janitor who mopped their urine splatter off the restroom floor. I consoled myself with the thought that they'd find out soon enough who I was and what I was capable of."
First of all, what's with this disgusting obsession with urine? Second, are you saying that you are inherently "better" than the janitor? Why? Because you're (probably) more intelligent and better educated than the janitor? That's a bit elitist of you, Miss "I Hate Capitalism (Now That They Kicked Me Out of My Fancy Job)". The janitor might be a better (and happier) person than you are, regardless of their social status.
And then that ending. As I said before, this is not something I can take seriously. It's just a little too out-there to be realistic, but at least it's more fun to read than the plodding pace and depressing crap of the rest of the novel. (But how did she manage to buy/rent an obviously exorbitantly expensive home, engage a maid and chauffeur, etc. in such a short space of time? That bit makes no sense at all, unless I missed something.)
I did find it interesting that our heroine, who was so judgmental about the insider-trading-funded ill-gotten gains of her former colleagues was perfectly okay with stealing the money for her own use. It seems clear that she's planning to live in the lap of luxury for the foreseeable future, funded entirely by that money. Isn't that a bit... unethical?
I do wish we had been able to see her reaction to the news that her little prank ended in death. Would she be quite so smug then?
