“When Ami arrives at The Escape, she thinks it’s just a game – the ultimate escape room with puzzles and challenges to beat before time runs out. But as the Host locks Ami and her teammates inside the first room, they quickly realise this is no ordinary game and the stakes are sky-high…”
As a mega escape room fan, I was itching to review Escape Room. And as an author myself with my own half-started escape room YA, I was so interested to see how Edge tackled the difficulties of writing an engaging story involving characters solving puzzles. In actual escape rooms watching someone else solve anagrams is very definitely not a spectator sport!
Edge has pitched this so well for the MG reader. The stakes are high, ‘rooms’ or zones are packed with action and bigger budget effects than any escape rooms I’ve played in – woolly mammoth anyone? My favourite zone in the book was obviously the massive library.
Escape Room is a very visual read for a generation brought up on computer games – think big movies like Jumanji with a touch of movies they’ll love when they are older like The Matrix and Escape Room 1 and 2, even a dash of The Truman Show. It has all the interesting themes of those big movies but where this book really surprised me is in the ending. No spoilers, but after all that action this one tugs at your emotions too. It gives the younger reader interesting, current issues in a very accessible way – all of which gives a resonance after they’ve closed the book. Fabulous!
I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this. The high-octane ‘big budget special effects’ feel to the various escape rooms make for a gripping read, and yes, the ending is very clever. I love that cover too!