Full review will be available on my blog, 17th June 2022: https://inkandplasma.com/2022/06/17/escape-room/

Character - 5
Atmosphere - 5
Writing - 5
Plot - 4
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 2
Enjoyment - 4

Rating: 4.43 / 2 stars

This... was a weird one. I read it all in one sitting today, and ended up writing a review because I needed to process my thoughts. Because what the f did I just read. This was actually sitting at a solid 3 or 4 stars the whole way through, but the ending dropped it for me significantly.

I'm a little uncertain on the expected reading age for this book. It has a very large font and the characters and writing seems to be a middle-grade book, but this was very scary for a children's book. I'm talking characters straight up dying. Hardcore. It felt more YA in those moments. I liked the writing itself, it was an easy read and I found the puzzles and mysteries very engaging. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next and I liked the character cast. I did find Oscar kind of annoying - he had a character archetype and absolutely stuck to it - but overall they were a sweet group that had varied and interesting strengths.

However. However. The ending. I... what?

Spoiler

Our main character we've been following is an AI, and the whole escape room was aimed by her 'father' so she could fix climate change. Which, doesn't make any sense in the context of the escape room puzzles, and also it went from being scary and interesting to kind of preachy. The ending was very vague and I ended up going from scared to flat out confused by the entire concept.

Ultimately it wasn't a bad book but the ending let me down quite a lot, leaving me disappointed.