Book Review: "The Escape Room" by Megan Goldin

It's a good thing I'm the boss, because after reading Megan Goldin's new book, The Escape Room, if someone ever suggested a team-building exercise, I'd run in the opposite direction!

Stanhope and Sons is one of the leading financial firms in the country. The deals they close net millions—if not billions—of dollars, and can make or break major corporations.

The firm hires only the best and brightest, and is tremendously choosy. They want people who look like they're worth millions, let alone be trusted to make millions on behalf of their clients. Successful employees make an immense amount of money between salaries and bonuses, yet the firm works them like dogs, at least until you get to the point where you're responsible for wining and dining potential and current clients.

One night four of the firm's leading employees, Vincent, Sam, Jules, and Sylvie, are summoned to an office building in the South Bronx with a directive to attend a meeting at the behest of HR. The past year has been a tough one for the quartet, who seem to have lost a bit of their luster lately, losing money and clients. There are rumors of layoffs, reassignments, so the four know that whatever they have to sacrifice for their job—as they always have—they will, if it means preserving their job and their astronomical salary.

No one is quite sure who summoned them to this meeting, but when they are directed into an elevator, they obey. It turns out the elevator is an escape room, where they must work together as a team in order to solve puzzles and identify clues so they can get out of the elevator before time elapses. The problem is, even though they work so closely together, no one is really sure whom to trust. They're convinced everyone is out simply to protect themselves, since that's what they would do, too.

When the lights in the elevator go out and it starts to get hotter in the confined space, they're desperate to solve the challenge and get out. But when the clues start to remind them of errors they've made and people they've wronged, they begin to realize this isn't just any escape room challenge. Someone is clearly out to get them—but is it one of the four of them, or someone else? How far are they willing to go to escape and save themselves?

There's a lot more to this book than that description but it's best to keep it fairly vague so as not to ruin the surprises along the way. The Escape Room isn't quite what I was expecting, and that doesn't disappoint me. It's definitely more of a slow-burn thriller than one with breakneck pacing, but you still want to know how Goldin is going to tie everything up. This is definitely a more cerebral book but not a boring one by any means.

I've never done one of those escape room challenges, and I don't think I'm in any hurry to do one after reading The Escape Room. I've seen this book get a lot of hype leading up to its release earlier this week, and it's definitely deserving of buzz. As long as you're comfortable with a slower pace and storytelling that will stimulate your mind more than rev your heart, you'll enjoy this one!

I was fortunate to be part of the blog tour for The Escape Room. Thanks to St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!

Check out some Q&A with Goldin at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2019/08/q-with-megan-goldin-author-of-escape.html.

Book Review: "Breathe In, Cash Out" by Madeleine Henry

Allegra Cobb has spent nearly two years working as an analyst at one of the most well-known banks. Between working an unbelievable amount of hours each week, redoing PowerPoint slide decks and bar charts for her supervisors, and trying not to lose her mind, she dreams of quitting her job to start her own yoga practice—just as soon as her year-end bonus comes in.

She's spent most of her life being an overachiever, driven by a father whose primary mechanism of communication and affection was coaching her to victory. She went to Princeton, excelled at every sport she played, and she even won gold at the American Yoga National Competition. But now she's tired of being treating like a slave by her bosses, working until 4:00 a.m. some days only to be right back at her desk before 9:00 a.m., and she's ready for it all to be over.

All she needs to do is be patient and wait for the year to come to an end. It appears, however, that won't be easy. She's just slept with a hot man from her yoga class—who is now her new boss on a major deal. She's also just met Skylar, one of her yoga idols, and she's taken a real interest in Allegra. The thing is, however, Skylar wants to help her begin to focus more on herself, become more centered and intentional about her goals and her yoga practice. That doesn't seem to reconcile itself with the hellish pace at which Allegra spends her workweek.

As Allegra tries to balance her daily responsibilities with following Skylar's advice, she finds she's successful at neither. And the results are spectacular—spectacularly bad, that is. If things keep up the way they're going, she might get fired before she gets her bonus, which, of course, will leave her nowhere. She's alienating her closest coworker and burning the candle at both ends is also taking its toll on her physically. What do you do if you fall asleep when you attempt meditation?

The closer Allegra gets to bonus day, the more confused she becomes about what path she should take. Should she follow Skylar or set her own path? Is she crazy to abandon a promising—if destructive—career in finance to pursue her dreams? And perhaps more importantly, what is her father going to say when she tells him she's quitting? It's enough to make even the most centered person feel completely off-kilter.

Breathe In, Cash Out is a humorous look at the cutthroat world of finance and the first-world problems of young people making six-figure salaries right out of college yet feel they are overworked and underappreciated. (Wow, I might have totally sounded like a grumpy old man just then.) It's also a fascinating look at how easy it can be to self-destruct when you're not 100 percent focused, and how sometimes it just takes one person's belief in you and your dreams to help you pull yourself together—however briefly.

Madeleine Henry worked for Goldman Sachs and then started her own yoga practice, so she definitely knows of what she writes. She has a breezy, funny writing style, and even though I didn't understand a lot of the terms her characters used when talking about the finance world, I found myself fully immersed in this story. The plot is a little bit predictable but Henry still created enough uncertainty in exactly how far Allegra might fall, or whether she'd decide to pursue her dream in the first place.

Things did get a little repetitive toward the middle, and there are times when I almost wanted to read the book with my hands over my eyes because I was waiting for everything to simply explode, but this was a tremendously fast and fun read. The marketing for the book compares it to The Devil Wears Prada, and while there may be a few similarities, this is an enjoyable book on its own.

Trust me: you'll see Breathe In, Cash Out in a lot of people's hands this summer and fall. I am just trying to think about who could play Allegra in the movie version.

NetGalley and Atria Books provided me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

This book publishes July 9, 2019.