Christopher Edge’s middle-grade adventure Escape Room begins with a bang and ends with a thrilling question for the reader.

As a reward for working hard, Ami Oswald’s father buys her a ticket for The Escape - the ultimate locked-room experience. She meets her team and the adventure begins. And how!

“I want some action and adventure, not a bedtime story.” - Ch. 6

The first locked-room is thrilling: puzzles, red-herrings, and an urgently ticking-clock. By the third chapter I was swept away.

The game master gives the children a clear mission: save the world, find the Answer. He tells them they are humanity’s last hope. But as the children race from one hazard to the next, they learn that solving puzzles is not their only challenge: surviving is.

As the game evolves two things emerge: the ways in which different skill-sets shape a team’s performance, and the hostile environments threatening the children. The latter being a theme which grows throughout the novel and shapes the ending in a surprising and topical way.

What starts as an exciting bedtime story has, by the end, become something much more serious. And the end took me by surprise. I wondered initially if Escape Room was the first in a duology, but on second thoughts I think Christopher Edge is inviting and expecting the reader to join Ami in the game. Our collaboration is the only escape.

I look along the beach and see the plastic waste piled high, carpeting the sand in a tide of manmade mistakes. - Ch. 22

Love the cover and the illustrations at the start of each chapter.

Many thanks to Nosy Crow, Christopher Edge, and NetGalley for my advanced reading copy.

WHAT TO READ NEXT

Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy - steampunk explorers

Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen - fabulous middle-grade dystopia