These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: No Way Out!
Around 2007 is when Takao Kato made the first Escape Room inspired by the digital escape games. They got super popular around 2010-ish and ever since they’ve been growing and growing lol So of course it was only a matter of time before they started showing up in books! Which is why I’m not entirely shocked that I pretty much read two back to back lol I read The Escape Game which was crazy. Not only were they trying to win like a tournament of Escape Rooms, but they were also trying to solve a cold case from one of the contestants’ sister. So yes, basically it was crazy lol I was trying to solve both at some points before I realized I didn’t have all the info I needed for the escape rooms lol But still, it was a lot of fun. [This is a YA book and is out today!]
This one was layered with another mystery as well. (If you didn’t know, Escape Rooms are great Locked Room Thriller/Mystery settings lol) In this one 6 teens had fun doing escape rooms together. In the last one they did, a fire broke out and they lost one of their friends. After a full year of no talking, they all received an invitation to another escape room. They got there to discover that none of them sent it even though there were intimate details on what happened to them last time. As they go through the escape room, details start to come out and things are definitely not as they appeared. This one threw me for a loop lol [This is a YA book and is out now!]
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
Escape If You Can!
Of course since I’m indecisive, here’s some other books that have Escape Rooms as a big part of the plot! The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Escape Room by Maren Stoffels are YA. The Grandest Game is also a spin-off of a popular series that uses puzzles in other ways. Escape Room by Christopher Edge is a MG novel. The Escape Room by Megan Goldin is an adult novel. This could be a really fun all ages display or curation for librarians! (If you live in an okay community….) I didn’t realize how many of them were out now!
Have you ever done an escape room? Do you know anymore books with Escape Rooms? Let me know in the comments!