Using our Library Voices
Using our Library Voices
Reading Room Radio: Escape Rooms
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Nikki's sharing the thrilling trend of Escape Room stories. Included in this Reading Room Radio review are:
The Escape Game, Marissa Meyer
Six Must Die, Victoria Wlosok
The Grandest Game, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
No Escape, Maren Stoffels
Race for the Escape, Christopher Edge
The Escape Room, Megan Golden
Reviewed by: Nikki S.
Created by the Podcast Team at the Harris County Public Library.
www.hcpl.net
Podcast Team Members include: Beth Krippel, John Harbaugh, Mary Mink, Dylan Smith, Sadina Shawver, Alinda Mac, John Schaffer, Jennifer Finch, Katelyn Helberg, Darcy Casavant, Darla Pruitt and Nancy Hu
Welcome to Harris County Public Library's Reading Room Radio, where your to-be red pile gets a little more exciting one micro podcast at a time. Hi everyone, I'm Nikki from Collection Development. As your YA selector, I read a ton of YA, but I will choose a mystery or thriller no matter the age group. There's just something about the way my heart speeds up while I'm reading and the suspenseful plot that will keep me on my toes. I know I'm not the only one who tries to solve the whodunit before the people in the book either. As I've been reading these mysteries and thrillers lately though, I've noticed an interesting and rather random trend pop up. So imagine you're trapped in an office with some friends while trying to figure out a late scientist's notes on how to fix a messed up time machine before you're sent to the past. Forever. Or what about when a meteor is on its way to Earth and you're rushing around a room trying to find what to do to break it up before it gets to Earth? Sounds like the beginning to a crazy sci-fi thriller book, right? Nope, just escape room themes. But as you can see, they make for a really good plot, which is why I'm not surprised at all to see how they've taken over the bookish world. Physical escape rooms became popular in 2007 after Scrap created the first real one in Kyoto, Japan. By 2012, they have swept across Europe and the USA. Escape rooms are now so big they're popping up in books of different genres. Here's a few YA mystery thriller books that I've read and loved, as well as some others from other age groups that I'm on hold for. In the Escape game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss, the main character, Sierra, lost her sister while she was on a reality show where contestants team up to solve escape rooms. This season, Sierra is on the show and she's determined to find out who killed her sister before they can get someone else. This is a thriller mystery that I'm sure will keep you guessing as you wonder if the game clues are just for the game or the mystery at large. In Six Must Die by Victoria Wallace, there's a broken group of friends who used to frequent escape rooms but stopped after one of them died while trying to get out of one. A year later, out of nowhere, they all receive letters from an unknown person and find themselves reunited for one last room for nostalgia's sake. They quickly find out something sinister is happening and they'll be lucky if they make it out alive. This thriller is fast-paced and suspenseful. You won't know what will happen next. In the Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, a group of 17s enter the grandest game where they have to compete to solve puzzles in order to win a cash prize. Of course, the players don't play fair and things start to unravel. This novel doesn't depict the traditional escape room, but it's fast-paced and fun and will keep you guessing from beginning to end. Other books with escape rooms as a big part of the plot are No Escape by Marin Stofels, a YA thriller that has best friends competing against each other in a brand new escape room. They soon learn that everything they do while there puts the other in danger. In the juvenile fiction novel Race for the Escape by Christopher Edge, the main character and her escape room teammates find out the escape rooms they visit are very real and they have to solve the puzzles before it's too late. Another juvenile fiction novel is another one that can be labeled as a non-traditional escape room. It's set in an abandoned funhouse, and rumor has it, the people who created it created elaborate whirles, secret passages, and also hid a treasure inside. The main character's plan is for her and her room crew to go inside and find the prize. But of course, things don't go as planned. Lastly, there's the award-winning adult novel, The Escape Room by Megan Golden. The main character is forced to participate in a work exercise where they have to escape from a locked elevator. Can her and her coworkers put everything aside to escape before all their harmful secrets come out? Now, if you can escape this podcast episode without adding a single book to your TBR, you are calm, cool, and level headed. Actually, the perfect person for an escape room, at least to read one. So add them all anyway. Here's to finding your next great read.