Review: "The Escape Game" by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss

The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
Published April 2026 via G.P. Putnam's Books for Young Readers
★★★★

On the last season of The Escape Game, it was all going to plan...until a contestant was found murdered. Millions will be tuning in for the latest season, not least when it emerges that one of last season's contestants is back. She's ready to prove that despite popular opinion, she didn't murder her sister—and more to the point, to find out who did.

This is told from the perspectives of four of the contestants, all competing together as a team: Adi, forced to be there by his mother (who is gunning for a Hollywood comeback of her own); Beck, who has family financial reasons to want the prize; Carter, who has built a social media presence about The Escape Game and is ready to prove her own skills; and of course Sierra, who was last season's villain and still doesn't give a flying squirrel what other people think of her. And gosh it's satisfying. I've never done an escape room (just the idea stresses me out, to be honest), but the level of detail here is fantastic. The characters think so quickly, and while I can't say how realistic the escape rooms themselves are, they're wonderful fun to read about.

Now, the whodunnit: I highlighted something very early on in the book that made me suspicious—it could have been a red herring or it could have been foreshadowing. I can't say what it is, but I can say that it's chapter 51 before the characters catch on. (I can't blame them—it's the sort of thing you notice when you're reading a mystery that you know will be full of twists, not the sort of thing you notice when you're living it and have no reason to suspect a foul!) Because of this, I paid more attention when a particular character was on-page and was less surprised than I might have been by the eventual reveals...but there were still plenty of red herrings and so on to keep me guessing.

Looks like a second book is in the works, and I'll happily pick it up when the time comes.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.