The Escape Book 2: Can you escape this book? (Volume 2)

by Iván Tapia

Will you get to the Orwellians before the Wanstein Club get to you? The clock is ticking… Based on the global phenomenon of Escape Rooms, and  following on from the international bestseller  The Escape Book   by   Ivan Tapia,   this book puts your ingenuity, wit and perseverance to the test with  even more fiendish challenges, puzzles, and enigmas  that you must solve to thwart the sinister Wanstein Club.

Investigative journalist Candela Fuertes is at rock her fight against Castian Warnes, the head of the powerful and sinister Wanstein Club, has undermined her credibility as a journalist, and meanwhile she suspects Warnes is behind the car accident that put her boss in hospital. Corroded by the thirst for revenge, she decides to turn to  the only people who can help her  in a cause that seems already the Orwellians,  a group of hackers  hell bent on revealing the secrets of the rich and famous. In order to get to the Orwellians,  you and Candela must follow their trail  all over London.

The chapters of the book are jumbled up, and  to know where to continue reading, you must solve the puzzles, optical illusions, conundrums and anagrams  that you find. Each time you solve a puzzle, the number you arrive at will indicate the page from which you can continue the story.

176 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2019

Reviews

[Diane Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

You are trying to find the elusive Orwellians through a series of puzzles in Escape Book 2.

All of your journalism hasn’t stopped the dreaded Castian, the villain that poisoned you in Escape Book 1. Maybe the anti-governmental terrorist group, the Orwellians, can. After receiving an invitation to join them, you are still unwell from the poison so you send your young assistant, Janina, in your stead. With only Janina’s cellphone connecting your knowledge of puzzles with her, can she escape and convince the Orwellians to bring down Castian?

Most of the puzzles in Escape Book 2 use a map to solve. I have to say that I am “map-challenged” or really “geography-challenged”. However, I still believe that the majority of the puzzles are of an intermediate or advanced difficulty. If you read the first book in the series, these puzzles are definitely harder to solve.

Is this the same as a real escape room experience? No, of course not. First of all, you are going it alone. Second, you don’t really have a time limit. Third, there is no searching since the author provides you the clues. Also, a great benefit is that the author mandates the solving order of the puzzles. However, I think working the puzzles will improve your ability to solve live escape room puzzles faster. And it is definitely cheaper to buy the book than to attend even one escape room game. Overall, Escape Book 2 is a fun way to spend an evening. 4 stars!

Thanks to White Lion Publishing and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Kevin Rodriguez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute garbage. The story is a ripoff of 1984, but poorly written and poorly translated. Some chick with a dumb name is talking to another chick with a dumb name, and leading her through some underground hell maze, like if the movie Saw was a book. Then there are the puzzles...

You would think that buying a book with puzzles in it, the puzzles would all be self-contained within the book. You would be wrong. FOUR (out of like 16) of the puzzles need the internet to figure them out. Youtube, Google Maps, and the company's own website (in Spanish, really!?) are needed for this piece of crap book. So what happens when Google changes their map, or Youtube takes those videos down, or their junky website crashes? Or you're nowhere near a computer/cell phone with internet and/or you don't want to be bothered (because you shouldn't have to be bothered) looking on the internet in order to read a book? Well, you just can't finish the book unless you cheat.

Also, THERE IS NO ENDING! You have to go to some website and give them your information and then something allegedly happens, (but for me nothing happened), and then I guess you're done? I guess.

After the first internet puzzle, I hated the book. After the second I didn't care at all about the puzzles and just looked up what chapter to read next. After the third and fourth, I just finished the book to finish it and mark it as "read".

Then I left the book on a table in a park because I never wanted to see it again.

[Theediscerning · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmm… Not so much hot off the press, but at least lukewarm, comes this first sequel to the original Escape Book, a book that kind of went against the description 'original' wherever you looked, if truth be known. Basically you read as if you were a third-rate Lisbeth Salander knock-off, investigating some big bad economical wrong'uns. Here you have a suddenly-invented protege, your boss's god-daughter of all people, who, with said boss at death's door, is suitably fired up enough to replace you in the hunt for some evangelical whistle-blowers currently hiding on the Dark Web. The text, whether it be the original's fault or the translation, never really convinces that the author knows anything beyond having read newspaper supplements about the whole affair, but the literary quality is not really why we're here (especially if we remember Book One). No, we're here for the puzzles, and boy. The first is nigh on impossible without the clue section, the second impossibly easy, and the third relied on stuff that wasn't even reproduced in my ebook review arc. Oh, and you know what, the fourth? Does exactly the same.

Sometimes, I just don't know why I bother.

[Cheryl Gannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has Potential, but better in physical format.

I'm a lover of escape rooms and was very excited by this book, especially since I adored the choose-your-own-adventure series books as a child. The premise sounded great, but unfortunately the PDF made it very difficult to follow along with the puzzles (especially since the inside cover is so pivotal to solving the clues), and it really took away some of the excitement. Even peeking at the hints and solutions, I think there was a lot of lost explanation in the book (perhaps if I'd seen Book 1 I may have been more familiar with the process), but for a new reader with no context it was very challenging to understand what to do.

Will look out for Book 1 in physical format and give that a try as the premise does sound very appealing to me

[Jacki Nevico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don’t know what to think about this book. It started off great. The storyline is ok, a little twisted and manipulative. Towards the end though, it just went off the rails. The main character has completely lost her damn mind. The puzzles become so ridiculous with no actual way to solve them without a hint. Not to mention needing outside sources to do so. That part you may wanna warn people about. The other part that bothered me were the puzzle graphics themselves. You know to “collect clues” that may become useful later. Well at one point you find a screwdriver and when it comes time to use it, the “screws” don’t even look like screws so I never woulda known it was time to use the screwdriver had I not looked in the back.

[Shawn]

I REALLY wanted to try out this book. I enjoy escape rooms and puzzles so this seemed right I'll my alley.
However, I was unable to complete this book for review fully because the pdf version that was sent does not contain the full map. This made the puzzles impossible to solve unless you simply looked up the answers. I attempted contacting the publishing company and got no response. Also, the book claims there is a website for pdfs of the puzzle pieces in case they are necessary. This page does not exist. Good idea, poot execution.

Thank you though to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used the Escape Room 2 book on a family trip. The puzzle wasnt too difficult, even for my pre-teen. It takes the concept of an escape room and puts it on paper. It almost reminded me of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. I could see this type of book becoming quite popular, especially if future books are aimed at different levels of expertise, maturity.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

[Emma Breese · Rating 2 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the first Escape Book, but felt that the storyline of the second book was much weaker. I like solving escape room type puzzles, but was put off in this book by some that required extremely good eyesight, which sadly we are not all blessed with. In summary, this was enjoyable in parts, but there are better escape books out there.

[Trevor Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novelty of a novel.
Not my thing but a neat idea for advanced younger readers. The story was basic, some of the puzzles were difficult. I particularly did not like having to go to resources outside of the book to solve some of the problems a couple of the puzzles made you go to YouTube and there's nothing to say that those videos will be there forever or the channels that host them.

[Flocarine · Rating 3 out of 5]

.... I would like to review this book * but I got the Spanish Copy =( and my review has to be 100 characters long at least!

From what I can see, the book looks interesting and I hope I will get the english version as well!

[Heather Bennett · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Escape Book has a great concept but the execution was very poor. Something must of happened with the pdf version.

[TheCultureVulture · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story is a bore and the puzzles were super frustrating.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was terrible and hard to follow. Book was only focused on the puzzles which were fun at first but just turned annoying and repetitive near the end.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique concept of a book, part game and part mystery. I wasn’t smart enough to solve any of the puzzles so I found the hints at the end super helpful. Reading this as a pdf versus a paperback copy was probably the main reason that I struggled, since flipping back and forth was difficult as well as not having a physical map to fold.

[Christine Muller · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot worse than the first one, it made even less sense. I sped through the last few puzzles and skipped straight to the answer.
It got very nonsensical.
I hope my next puzzle book is better.