The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park
Contemporary Young Adult released by Sourcebooks Fire on April 7, 2020
Nate Jae-Woo Kim wants to be rich. When one of his classmates offers Nate a ridiculous amount of money to commit grade fraud, he knows that taking the windfall would help support his prideful Korean family, but is compromising his integrity worth it?
Luck comes in the form of Kate Anderson, Nate’s colleague at the zombie-themed escape room where he works. She approaches Nate with a plan: a local tech company is hosting a weekend-long survivalist competition with a huge cash prize. It could solve all of Nate’s problems, and she needs the money too.
If the two of them team up, Nate has a real shot of winning the grand prize. But the real challenge? Making through the weekend with his heart intact…
This was a lovely read, with understandably flawed characters that grow over the book and scenes that were by turns funny, poignant, and a little violent. The pacing felt a bit off to me, and this is more of a happy for now than a happily ever after kind of romance, but that’s okay because these are teenagers. Also, there are robot zombies, not real zombies. We know almost from the beginning that Nate and Kate are more of an opposites attract than a birds of a feather kind of a match, but it takes a while for the characters to really get this; they also have to work out family issues and some peer pressure issues on Nate’s part. Both Kate and Nate are driven, but their goals look different. Continue reading
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