An escape room is supposed to give you a challenge, a ticking clock, and, ideally, a door you eventually get to walk through. In Six Must Die by Victoria Wlosok, that last part is looking decidedly questionable. Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, this young adult thriller brings together former friends, a deadly anniversary, missing memories, and enough secrets to make trusting anyone feel like a questionable life choice.
Thank you to Hachette Book Group for providing my copy of “Six Must Die”. All opinions are my own.
I gave this one four stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.
I loved the twists and turns and all the unreliable narratives woven into the mystery. There were moments when the withholding of information felt a little too deliberate and interrupted the flow for me, but the book still kept me interested enough to finish. And the ending? A little surprising, a little expected—a combination that left me with a few things to think about.
Twelve months before the story’s present, an escape room fire changed everything for Steffi Zamekova. Matt Cesari, a charismatic and sometimes infuriating member of her friend group, died that night. Steffi survived, but her memories of what happened did not remain intact. Along with those missing pieces, she lost her popular blog and the close circle of friends who once filled her life.
When an ominous invitation arrives on the anniversary of the tragedy, Steffi sees a chance to finally get answers. The invitation leads her to a new escape room and reunites her with her former friends. Unfortunately, everyone seems to have something to hide, and the game becomes a fight for survival as participants are picked off. Steffi has to uncover their secrets while trying to recover her own memories. No pressure, right?
What I enjoyed most was the uncertainty. I love a thriller that gives me reasons to question what I’m being told, and the unreliable narratives were a big part of this book’s appeal. Steffi’s missing memories make the central mystery especially intriguing: she is trying to understand a night she experienced but cannot fully remember. That leaves plenty of room for doubt about what happened and how the pieces fit together.
The former friendships add another reason to be suspicious. These people share a history, but coming back together does not mean they are suddenly ready to be honest with one another. The setup invites questions about what each person knows, what they might be hiding, and why they agreed to participate. When everyone has their own reasons for showing up, even a seemingly simple explanation can start to look a little wobbly.
And then there are the twists. This was the part I really enjoyed. I like being able to form a theory, reconsider it, and wonder whether I’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Six Must Die gave me the turns and uncertainty I was hoping for. Having an idea about where a mystery might lead does not automatically take away the fun; sometimes the enjoyment comes from discovering how the author gets there.
The escape room premise also gives the story an immediate hook. Steffi enters because she wants the truth, but answering questions becomes tangled up with staying alive. There is something especially unsettling about a place designed around solving puzzles when the people inside may be keeping crucial information from one another. I enjoy a good mystery, but I would prefer to work on this particular one from a safe distance. My couch seems reasonable.
My main issue was how some information was held back. At times, I felt the author was trying a little too hard to keep certain details from the reader, and that affected how smoothly the story flowed for me. I wanted the uncertainty and the surprises, but occasionally I became more aware of the effort to preserve them than I wanted to be.
There is a balance in an unreliable narrative that can be tricky to maintain. I enjoy wondering whether I can trust someone’s version of events. I am less enthusiastic when I feel as though information is being kept just out of reach for the sake of extending the mystery. This book sometimes tipped into that second feeling for me. It was a noticeable frustration, even though it never outweighed my interest in finding out what happened.
As for the ending, my reaction landed somewhere between surprise and recognition. Some of it felt expected, but there was still an element that caught me off guard. It was not a complete “I never saw any of that coming” experience, and I would not describe it that way. Still, anticipating part of the destination did not erase my enjoyment of the twists along the route.
Six Must Die earned four stars from me for its twists, unreliable narratives, and intriguing mystery. The occasional awkwardness around withheld information kept it from being a five-star read, but I still wanted answers and kept reading to get them. If former friends, buried secrets, and a dangerous escape room sound like your kind of thriller, this one may belong on your reading list. I’ll just be keeping my next group activity considerably less deadly.
About the book:
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
Release Date: March 10, 2026
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult Thriller
Synopisis:
Twelve months ago, an escape room fire took everything from Steffi Zamekova. In just one hour, she lost it all: her popular blog, her close-knit inner circle, and her memories of the night that killed one of the group’s own … the charismatic (if infuriating) Matt Cesari.
On the anniversary of the bewildering tragedy, Steffi is still desperate to piece together what went wrong. So when she receives an ominous invitation in the mail summoning her to the new escape room across town, she seizes the chance for answers.
Reunited with her former friends, Steffi sees the game as a last chance to uncover the truth behind Matt’s death. But it’s soon clear that each participant has their own cagey reasons for accepting the challenge. And as tensions rise and the players are picked off one by one, it’s a race against the clock for Steffi to uncover their secrets and unlock her own memories before the game’s mastermind ensures that no one escapes the room alive.
Meet the author:
Victoria Wlosok is the author of the young adult thrillers How to Find a Missing Girl and Six Must Die. A recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she majored in English and Business Administration, she now spends her time researching methods of murder for future books, attempting to break out of escape rooms, and teaching language arts in the mountains of the Czech Republic. She invites you to follow her on Instagram, TikTok, and X @xvictoriawrites, or visit her website at victoriawlosok.com