User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
**4.5-stars rounded up**When they were kids, Tress Montor and Felicity Turnado were best friends. Now frenemies would be the most accurate way of describing their relationship.
Tress has an axe to grind with Felicity. She wants answers to a long-standing mystery and believes Felicity has them.
When the girls where in the fourth grade, Tress's parents disappeared late one night while driving Felicity home from their house.
Felicity was found bruised and bleeding at the side of the road, while Mr. and Mrs. Montor were never seen again.
After that, Tress lost everything. With no parents, and no one else stepping forward, she was forced to move in with her drunken grandfather at what the locals call the
White Trash Zoo.
There are animals that Tress helps to feed and care for. A zebra, an ostrich, an alligator, a panther, among other things, but her life is extremely hard.
Tress is not cared for as a child should be and becomes a social pariah at school. Literally abandoned by the entire town, she has no one to advocate for her.
Felicity feels guilty for all that has happened to Tress in the aftermath of her parents disappearance. Part of her wants to comfort and care for her ex-best friend, but she doesn't dare. What would people think?
Felicity keeps her true thoughts tucked deep inside her, like she's been taught, all whilst exuding that Queen Bee attitude everyone expects.
She's rich, beautiful, popular and has a secret way to suppress all her negative thoughts and emotions.
Tress has had enough of the Felicity Show, so she develops a plan to get what she wants out of her.
It involves an abandoned home, a crowded costume party, a coal chute, a lot of bricks and some mortar. Felicity is going to talk, one way or another. Tress has nothing to lose.
Alternating between Tress and Felicity's perspectives, this novel follows the girl's friendship from the start to the present, and through the various stages in between.
Both girls keep a lot of things to themselves. There is anger, guilt and plenty of low self esteem to go around.
This story is
extremely heavy. There is a ton of baggage between these two girls. Even when they aren't the ones doing things to one another, they are there to bear witness.
They've been intertwined in one another's lives for a long time. As a Reader, you can feel
the weight of that history. It's tangible.
I found this entire story to be
twisted, unique and completely engaging. Once I started reading, I could not put it down. It's just so well written.
I know that this story will not be for everyone, but I think the people who are going to enjoy it, are REALLY going to enjoy it.
McGinnis was not afraid to
go dark and stay dark; just where I like it. There is not one moment of lightness in this novel and I was here for it.
I cannot believe how this one ended up. The final few scenes, my word!
Thank you so much to the publisher, Katherine Tegen Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review.
I really, really enjoyed this and cannot wait to see how this duology turns out!!!
Rating: really liked it
before we start, i need you to understand something. i’m a grown ladyperson who grumbles about semantic bleaching and doesn’t bandwagon onto contemporary youngperson slang unless i’m making a comedic point about how out-of-touch i am. i’m never gonna be modern enough to tweet about
literally starving to death waiting for a table at the cheesecake factory. so know that when i say this, it's not some casual colloquialism, but after that ending?
i. am. shook.
i am stomach-dropped awe.
i am, to quote this book,
a stinking sack of skin.mindy mcginnis has written some ballsy-ass YA, but this one takes the don’t back down-ness of The Female of the Species to a whole nother level.
to quote this book at greater length:
”I’m holding someone captive in the basement,” I tell him, and the ear comes back, cocked. “I hit her in the head with a brick and I chained her to the wall, and I’ve got her halfway sealed into a tomb, and I probably gave her a concussion, and I think she’s got the flu, and I might have fractured her ankle.”
It’s a lot, when you string it all together like that.
it
is a lot.
and yet that whole basement torture/revenge plot is just one slice of a narrative pie which mishmashes Thirteen Reasons Why with tiger king and pretty much everything edgar allan poe ever wrote. the biggest players are the cask of amontillado & the masque of the red death, but there are so many little nods to the man in the character names (including a dog named william wilson), and a where’s waldo of poe-symbols: a pendulum, an orangutan, a raven, and a black cat, here taking the form of a panther. and for those of you who prefer poe’s b-sides, the hop-frog/ribbit parallel will be a real treat.
it's not cover-to-cover perfection—some of the poe-winks are a little
too winky (tress' parents' names are 'annabelle' and 'lee,' for goodness' sake), and i could have done without the panther's POV, which is in verse. i have a pretty staunch and long-standing aversion to poetry infecting my prose. some of the poems were evocative and lovely, but i had no idea what was going on in at least one of 'em, so it didn't really work for me.
there were also some moves and explanations i found unconvincing—like why tress was sent to live in her weed-farming grandfather's trailer, often forced to sleep outside with all the indifferently-caged apex predators and made to endure his "hold it in" approach to menstruation instead of living in the crumbly house of usher with her aunt and cousin. i mean, when a girl comes to school smelling like a zebra every day, maybe it's time to give cps a ring. there were some assorted odds and ends i didn't really buy, motivation-wise, but in a book where a girl's walling up her former bestie in the basement of an abandoned house while a deadly flu tears through the partygoers upstairs, it's not particularly useful to scrutinize the details. this is where we are because this is where mcginnis wants us.
before i read this i was excited to see there was already a follow-up planned, but now that i’ve finished it, i’m apprehensive. the ending is a searing slap in the face and i don’t want whatever comes next to walk it back into 'jk everything is all right' territory. i trust her to deliver something badass, but i don't want any cold water poured onto this sizzle.
i am, and remain, shook.
**********************************************
i. can't.
********************************************
if i didn't already ADORE mindy mcginnis, this paragraph of the synopsis:
Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity – brick by brick – as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. With a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl, Tress will have her answers – or settle for revenge.
woulda made me hit that 'to read' button hard enough to sprain a finger.
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
[crazy unlikable teenagers abusing alcohol and drugs, bullying, a wild panther on the loose (that also gets its own POV!?! why!?) attac
Rating: really liked it
Giving five stars to this extremely nerve bending, last standing grey cell destroyer book is real insult! It worths more than that!
McGinnis has her own peculiar, truly original style and genius mind perfectly knows how to blow her readers’ minds! And this book’s storyline and that freaaaaakinnnggg awesome cliffhanger made you question your own reality were true definitions of perfection!
It’s deadly revenge game:
Two narrators: Tress and Felicity: once upon a time they were best friends and now they are true enemies!
Seven years ago when parents of Tress drove Felicity to her home, something really bad happened! Tress’ parents vanished into thin air. Felicity found unconscious and she still insists she doesn’t remember anything about that night.
Tress not only lost her parents that night, she lost her best friend Felicity, her house, her hopes, anything related a normal teenager has in her life: comfort, hygiene , proper house, living conditions, food, clothes etc. She starts to live one eyed, drunken grandfather in a wild animal attraction ( her roommates are a zebra, chimpanzee, a zebra ?!?) people called white trash zoo including her ex best friend Felicity and her new inner circle, rich privileged friends!
Tress gotta do something to learn the truth! Somebody rich and powerful silences the entire town : police officers stop searching for her parents. Everybody pitying her or getting disgusted by her existence! She cannot live like that , she gotta learn what happened to her family. She needs get the information from Felicity even though she has to hurt her till she dies!
This is a cat and mouse game between friends. Felicity is in pain, the secret she keeps is so heavy. She cannot live with that. She needs to comfort of drugs. She is beautiful, she is popular, she has everything Tress tragically lost but everything she has turning into guilt feelings which eat her alive!
If she doesn’t tell the truth, Tress will bury her into her own tombstone! But sometimes there are worst things than dying in the world!
All night long confrontation between ex friends will destroy you, hurt you , frustrate you! But you’ll do curious to know how will conclude!
You get sorry for Tress! Sometimes you get scared of her because she is slowly turning into an animal, losing her humanity! You hate Felicity for the things she has done to her best friend, you resent her for not trying harder, not standing up for her, you also feel sorry for her self destruction!
I need to know when the second book comes out!
I need to know who will laugh less!
I need to know what the hell happened to Tress’ parents and who did this to them?
For god’s sake I need second book ASAP!
Rating: really liked it
⭐4 𝙄𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙋𝙤𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙨! ⭐
Included in this book are a town rooted in history, well-rounded secondary characters, a mysterious illness and a prowling wild panther, but the 💛 of this book lies in the two main characters.
𝙏𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 - in 4th grade her parents drove her then best friend home and were never seen again. She's sent to live with her alcoholic uncle on his trashy wild life zoo. Now a high school senior, she decides to do whatever it takes to find out what really happened to her parents.
Tress is a nasty little thing! She responds to conflict with either violence or sulking and doesn't care who she hurts to get what she wants.
Most of her grievances are soooo petty - 3 chapters about how sad it made her that she was blamed for having lice in the 7th grade - so obviously I didn't like her. But I'm not sure the reader is meant to, especially knowing the Poe character she's molded after.
𝙁𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮 - Tress's ex- best friend that was with her parents when they disappeared. She's a complex character who's trying to move on from the past and has secrets of her own. Confident and feisty, she makes an entertaining opponent for Tress.
This book is the first of two and I felt like enough of my questions were answered that I was satisfied with the ending, but also intrigued by the tease of what's to come in the next half!
Also, some seriously racy content for a YA book 😁
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to enjoy this audiobook.
Rating: really liked it
"Apparently I am very bad at picking friends.
Either I try to kill them, or they try to kill me."Not a book giving me post-traumatic stress disorder. I have to give this five stars simply because this book dares to do what most YA wouldn't even think of. The cheek, the nerve, the audacity, the gall and the gumption.
Now if you asked me to read a book where someone buries their ex-best friend alive behind a brick wall in the cellar of an old mansion while a house party is raging on the floor above and a panther is strolling through the night looking for prey, I'd laugh at you. There's no way anyone can pull that off without it turning out to be absolute bonkers.
No one except Mindy McGinnis.
Because she pulled it off, and this book is proof.
Listen, you're not going to get anything else out of me. You have to find out yourself if she ends up dead and buried or not. If the panther eats every single person at the house party or not. If the suspense doesn't kill you first.
Find more of my books on Instagram
Rating: really liked it
I have to be honest and say that this one didn't really work for me the way that I was hoping it would. Mindy McGinnis (one of my all-time favorite authors) mixed with The Cask of Amontillado (my favorite Poe story) should have been absolutely everything to me, but the writing style of this one felt really... weird? to me and kept pulling me out of the story instead of immersing me further and I am SO bummed about it. I will most likely carry on and finish the duology because I love Mindy's work and I'm curious to see where she's going to take this strange story, but this first installment wasn't quite what I was hoping for.
Rating: really liked it
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest
THE INITIAL INSULT has been chilling on my Kindle for a while but I never actually got around to reading it until now. Apparently it's a retelling of The Cask of Amontillado but there's all sorts of other Poe references too. Set in an Ohio town where last names are everything and reputations are built on decades of heritage and clout, it's told in alternating POVs from two ex-friends, Felicity and Tress
Tress wants to know what happened to her parents, who went missing the night they took Felicity home from a sleepover and ended up in a wreck. Since then, she's tumbled from being the daughter of one of the town founders to being a cast off, living with her grandfather on the outskirts of town, selling drugs for money and helping to run his illicit zoo. Felicity, on the other hand, despite being "new money," is reaping the rewards of being in the center of the social scene. Life seems pretty good until they meet again at a party and Felicity ends up locked in a basement, with her friend slowly building her tomb brick by brick.
There are so many secrets in this book and it is DARK. The pacing is excellent and kept me turning the pages, wanting to find out how their friendship fell apart and what really happened to Tress's parents, all the while being saturated in this sort of Gothic small-town setting where everything is politics. In some ways, this was like a checklist of some of my favorite tropes and it could have easily been a five-star read for me, but there were a few things I didn't really like. (1) The lack of closure (although since this is a duology, I get it, I just don't like it) and (2) Giving the animals its own POV and having it be in poetry. That just felt a bit too gimmicky for me and it pulled me out of the narrative.
This is a pretty solid book, though. Nobody can write female antiheroes like Mindy McGinnis.
4 stars
Rating: really liked it
This is an exceptionally well-written YA book that I wholeheartedly recommend. I was a big reader of YA thrillers as a kid (Christopher Pike was my favorite!) and one of the things that was most important to me was that the adult writer not "talk down" to me for being a kid. I wanted my YA books to sound like they were actually narrated by other young adults. McGinnis is *fantastic* at this. She does not underestimate her young readers' intelligence or capability of understanding mature issues. I would have totally devoured this as a kid when I was fully immersed in some of the issues the kids are going through here, and I also really enjoyed it as an adult. Also, it's really great to listen to a book where kids act and talk like kids actually do - sometimes swearing, sometimes talking about sex, sometimes doing other stuff kids do that adults would prefer they not do, and sometimes completely dark, as adults can be. The use of social media was also very authentic and did not have the feeling of "stodgy adult trying to explain how kids use The Face Book." (I am guilty of this sometimes myself...it comes with age, I suppose.)
I don't want to say too much about the plot because I think it's best to let it unfold, but I will say.....
*Stefan voice* YA's hottest new book "The Initial Insult" has everything: a "white trash zoo," secret drug deals, a compelling lead, a potentially shady best friend, missing parents, prose that is almost poetry, a mysterious, moneyed town where everyone has secrets, and a spooky poetic cat narrator. (Wait, what? Yes, seriously. Not for the whole book, don't worry.) As you may gather from the spooky cat, the book is influenced by Edgar Allen Poe, so if you are a Poe fan, you will have some guesses at different directions it could go, but will still be surprised. This is a totally unique and interesting book.
I was not sure how my experience with a synthetic voice audiobook would be, and it was completely fine. I think I was imagining that it would be a TV-robot type voice, but instead the voice sounds more natural. Of course, it does not carry the acting and vocal performance an audiobook reader will give to it, which primarily impacted the end of the book in my opinion - but it was an interesting new way to listen to the book. You have to sort of picture different emotions in your head with the words so it takes a bit more work and may not be for everyone. I predict the actual audiobook will be way more sinister.
I am definitely going to read the second book. The ending was so great and creepy that I can't imagine what might happen next, and will love to see where the series will go from here.
4.5 stars rounded up for the amazing, totally experimental Poe-esque theme and writing. Thanks to Harper Collins, Mindy McGinnis and NetGalley for this totally original and fun YA read.
Rating: really liked it
This is a down right brutal and gut wrenching re-imagining of The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe! Mindy McGinnis did an excellent job at retelling The Cask Of Amontillado. I felt that she stuck to the story enough that you were able to pick up on the subtle hints and similarities while also making it very much her own. I will say that this is way more brutal, gory and detailed than the original story though haha. So if those things are something that trigger you, maybe avoid this one.
I personally found it gut wrenching (particularly the end) which isn't necessarily a pleasant feeling. But for any author to be able to make you feel such intense feelings like that, I have to say that it was very well written. Although I found it well written and the retelling well done, there wasn't much about this that wowed me. It was a good book and a book that I'd recommend but I didn't find it anything that was mind blowing. So in that regard, I was a little disappointed.
So as i said, this book is well written, got a back story on the girls friendship and lives... The only real critic that I have of this is that there wasn't a whole lot of dimension to the characters. This is more of a plot based book. And I didn't really understand the point of the cat? I liked the idea of seeing things through a big cats eyes (one that's in a zoo, especially) But I didn't find that he added much to the story aside from just another perspective on how things went down. So I do think that this story would have been just as good with out that character in it.
However this isn't a bad book. This is actually a really good book! There just were some aspects that disappointed me a little. That being said, if this sounds like something that interests you, I highly recommend giving this one a shot!
This was sent to me by Katherine Tegen Books via Netgalley. So thank you so much to them for sending me an audio- arc copy in exchangeneral for an honest review!
Rating: really liked it
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. - The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe in Appalachia!? SOLD. Mindy McGinnis knows the weird stories my brain wants before I do.
This did not disappoint. At all. Except that I finished it and now I feel a little shell shocked and a lot impressed. Just. What the fuck is this? What did it do to me?
Possibly her best yet.
I've likely said it before at some point, but I'll reiterate here; Mindy McGinnis is a motherfucking fearless writer. She crafts such well developed characters, but is unfraid to kill or maim her darlings. To plagiarize myself quickly, from when I talked about Be Not Far from Me,
"She writes holding nothing back and it will make you simultaneously squirm and cheer."I would advise going into this without reading into the plot too heavily. I mean, Edgar Allan Poe in Appalachia; what else do you need to know? I will say that a knowledge of Poe might be beneficial and enhance the reading experience, but it's certainly not necessary. Even a skating pop culture awareness is fine.
Because as much as this is inspired and crafted by Poe, it's ultimately its own story of revenge, pain, secrets, and mistakes. Tress and Felicity, our two main characters, are both harboring regrets and fueled by desperation. It's so easy to like them both, even when their motives are in direct opposition. Whether they're cruel or vulnerable, violent or wounded, they are ultimately solid and believable characters, making painful and life altering decisions in a heart rending, captivating story.
I also just found out this is a
DUOLOGY?
After that literally breathtaking ending, I have ZERO idea what to expect next. I could write a solid 200 page novella just on the HEART STOPPING conclusion. I'm worried I'm over-hyping it, but at the same time, this book metaphorically punched me in the face.
It's brazenly shocking, but it's earned. Every step taken by the characters in the pages before support what happens. It's a wham moment that's earned, arisen from character and plot and not just wanting a cheap shock to amp up the finale.
I've done nothing in this review but rant about how much I loved
The Initial Insult. And I'm okay with that. I just had a heck of a good time reading this. It pushed all the right buttons for me and I loved every bloody page of it.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Katherine Tegen Books for the review copy!
Rating: really liked it
Holy shit, this was terrible.I can’t believe Mindy McGinnis actually wrote this book. It tries so hard to be edgy and obtains the opposite. I hated everything about this, from the quirky atmosphere, to the characters, to the zoo and the party and the flashbacks. It was absolutely not worth my time.
I am so tired of reading about a cliched and standard showdown between a popular girl and an unpopular girl in high school. The thing is, it has been done so many times already you need really good characters and an interesting mystery to pull it off. Otherwise it ends up being just a bunch of boring stereotypes. This book had nothing to add to that.
Both Felicity and Tress were unlikable and got on my nerves. I don’t need to have likable characters to love a book, I actually love reading about unlikable characters more because their flaws make them real. However, these two made me roll my eyes at every paragraph with their complaints, stupidity and contradictory behavior. I hate when Tress pretends she cares about her cousin and then lets the people at the party bully him while drunk.
Worldwide. She actually uses him as a distraction to go torture another person in the basement? What the actual fuck.
At the end Tress kills Felicity and at the last moment we as readers are supposed to believe she suddenly cares about her again and loves her as a friend. Bitch PLEASE. That wasn’t smooth at all.
Cat’s chapters were also a pain in the ass. Did they add to the story? No. Did they even make sense? No, they were confusing and out of place. I listened to the first of Cat’s chapters at least three times and then gave up.
This book was repetitive, full of uninteresting flashback, with a boring mystery and annoying characters.
How did the author mess up a Poe retelling? How did she write this book after how good Be Not Far From Me was? I’m baffled.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 Stars — THE INITIAL INSULT gives a modern YA spin to the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe, taking inspiration from several of his classic tales of suspense. In Amontillado, Ohio, at the condemned Usher House, Tress Montor devises a sinister plan to get information out of her former best friend, Felicity Turnado.
Tress's parents disappeared seven years ago, and the only witness was Felicity, though she's buried any memories of that terrible night in her subconscious. So in
The Cask of Amontillado style, Tress plans to wall up Felicity, brick by brick, in Usher House's coal chute, unless she finally admits what happened to Mr. & Mrs. Montor.
This book was strange and dramatic, and gruesome at times. None of the characters were particularly likable, but I'm glad there was a dual narrative between Tress & Felicity, so at least we could hear where both were coming from. There was also a third POV from the character "Cat," whose voice was confusing. I'm not sure that being inside Cat's head was necessary.
Something to note: THE INITIAL INSULT is the first book in a duology, so it's left open-ended in regards to the mystery of the missing parents and other points. There was A LOT of drama going on in this book (drug abuse, animal cruelty, bullying, class struggle, family secrets), so I'm assuming the second book will make sense out of everything, though we'll have to wait until next year to see.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
I’ve read a book by Mindy McGinnis in the past and I was a big fan so I was super excited to get an advanced audiobook from Netgalley for her newest novel!
So the audiobook is told by a synthetic voice narrator until the actual audiobook is published…. I don’t know why they just didn’t wait till they started real production. The voice drove me insane, I felt like Siri was reading to me and it’s not the most enjoyable experience. Hopefully when the final copy is out it will add to the experience because for me, it personally ruined it. I had to start it over three times because I had a hard time paying attention.
Okay now that I got that out of the way, let’s move on to the actual book itself. This reminded me of Tiger King (even though I never watched it) mixed with Edgar Allan Poe. Our main characters Tress and Felicity are ex-best friends. Tress’s parents disappear when they give Felicity a ride home and she has no recollection of what happened to them. Tress lives with her alcoholic grandpa who has a zoo (Tiger King) while Felicity is off living her best life. Tress takes matters into her own hands to try to scare Felicity into telling her what really happened that night by sealing her shut in a basement brick by brick (my worst nightmare).
We get to hear from both girls and while you feel bad for them both, Tress was not that likable. It jumps around from when the girls were friends and what happened for their inevitable break up. Tress is too petty and immature, I know it’s the point to not like her but damn, she’s crazy. They both are messy and complicated so the relationship surrounding them was pretty intriguing. I will definitely continue with the series HOWEVER I will not ever be reviewing a synthetic voice ever again, I have to make sure I look out for that because I think this made it a lot less enjoyable. I tried to not like it affect my review too much but it does, sorry.
The Initial Insult will be published February 23rd, 2021. Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Children’s, and Katherine Tegen books for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
I think we can all agree that
what the actual fuck.
I have such a weird relationship with McGinnis' books. I love that she writes the strangest but often most compelling, unflinching, kind of things. But I seem to either love them, hate them, or not know whether I love or hate them. This is in the last category. And it's a stranger feeling, too, considering this isn't a standalone and there's to be a sequel. Maybe I'll know which camp I fall into after reading book two? Because I will.
I couldn't tear myself away from this, could only stare unblinking as things got weirder and continued to escalate, and then.. that ending. Which we know isn't an ending, but. Wow.
I've read this two months early so I'm going to be incredibly interested to see where this goes, and how people feel, as more readers pick it up. There's really not much more to say! Compelling, yes, but definitely a qu'est-ce-que-fuck kind of read.
** I received an ARC from Edelweiss+ and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **
----
This review can also be found at A Take From Two Cities.
