The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis Series: ,
Published by Katherine Tegen Books on February 23, 2021
Pages: 384
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Welcome to Amontillado, Ohio, where your last name is worth more than money, and secrets can be kept… for a price.
Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things.
Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is… only that she can’t look at Tress without having a panic attack.
But she’ll have to.
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.
In the first book of this duology, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis draws inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and masterfully delivers a dark, propulsive mystery in alternating points of view that unravels a friendship... forevermore.
One of my favorite Authors is Edgar Allen Poe, I have read about 95% of his stories and poems. I’ve read about his life and his unexplained death (or the days leading up to it). His madness and angst was fascinating, his words of the macabre sent shivers down your spine. So when I saw that Mindy McGinnis has written a modern day telling of The Cask of Amontillado, I knew it was a book I had to get my hands on.
I can say without a doubt this was the craziest book I have read in a long time. It is full of angst, madness and poe references. It had a million things going on at one time, that centered around the main story. You have three POVs, Tress, Felicity and Someone else (I’ll let you figure that out on your own, it was bizarre). I didn’t like the two Main Characters, while they had Poe angst they both got on my nerves. The POV changes back and forth so you can get both sides of the story. The flashbacks are a little on the slow side and what is happening around them seems insane. The references in the book are plenty, it is pretty much is at every turn, I sort of felt like it had a lot going on.
BUT….I did like the story and how it slowly rolls into madness, how it simply ends in a way that I need to read the next book. While I didn’t like either girl, I was totally invested in what was going on and the mystery surrounding the death of Tress’s Parents and what really happened.
Overall, I liked it….I gave it 3.5 stars because I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it, the slowness and lag of the story some chapters is really what did it….but I do want to read the next book.
Thanks for stopping by to check out my review.
Have a great day and Happy Reading!
Sounds kind of interesting. 🙂
I love Edgar Allan Poe related retellings. I almost always find them reallty interesting. Too bad it was a 3.5 star read for you. It’s not the worst rating of course but you always hope for higher naturally.