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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Unlike any book I’ve ever read! In this story you can find inspiration from “The Cask of Amontillado” and other Edgar Allan Poe Tales. This book was intense! It’s like watching a train wreck. You don’t want to watch, but you can’t look away.
4.5 rounded down.
Whew, okay. Mindy McGinnis has been on my "read everything by" author list for a while now. I waited until this one was available as an audiobook at my library and dug in.
This book, by itself, is absolutely insane. The shit happening here? My god. It was almost too much to deal with.
It gets way better if you're a Poe fan and can appreciate the piles of references scattered all the way throughout.
I absolutely could not put this down. I had to know what was going to happen to everyone involved. The ending left me reeling, and even though I've almost exclusively done audiobooks for months now, I grabbed the book version of the sequel so I could figure out what happened.
Whew, okay. Mindy McGinnis has been on my "read everything by" author list for a while now. I waited until this one was available as an audiobook at my library and dug in.
This book, by itself, is absolutely insane. The shit happening here? My god. It was almost too much to deal with.
It gets way better if you're a Poe fan and can appreciate the piles of references scattered all the way throughout.
I absolutely could not put this down. I had to know what was going to happen to everyone involved. The ending left me reeling, and even though I've almost exclusively done audiobooks for months now, I grabbed the book version of the sequel so I could figure out what happened.
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Mindy McGinnis needs to quit writing for YA and pivot full time into Splatterpunk, a genre with fans that can appreciate her. This is the second of her books I have read and it has so much in common with popular Splatterpunk. The Initial Insult is a zero empathy revenge story and it's creepy as hell.
Overview:
❤️ Friends to enemies
❤️ A tight-nit town
❤️ Novella
❤️ No romance
❤️ Angry women
❤️ Character study
Tress and Felicity live in a town where status is everything- so when Tress's parents go missing and she is forced to live with her mentally unwell grandpa and his collection of exotic animals at the edge of town, her life falls apart. Her best friend Felicity slowly stops hanging out with her and instead hands out with her bullies; but that's not all Felicity is done. Tress is convinced that Felicity knows something about her missing parents, and she's prepared to kill Felicity to get the answers.
This is a VERY loose retelling of The Cask of Amontillado and primarily focuses on the grudges that Tress is carrying around, and how Felicity is at the touchstone of every dark event in Tress's life. It's easy to empathize with both of these characters even in a book this short. Tress is a dark, brooding type, but we quickly see how small town social climbing and abuse have shaped her. Similarly, Felicity seems like a girl who has it all, but she herself lives in a gilded cage.
The tone of the book is dark, slow, and creeping. The tension builds as you start to get a sense of the instability of both girls and find yourself wondering what choices they will make. It's hard to talk about this book without spoiling it, but it's super easy to get invested in. Im shocked the ratings are so low, which I can chalk up to how horribly placed the genre of The Initial Insult is; it feels like something that might go over the heads of a lot of kids, or be too uncomfortable.
I was actually extremely surprised in its brutality and grim dark vibes; like legitimately I kept waiting for the hopeful shoe to drop and it just doesn't. If you want to read some fucked up shit, this is your book.
Overview:
❤️ Friends to enemies
❤️ A tight-nit town
❤️ Novella
❤️ No romance
❤️ Angry women
❤️ Character study
Tress and Felicity live in a town where status is everything- so when Tress's parents go missing and she is forced to live with her mentally unwell grandpa and his collection of exotic animals at the edge of town, her life falls apart. Her best friend Felicity slowly stops hanging out with her and instead hands out with her bullies; but that's not all Felicity is done. Tress is convinced that Felicity knows something about her missing parents, and she's prepared to kill Felicity to get the answers.
This is a VERY loose retelling of The Cask of Amontillado and primarily focuses on the grudges that Tress is carrying around, and how Felicity is at the touchstone of every dark event in Tress's life. It's easy to empathize with both of these characters even in a book this short. Tress is a dark, brooding type, but we quickly see how small town social climbing and abuse have shaped her. Similarly, Felicity seems like a girl who has it all, but she herself lives in a gilded cage.
The tone of the book is dark, slow, and creeping. The tension builds as you start to get a sense of the instability of both girls and find yourself wondering what choices they will make. It's hard to talk about this book without spoiling it, but it's super easy to get invested in. Im shocked the ratings are so low, which I can chalk up to how horribly placed the genre of The Initial Insult is; it feels like something that might go over the heads of a lot of kids, or be too uncomfortable.
I was actually extremely surprised in its brutality and grim dark vibes; like legitimately I kept waiting for the hopeful shoe to drop and it just doesn't. If you want to read some fucked up shit, this is your book.
Interesting enough to finish it, but not sure if I'm going to read the second one. Ends on a big cliffhanger but the characters just aren't doing it for me. Also there are weird panther monologs that are just too awkward for me to enjoy.
Damn I really wanted to like this one. A retelling of my favorite Poe story? Had to give it a shot. Plus the panther was an interesting element that I found unexpected. But I don't understand doing a retelling unless you have some really banging new idea that transforms the original, because all the retellings I seem to read end up being major let-downs, and I would just rather read the Cask of Amontillado instead of whatever the hell this was.
The girls relationship was full of slights but they were in no way juicy enough to be interesting AT ALL. Really basic fights. Really boring reasons to be mad at each other, except the one major mystery of what happened to Tress' parents. But I hate the "I don't remember" crap SO MUCH. PLEASE STOP WRITING AMNESIA STORIES. Felicity should have remembered; it would have been a much more compelling story and character.
Also while the panther was a cool idea, his POV chapters were too short and weird to do any real service to the story.
There is NO REASON this needs to be a two-book story. A sequel is not needed. The story already drags enough as it is. The cliffhanger is annoying. I do not have any interest in reading the second book and that really sucks. I don't care enough to find out if Felicity gets buried alive or not.
The girls relationship was full of slights but they were in no way juicy enough to be interesting AT ALL. Really basic fights. Really boring reasons to be mad at each other, except the one major mystery of what happened to Tress' parents. But I hate the "I don't remember" crap SO MUCH. PLEASE STOP WRITING AMNESIA STORIES. Felicity should have remembered; it would have been a much more compelling story and character.
Also while the panther was a cool idea, his POV chapters were too short and weird to do any real service to the story.
There is NO REASON this needs to be a two-book story. A sequel is not needed. The story already drags enough as it is. The cliffhanger is annoying. I do not have any interest in reading the second book and that really sucks. I don't care enough to find out if Felicity gets buried alive or not.
As a person who actually enjoys reading Edgar Allan Poe, I really REALLY wanted to like this book. Especially after getting so hyped reading the blurb and jumping for joy when I saw a brand new copy at the library. And yet...
The only thing that saved this book from getting a one star rating from me was the last ten pages. I just found the rest of the book to be lack-luster in events and writing style, the characters to be dull and very unlikable, and the plot to be just plain boring. Not at all what I wanted from a Poe retelling.
Also, PSA to YA mystery/suspense/thriller authors: please don't write a
The only thing that saved this book from getting a one star rating from me was the last ten pages. I just found the rest of the book to be lack-luster in events and writing style, the characters to be dull and very unlikable, and the plot to be just plain boring. Not at all what I wanted from a Poe retelling.
Also, PSA to YA mystery/suspense/thriller authors: please don't write a
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes