A review by missbookiverse
The Inital Insult by Mindy McGinnis

4.0

This was excellent, especially as an audiobook with three amazing narrators (Tim Campbell as the panther was super creepy). I flew through it because it was so captivating and gritty. It's a typical Mindy McGinnis dark YA with topics such as complicated friendship dynamics, the abyss between poor and rich people, drug abuse, and intriguing secrets – with the added twist of almost everything being an Edgar Allan Poe reference: the town's name (Amontillado), people's names (Usher, Allan, Lee and Annabelle), the school mascot (a raven), an old abandoned house, a contagious flue making the rounds, and, of course, someone being buried walled in alive. I also loved the illegal wildlife zoo Tress has to take care of and the danger it holds. The back and forth structure between a very tense situation in the present and flashbacks to the blossoming and decaying friendship between Felicity and Tress as well as their alternating point of views was executed flawlessly. I couldn't stop listening and was really mad at the cliffhanger ending. Already started listening to book 2...