But torturing your best friend for answers turns out to be a little more complicated than she expected, made even more so by the panther getting lose. And for Tress, the party is the perfect place for her to finally get the answers she has been searching for her whole life. When an old house is about to be torn down, it is the perfect excuse for a party. But getting Oxy means she has to talk to Tress Montour, and Tress is the whole reason she feels so guilty in the first place. Oxy has become one of the only ways that Felicity can escape the stress of her life, and hide from the guilt she constantly feels. On top of hiding her seizures from everyone, Felicity is also hiding a drug problem. Not if she wants to secure herself a decent husband. But, there is one thing about Felicity that isn’t right, she has seizures, and no one can ever know about them. She wears all the right clothes, has all the right friends, and attends all the right parties. Tress went from having a loving family, a room of her own in a nice clean house, and a best friend, to being poor, a burden on her only family left, and friends with only the animals she cares for in just one night.įelicity’s family isn’t one of the big founding names in town, but they do have money, and in Amontillado that still means power.

At the zoo, Tress helps takes care of the animals, a zebra, an ostrich, an alligator, an orangutan, and even a panther, but she also helps out with the zoo’s biggest asset, the back 20 acres, where Cecil grows marijuana, that Tress sells to her peers.

Tress, however, doesn’t believe Felicity, and she is prepared to do whatever it takes to finally get some answers.Īfter Tress’ parents go missing, she is sent to live with her grandpa, Cecil, at his “white-trash zoo” Amontillado Attractions. Felicity is the only person who knows what happened to Tress’ parents, but she has no memory of the event, thanks in part to a seizure and also trauma. Once best friends, the girls had a falling out in the fourth grade when Tress’ parents go missing while driving Felicity home. A modern retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous “The Cask of Amontillado,” which I’m sure you all had to read at lest once in school, Mindy McGinnis’ The Initial Insult follows two teenage girls, Tress Montour and Felicity Turnado.

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis