Tress Montor murdered Felicity Turnado—but she might not have to live with the guilt for long. With an infected arm held together by duct tape, the panther who clawed her open on the loose, and the whole town on the hunt for the lost homecoming queen, the odds are stacked against Tress. As her mind slides deeper into delirium, Tress is haunted by the growing sound of Felicity’s heartbeat pulsing from the “best friend” charm around her fevered neck.

Ribbit Usher has been a punchline his whole life—from his nickname to his latest turn as the unwitting star of a humiliating viral video. In the past he’s willingly played the fool, but now it’s time to fulfill his destiny. That means saving the girl, so that Felicity can take her place at his side and Ribbit can exact revenge on all who have done him wrong—which includes his cousin, Tress. Ribbit is held by a pact he made with his mother long ago, a pact that must be delivered upon in four days.

With time ticking down and an enemy she considers a friend lurking in the shadows, Tress’s grip on reality is failing. Can she keep both mind and body together long enough to finally find out what happened to her parents?

**Disclaimer: I received a free early access copy of The Last Laugh by Mindy McGinnis through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this opportunity.

The Last Laugh by Mindy McGinnis is a young adult novel inspired by the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.  It is the sequel to the first novel in the duology, The Initial Insult.  It is set to be published on March 22nd, 2022.  I rated it four stars on Goodreads.

Here's the summary from Goodreads:

In the dark and stunning sequel to The Initial Insult, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis concludes this suspenseful YA duology as long-held family secrets finally come to light . . . changing Amontillado forevermore.
Tress Montor murdered Felicity Turnado—but she might not have to live with the guilt for long. With an infected arm held together by duct tape, the panther who clawed her open on the loose, and the whole town on the hunt for the lost homecoming queen, the odds are stacked against Tress. As her mind slides deeper into delirium, Tress is haunted by the growing sound of Felicity’s heartbeat pulsing from the “best friend” charm around her fevered neck.
Ribbit Usher has been a punchline his whole life—from his nickname to his latest turn as the unwitting star of a humiliating viral video. In the past he’s willingly played the fool, but now it’s time to fulfill his destiny. That means saving the girl, so that Felicity can take her place at his side and Ribbit can exact revenge on all who have done him wrong—which includes his cousin, Tress. Ribbit is held by a pact he made with his mother long ago, a pact that must be delivered upon in four days.
With time ticking down and an enemy she considers a friend lurking in the shadows, Tress’s grip on reality is failing. Can she keep both mind and body together long enough to finally find out what happened to her parents?

I read and reviewed the first book in this series in the past.  You can find that review here.  Because I had so much fun reading the first, I was super excited to read the second and was glad to be able to get the audiobook to listen to.  There's something really great about an audiobook, even though technically this was a synthesized voice for a narrator so it wasn't the actual narrator for the final thing.

I won't get too much into the specifics of the story since it is a sequel, but I will say that I had just as much fun listening to this story.  It was well written, and I enjoyed all the different points of view we got.  I really liked the way that Mindy McGinnis was able to layer in details to various Edgar Allan Poe stories as she wove together a rather original story.

The characters in this one continued to be really interesting.  I liked the development of the characters, though there were moments that I really wondered what the heck the characters were doing and what their motivation was.  It did all come together in the end, and I liked the way they interacted and why the story had so many twists and turns.

It's a really fun series and I highly recommend that you check out the first and then read the second.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced audio book review copy of ‘The Last Laugh’ by Mindy McGinnis. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’m so pleased that I got to read the sequel to ‘The Initial Insult.’ I’d been so curious to find out the truth behind all the tangled questions in the first story. The conclusion definitely answered those questions in a satisfying way. It also didn’t give the answers too soon which had me wanting to keep reading. I flew through this one!

I think this duology would be interesting to teach in an English class in order to explore all the Poe references. I don’t have a ton of Poe knowledge but I feel that I picked up on a lot. These two stories would be well worth a reread now that I have the full picture of how the pieces and players come together.

I did find myself missing the cat POV but it wouldn’t have made sense to have that in this book as there’s the question of how much of the cat’s appearance is in Tress’ head or not. I don’t think Rue’s POV added as much and it came off repetitive at times. I also missed Felicity’s POV but that would have messed with the pacing so I understand why we didn’t get any more glimpses of the past from Felicity’s POV. Ribbit was an interesting new POV and I’m glad we didn’t get him viewpoint in the first book. That being said, I feel like the bullying aspect of the story was kind of muddied a bit. Bullying is such a big and complicated issue and I wasn’t sure the takeaway from this story was a great one.

The action in this story was dialed up compared to the first. Since the first takes place in largely the same setting of the party for most of the story it was nice to expand on the few familiar places in this story. The gross scenes were also on another level but they made sense for the story and didn’t bother me too much. They were definitely strongly written but I’ve also read ‘Be Not Far From Me’ by the same author so I was kind of prepared for that.

Overall, I thought this was a strong story that delivered on the answers from the first book. I did enjoy the first book a bit more but I thought the story as a whole came together well. I do feel like maybe Tress could have come out of the story a bit worse off than she did at the end.

4/5 stars

Great follow up book to her book The Initial Instinct. The book was fast paced with several twists and turns, enjoyable read. I would recommend it to the teens at my library.

This is the second book in a duology. It is not a standalone book. There were nuances between the characters, the community, and the internal turmoil of the characters that were difficult to understand without having read the first book in the series.

I was prepared to give the book one star until I reached chapter 60. That is where the action picked up and the answers to the craziness began to be answered. This is what kept me reading through to the end and why I am giving it two stars. Even with all the answers to this mystery I still felt let down at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio for an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I listened to The Initial Insult and had to admit it was just meh.... I gave it 3 stars and didn't much like the MC Tress. Yet, listeners I will say #2 redeemed itself and brought this whole story together for me. More secrets revealed in this story and by the end many questions answered. I found this audiobook to be a fast listen and kept me wanting to tune in. Even with the computer reading it was a good book.
Recommended for fans of YA Mystery and a bit of comedical horror. Worth checking out by a favorite author.

When I listed to the first book, I could never have imagined that it would get a sequel and also manage to match the level of chaos and disbelief that the first story left me with. I thought the first book was a wildly bonkers reworking of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable characters from his short stories and poems. However, this plot quickly devolves into a crazy unbelievable story that makes you want to stop trying to figure out what is happening and just hang on for the ride. I enjoyed that it provides a concrete answer for most of the questions laid out in the first book, but I think this will definitely leave readers strongly divided on whether they love or hate this conclusion. I personally enjoyed it, but still would have preferred the weird rendering of animal dialog be left out.

After his "friends" got him drunk and turned him into a viral video, Ribbit is determined to get revenge, find Felicity Turnado, and kill Tress Montor. Tress knows no one will find Felicity, because she killed her. But in the chaos of that night, Tress was attacked by a loose panther, and she can't get medical help without revealing that one of the cats from her uncle's zoo is missing. As Tress descends into depths of madness, infection, and the mystery behind her parents' deaths, Ribbit puts together a plot that will burn bright.

I had a feeling "The Tell-Tale Heart" was going to be a key part of this sequel and I was right! There was also the completion of the "Hop-Frog" story and the "Fall of the House of Usher". There were probably some Poe references I didn't catch that weren't in the first book. I did not expect Ribbit to turn into this creature bent on revenge but somehow I was still rooting for him a little bit, until close to the end. As with most of McGinnis's stories, this does not shy away from the brutal and extreme. The action moved along with the help of the mystery Tress is solving, leading to a twist I didn't see coming.

Okay, so me being able to finish listening to this VoiceGalley was a true testament to Mindy McGinnis's writing, because a VoiceGalley is not an audiobook, it's a simulated voice much like the one you hear on TikTok all the time, and it pronounces words wrong and has a strange inflection. Without a different voice to narrate for Tress, Ru (the orangutan), and Ribbit, I often lost place of who was speaking - but Ru's sections were different enough that I never confused her with the humans, and I could often reorient myself within a sentence or two

“Pain is nothing compared to betrayal”

The finale of Mindy McGinnis’s Edgar Allen Poe inspired YA thriller duology does not pull punches. After the events of the first book, Tress Montor must deal with the fallout from her actions while the day her parents will officially be pronounced dead hurtles towards her. If she wants answers, she’ll have to find them fast, but as the story unfolds, it seems Tress may not even be asking the right questions.

I’m in the minority in liking this book much better than the first, “The Initial Insult.” That book set up a lot of things- an interesting world, lots of secrets, tension, drama- but felt incomplete because it left so much unsaid for the sequel. This book took a bit longer to get going but delivered on all those set ups.

The villain is suitably twisted. We probably all know someone outwardly like him, which just adds to his creepiness, as do the parts of his backstory which inspire sympathy.
Tress is a compelling morally gray protagonist, who has done reprehensible things but you can’t help rooting for.

As for the negatives, the first is the pacing- once the story got going, I couldn’t put it down, but it took me a while to get through the first quarter.
One character from the first book doesn’t get the focus I felt she deserved, especially in the finale of this book. I wished we’d have been able to get a little closer to her thoughts. The series was pitched as being about a pair of characters and it wasn’t satisfying to have one be so thoroughly dropped.
I liked Ru as a third voice better than the panther, but it still didn’t do it for me. Her chapters always broke the flow of the story.

Still, highly recommend this series if you want a truly disturbing small town America saga, colored with a slew of clever Poe references.

Thank you so much to net galley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book! I really enjoyed the first book and the second was even better! I super love this author and will continue to read every book they write!

This is my second Mindy McGinnis.
I guess I just was not in the right mood for this one ~ as this didn’t work for me. 🤔

Want to thank NetGalley and Harper Audio for this Voice Galley ~ a voice galley is one in which the voice has been synthesized and therefore not the final voice in the audiobook.
This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 22, 2022

I could not connect with this audiobook because of the computer-generated voice. I also did not realize that this was the second in a series where I have not read the first novel. I may pick this up once I finish book one but it will not be via this audiobook. Thanks for the early copy!

As someone who loved Heroine, I was looking forward to the title from McGinnis. However, I struggled to like/care/connect with any of the characters or their storylines. I was bored, pure and simple.

I’ve waited a long time to get The Last Laugh. (Maniacal laughter ensues.)

The book, I mean. I’ve been waiting (somewhat impatiently) for the horrific conclusion to Mindy McGinnis’s The Initial Insult and I’m thankful my wait finally came to an end!

I won’t tell you much about this since it could spoil the first book, if you haven’t read that one yet. I’ll only say that the mystery of Tress’s missing parents continues as more dark, chaotic drama goes down. While I wasn’t as high on the Edgar Allan Poe nods in this one, they are there, and I was especially excited to see a little bit of The Tell-Tale Heart woven in.

McGinnis managed to open some new doors in the sequel and she resolved them all in a satisfactory way. I’ll admit that after waiting a year to find out the truth, I had wanted a bit more bang from the explanation, but it was still logical and well-written, so I cannot complain much.

I’d like to reread this duology back-to-back once I have a physical copy of the second book in my hands. It’s a highly engrossing tale about horrible people doing horrible things while Poe lingers dimly in the background. What’s not to love about that?!?!

I am immensely grateful to Harper Audio, Katherine Tegen Books, & NetGalley for my audio review copy. All opinions are my own.

The Last Laugh will be out in March 2022.

VoiceGalley Review. McGinnis keeps the surprises coming in this follow-up to The Initial Insult. The plot is loaded with twists and turns and I certainly did not see the ending coming!. Excellent YA thriller. Definitely purchase this where the first title and MCGinnis' other works are popular.

The Last Laugh was a weird and wild ride to say the least. From the literal wild animals to the shocking friendship dynamics and deception I was hooked on every word. This duology was unexpected, the characters disturbed and unbalanced and the writing so well paced and horrifying I couldn't stop reading. If you are a horror fan you have to pick these up!

4.5 stars. This duology is so much fun! I can't wait for everyone to read this conclusion when it comes out in 2022. This is an intense and terse followup that never lets up on the suspense and the tension. The stakes are death and that makes this a much more intense and terrifying than your typical YA horror novel. Review to come.

I received a sample audio from the publisher and NetGalley. The sample was intriguing and I would definitely like to hear more. Surprisingly even tho is was synthesized voices it wasn’t half bad to listen to either. I look forward to reading this in the future.

Oh my gosh! I love Mindy McGinnis so it's not a shock that I loved this. I can say to much because this is the sequel to her book The Initial Insult (also amazing) and I don't want to spoil anything just know this book is a wild ride from start to finish. This book is gruesome and dark in that classic McGinnis way that makes you want to cringe away from how real it is but you just can't. This book is everything a thriller should be and more. I reread the Initial Insult and this book back to back all in one day because I could not put them down! Seriously do yourself a favor and get on the Mindy McGinnis train Now!

Thank you Net Galley, the publisher, and author for this ARC audio book of the Last Laugh. This book, wow! I couldn't stop listening. If you are in the mood for a thriller, mystery, and drama this is the book for you. It wraps up the story of Tress, Felicity and Ribbit, definitely not in a neat way. There are so many twists and turns. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I would recommend this book to older high school readers as the content is a little graphic and disturbing.