Book Review: Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Release Date: February 26, 2019
Description:
"Every Friday night, best friends Delia and Josie become Rayne Ravenscroft and Delilah Darkwood, hosts of the campy creature feature show Midnite Matinee on the local cable station TV Six.
But with the end of senior year quickly approaching, the girls face tough decisions about their futures. Josie has been dreading graduation, as she tries to decide whether to leave for a big university and chase her dream career in mainstream TV. And Lawson, one of the show's guest performers, a talented MMA fighter with weaknesses for pancakes, fantasy novels, and Josie, is making her tough decision even harder.
Scary movies are the last connection Delia has to her dad, who abandoned the family years ago. If Midnite Matinee becomes a hit, maybe he'll see it and want to be a part of her life again. And maybe Josie will stay with the show instead of leaving her behind, too.
As the tug-of-war between growing up and growing apart tests the bonds of their friendship, Josie and Delia start to realize that an uncertain future can be both monstrous...and momentous."
This story had a solid plot, and I'm a sucker for friendship stories. You can tell that Josie and Delia are best friends, but you will soon realize that they will eventually have to part ways, as both live very different lives, despite running a not so well known TV show together. Josie and Delia are very different individuals. Josie comes from a standard nuclear family, one that is well off, with loving parents and an annoying sister, and options for her future. On the other hand, Delia lives in a trailer with her mother who might not always take her medication. That's all she has, just her mother and Josie.
To be completely honest, I wasn't too invested in Josie, as most of her chapters seemed uneventful compared to Delia, who has been battling to find and meet her father by herself while Josie is off getting closer to Lawson. Now speaking of Lawson, I didn't care about the romance between him and Josie, as it happened a bit too fast for my liking, but I will say they do suit each other, so there's that.
Something that I did not like in the story was the incident when Josie and Lawson met the TV guy in ShiverCon that happens later on in the story. The whole thing was a mess and I didn't care much about it. In fact, I started to skim through it so I could go back to Delia's chapters. Not sure how the whole fiasco was supposed to play out in terms of enjoyment (was it suppose to be amusing to the reader? or...?), but I did not enjoy it. Personally, I felt that the ending was the redeeming factor of the story, as it ended on a bittersweet note.
Definitely not the best friendship story that I've ever read, but it's not the worst. The plot starts off a bit slow, gets kinda messy about 3/4 of the way through, but it has a good ending for both girls.
Overall rating: 3/5
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