A review by owls_rainbow
Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner

4.0

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

This guy really knows how to write characters! Josie and Delia co-host a cult horror themed TV show. For Josie TV is what she wants to do with her life and her parents have even organised an opportunity in a different town for her. For Delia horror is the thing she loves, it's the thing she shared with the father that abandoned her. She's scared because everyone leaves.

I loved the friendship between Josie and Delia, it was such an authentic relationship. Lawson was amazing as well, he defied stereotypes and I loved it! The writing throughout was really fun and genuine. Delia and her mother's depression was treated so well and the use of medication was totally normalised and they had a great relationship. The stuff with Delia's dad was handled brilliantly as well.

I only have a couple of tiny criticisms. I wish we could have had a little more of Josie with her family, on the whole "family" was skewed heavily towards Delia. There were a couple of idiotic jokes that were too bad for one person to know, never mind multiple (2022 note: why did I not include these specific jokes in my initial review?). Also the entire convention section was absurd and went way too over the top with trying to jam too much into just a few hours.