A Perfect Movie Night | Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee Blog Tour


Today it's my turn on the Midnite Matinee blog tour to celebrate the release of Jeff Zentner's new book, Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee!

This blog post is going to be split into two parts.

First, I have a movie review written by Jeff Zentner, where he shares his thoughts on the film Good Will Hunting. Then I have my review of the book, plus I share my perfect movie night, inspired by the book package I received from Andersen Press.

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Jeff Zentner's movie review
Good Will Hunting


Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies of all time and, I suspect, a bad movie. I was living in the Amazon jungle of Brazil when this movie came out and had no access to a movie theatre. My mom told me about it in a letter and made it sound like it was written by two plucky nobody kids from a poor neighborhood instead of two extremely handsome movie hunks.


Let’s talk about the writing. It’s never an easy task to write a genius when you are not, yourself, a genius. I know this well because I’m currently writing a genius character. And I find myself thinking ridiculous things like what would a genius do for fun? Probably a lot of math, I dunno.


But I dismiss those ideas because that would be silly. So what does Good Will do for fun in Good Will Hunting?


Math.


In general, this movie feels written as though from Ben Affleck’s and Matt Damon’s recollections of being humiliated at a bar by a real genius, like what happens to Fabio McHarvard in the How About Them Apples scene.


Speaking of which, I drove myself nuts trying to figure out what “How about them apples” meant. Was it some sort of double entendre? Are apples testicles? I saw this movie before googling things was something that occurred to me. In fact, I don’t think Google existed when I saw it.


Anyway I think Minnie Driver is perfect in this movie; Robin Williams is perfect and I cry during most of his scenes; the soundtrack is perfect; this movie is perfect. And bad. And perfect.

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My book review: Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee

Here is the synopsis of the book:

Josie and Delia are best friends and co-hosts on their own public access TV show, Midnite Matinee. They dress as vampires Rayne and Delilah, perform daft skits involving skeleton raves and dog weddings, and show the weekly so-bad-it's-good low-budget horror movie. But the end of senior year is coming, and Josie is torn between pursuing her television dreams in a new city or staying making TV with her BFF. What's more, she's just met a boy, Lawson, who is totally not her type, but is just a little bit intriguing . . . Meanwhile, Delia is searching for her dad, who walked out on her and her mom ten years ago. When the private investigator she hired unearths his contact details, she agonises over digging up the past.

A road trip to ShiverCon, a convention for horror filmmakers, may just have the answers the two need - but will Josie and Delia be prepared for life taking some seriously unexpected plot-twists?

I loved the characters in this book, especially the main characters of Josie and Delia. I know quite a few people who say they dislike or struggle with books that are written from more than one perspective, but personally I really like it. It breaks up each of their personal storylines as well as weaving them together throughout.

The book is really well written and although I didn't read the first one hundred pages particularly quickly (for various personal reasons), I found it difficult to put down once I got about a quarter of the way through it. After that I managed to read the rest of the book in only a couple of late night reading sessions. 

The plot was so interesting too, with a focus on friendship, dreams and ambition, as well as family and the future. It covers some heavy issues, such as Delia looking for her father, but it also has some lighter parts mixed in, like young romance.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I would definitely recommend it to fellow YA readers, especially if you enjoyed Jeff's previous books

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A Perfect Movie Night


Here are my top tips for a perfect movie night:
  • The movies! Have a selection of films from different genres to choose from or give your movie night a theme (horror, classics, musicals, Disney, etc.)
  • Food is key. You need a good range of snacks on hand at all times. My go-to movie night nibbles are popcorn - either cinema sweet or microwave butter - Skittles and Milky Bar buttons.
  • If I have a summertime movie night then I have to make ice cream sundaes, if I have a cosy, winter movie night then I have to make hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows.
  • Make it comfortable. I like covering the living room floor in cushions, quilts, pillows and blankets to make it extra cosy.
  • Movie nights are the perfect time to get some friends round and have a catch up, but it's also nice to have a solo film night every now and then (at least you can watch what you want!)


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You can buy the book here.

I am the last stop on the Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee blog tour but make sure you check out everyone else's posts from the past week. I'll leave the blog tour schedule poster below so you can search for these amazing book bloggers and their posts:


I would also like to note that this book and the treats that arrived with it were very kindly gifted to me from the publishers when approached by them regarding the blog tour. As I always say, I am never influenced by the fact that I have been sent a book for free. My reviews are always honest and my true opinion of the book. 

Thank you for reading and do share your thoughts on the book over on Twitter and Instagram using the following hashtag: #MidniteMatinee

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