Fever Season: the Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People who Saved a City - Jeanette Keith

 This had the potential to be a great story.  The author dropped the ball.  There are so many people involved, that it's hard to keep track of them across the several months of this epidemic.  I think the whole book would have been easier to follow if it started with an overview or timeline of events and then each chapter focused on one individual or group/organization.  There is an amazing story to be told in the lives of Kezia DePelchin, J. M. Keating, and especially Bob Church!  Any of those could be a rich story.  I'd love to see them on the screen even!

But this book simply isn't well organized and doesn't do their stories justice.  

Negroland : A Memoir - Margo Jefferson

 I gotta say, I feel like there was a lot in this book that I missed, not because the subject was about people far darker than me, but because I wasn't alive in the 50s and 60s so most of the pop culture references were people I'd never heard of and didn't know what they looked like or did.  There was a lot of the expected little black girls in upper society were held to higher standards and expectations than white children and were expected to be "ambassadors" for their race.  There was the expected anxiety about lower class black people and perfection.  There was, of course, so much culture around hair and what you did to it.  But the author waxed lovingly about these ground-breaking, beautiful brown and black Hollywood women that I just didn't know.  They all seemed to have had a very strong influence on her and others of her time.  I looked a few up, but I don't know them so it didn't seem important to me and the author failed to help me understand. 

I was moderately disappointed in this book except for the brief family history, which took place between about 1850-1930.  It seemed like there was a vastly more interesting story there, particularly with the author's grandmother, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend this book.  

Devil Said Bang - Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim Series, Bk. 4)

 The more of these I read, the more I like them.  This book has the MC's human and angel sides separated from each other and I liked the character much more when he wasn't maliciously working against his best interest because he was too stubborn to listen to the wiser voice inside his head.  Both Hell and the wider picture become much more flushed out in this book and I'm looking forward to reading the next installment!