Skin Game - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. #14)

 This one was real good.  Lots of fun! 

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!

My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite

 I thought this was a pretty good book. The author does a great job in keeping the pace, jumping between dates for the "memory scenes", and making the MC feel real.  That last one was the best.  The MC keeps helping her sister cover up her crimes, even though she hates it and wants out.  Any outside advise would obviously be: simply stop and leave her to clean up her own messes.  But the author does a great and honest job of showing the MC's motivation even in the event of her crush being on the chopping block. This is an intense, wild ride and I would recommend it for any of my crime story loving friends. 

The Secret Life of the Mind: How your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides - Mariano Sigman

 This is a super fascinating book covering a wide range of brain-related phenomena that I’d not learned of before. If you want to know all the details, read the book, but I will leave you with an example: Every time you move your eyes, your brain shuts off.  Just try it. Look at something to your right and then look at something to your left.  You can see in your peripheral but the details of your eyes tracking across everything in the middle aren't there.  It will annoy you forever now. You're welcome.

What the Bible says about Birth Control, Infertility, Reproductive Technology and Adoption - Wayne Grudem

 Despite the low page count, this book was difficult to get through because so much of it was just disgusting, going so far as to be technically inaccurate. I must say I'm not surprised given how much the people who have no sound reason for their opinions desperately need justifications for their harmful beliefs.  Apparently, the "life begins at conception" crowd doesn't know what a pregnancy is.  Again, I'm not surprised.  A pregnancy doesn't begin until the egg implants in the uterine lining and begins drawing nutrients from the female's body.  This makes Plan B perfectly legal and not an abortion, yet this author, so poor in his logic, claims that Plan B ends a pregnancy even going so far as to "cite" a "doctor".  Given the lack of basic understanding surrounding reproduction, either this quote is made up, the doctor is made up, or some medical person is incredibly dangerous and shouldn't be practicing medicine.  

The author doesn't think anyone should be childfree by choice.  (Does it count if you give it up for adoption and never care for your own child?) And this is the point I disagree with most.  Having children should be a venture you are 110% in on.  People who don't want to be parents should NEVER be parents.  I will NOT put children into homes that don't want them.  This is evil to its core.  By spouting this, the author shows he does not care for the well-being of children at all. He, and anyone else who believes forcing children on a person, is actively wishing danger on babies.

I was slightly relieved to read that at least the author wasn't a "god will provide" type.  I believe they make me the most angry.  We don't tell people to buy a house they can't afford, get a pet they can't properly care for, enter a relationship when they aren't in the correct state of mind.  Yet for some insane reason, some people think you should just have kids willy-nilly and cite the "god will provide" bs.  This is 100% shrugging off your responsibility.  It's not anyone else's job, and demanding or expecting your god to care for your children when you won't take the responsibility to do it yourself is beyond entitled.