The Outsider
by Stephen King

I was really impressed at how good this book was. It’s probably the closest thing to a standard police procedural King has ever written, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It’s a very typical mystery with some very untypical supernatural elements in it. This is also the longest book I’ve read in a while (560 pages), but I devoured it in one day, so you know that’s a fast-paced book. I don’t want to spoil too much, but let me say, the first part of the book went by so fast you wondered just how he was gonna fill out the rest of it.

There are some spoilers for his Bill Hodges trilogy in this book, so if you care about that and you haven’t read them yet, I suggest you do before you get into this one. On the other hand, if spoilers don’t bother you or you have no plans to read them (as I don’t), go for it and dive into The Outsider full on. I promise it won’t disappoint.

The Book of Leon
by Leon Black (JB Smoove)

I listened to the audio book of this, because the library doesn’t have a copy and I bought the audio book on sale one time, so I thought, why not?, and went ahead on. It was hilarious. If you aren’t familiar with Leon Black the character, he’s from Curb Your Enthusiasm. However, you don’t really need to know his character from that to enjoy this book. It’s 90 short chapters, the average coming in at about 3 minutes long, so it covers a lot of topics. It’s definitely not safe for work or for children, but it’s funny as hell. I recommend it if you need a laugh and don’t mind copious swearing or sexual references.

How Not to Get Shot
by D. L. Hughley

Pitch black satire about taking advice from White people about how not to get shot by police. It’s funny as hell, but in a very darkly comedic way. It contains advice from such pinnacles of wisdom like Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly, suggesting such great advice like, “Comply with police” and “Don’t wear hoodies”, or, what it basically comes down to, “Don’t be Black”. It’s so worth a read, especially in the current political climate, and it might help White people understand exactly what your Black friends, neighbors, and strangers are going through right now.

Barracoon
by Zora Neale Hurston

Wow, this book was powerful. Told pretty much verbatim by Kossula Cudjo Lewis (and in dialect, so if you have trouble with that, be prepared), the story of his life back in Africa and being brought here as a slave at the end of the slave trade in America, and his life here. It’s a tragic tale, but one told willingly and fully. Hurston spent a lot of time getting the full story of Kossula’s life and it’s such an important read to hear first-hand what the slave trade was like from the point of view of a former slave, unlike so much of the history we learned from the slave traders.

One book I DNF, Hope Never Dies, the really promising Obama Biden team up fanfic that got published. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to the hype. I’m glad I just borrowed it from the library instead of ordering it, because that would’ve been an extreme disappointment. It starts, unbelievably, with Biden whining that Obama never writes, calls, or sees him anymore, which is hilarious coming off of a week where they were both spotted happily having lunch together. It tries too hard to be something dark and edgy when neither of the people involved are dark and edgy types. Believe me, I’ve written better fanfic than this, but I didn’t have the gall to have it published.