This book is a rollercoaster - it took a bit to get going for me until it crested that first hill and then it was just one surprise/thrill after another. Bracing yet exhilarating! This will be a great book for handselling to patrons and I think it would lead to lively bookgroup discussions as well.

Startup Culture and Black America collide in this sharp, funny, and moving debut novel. Askaripour takes some big swings with the book's heightened satirical elements and it mostly works, especially with such well-drawn characters at the heart of the story. Such an interesting and poignant way to examine race and diversity in the modern workplace. It's a sad truth that white people are constantly threatened by people of color advancing in the world, but something that needs to be accepted as fact before we can move forward and do better. Books like this certainly help shine a light on institutional racism. It doesn't hurt that it's also a thematically rich and wildly entertaining novel that will surely show up on the best of 2021 lists.

I enjoyed the concept of this book. It was like a self help satire (is this a new category?) and had plenty of unexpected twists and turns. I didn't see the ending coming, and couldn't put it down.

The books is described as being “for fans of Wolf of Wall Street and Sorry to Bother You” and honestly I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Darren has been working at Starbucks for 4 years when one of his regulars offers him an opportunity which changes his life. He is propelled into the world of sales at a mysterious and over-the-top startup. What follows is a mock-memoir with shocking twists and turns.

I loved the dark and fast-paced tone of the story which drew the reader into the world of the story. I also enjoyed the timely discussions of race, privilege, and capitalism and explored the dark-side of ambition. Darren is a very well-written character and I keep going back and forth whether I like him or not, but either way his story always kept me on my toes. Would highly recommend this fresh story to everyone.

Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advanced copy of this book, but as always al opinions are my own!

"Black Buck" by Mateo Askaripour is a novel about Buck, a man who strives to achieve his dreams by turning into a salesman after meeting a start-up CEO while he is working as a Starbucks barista. There were a few funny parts of this book, and I thought that some of the supporting characters were decent, but despite being fiction, I found this book to be pretty choppy and not rooted in logic. Buck's workplace was anxiety producing and some of his actions were just really sad. Others may view this book differently, but this is not one I would suggest.

This book is well written and has good character development I just couldn’t personally get into the story and found it a little bit of a struggle to keep reading. Either way it just left a little lacking for me personally. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Black Buck follows Darren "Buck" Vendor as suddenly finds himself working at a NYC-based internet start-up and his life changes more or less overnight. This book is satire and reminded me a lot of the Sellout by Paul Beatty in tone and theme. Black Buck moves quickly and is very readable. It lost one star for me as parts of it felt a little too far-fetched--even for a satire. Overall a very enjoyable and readable debut novel.

BLACK BUCK by Mateo Askaripour is a wild ride of a novel about a salesman, Buck, and his rise to success. Uniquely he tells his story directly to us, the reader, and there’s lots of little tips for us along the way. There were definitely some funny moments and some quite surprising things that happen that I didn’t see coming. I really liked the conversational tone and dialogue and the foreshadowing. Once I got to around the midway point I just couldn’t stop reading and had to find out how it would all end. I’d definitely be interested to read more from Askaripour in the future!

Black Buck is a whirlwind of a book that made me feel multiple emotions: hope, frustration, rage, and confusion.

Darren was a charismatic narrator and dynamic character to follow. He's funny, cool, and naive. Sometimes I'm cheering for him; other times I was rolling my eyes at him. In addition to Buck, Mateo Askaripour fills out the story with other interesting characters including Soraya, Rhett and Wally Cat.

The author also does a great job exploring various topics such as startup culture, blind ambition, and racism. When Darren first starts at his new job, he experiences racist hazing from a senior sales leader. While I found myself raging about Darren's abuse, I also related to how he justified the abuse. Swallowing racism to prove that you belong at the table. The author perfectly frames the frustration that minorities experience when trying to balance ambition with their humanity.

I still don't know how I feel about the end of the book. Scarily, the racism and craziness towards the end of the book was both over-the-top and completely realistic. I still don't know how I feel about the ending, but overall an adventure of a book that I flew through. I'm excited to see more from Mateo Askaripour.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC.

Mr. Askaripour hits it out of the park! What an incredible read. Darren works at Starbucks, he is quite happy with his life and feels that his big break will eventually come. He is very bright, the valedictorian of his class. His friends and family think he is not living up to his full potential. One day Rhett, a founder of a start up company from several floors up in the same building walks in for a coffee. Darren proceeds to sell him on why he should try a new coffee rather than his usual. Rhett so taken with the young salesman ends up offering him a position in sales. Darren is nicknamed Buck, after Starbucks and remains Buck for the remainder of the story. He rises to success despite many obstacles including Hell Week and much discrimination. He begins to change with his success and not always for the better, at least that’s what his friends think. Many other reviewers have detailed more of the plot, I want to switch gears now and tell you about the characters and the writing.

Every single character left nothing to the imagination they were so well done. Each of them was complex and complete. I felt like I personally knew and was invested in every one of them. From Brian’s ticks, swearing and bad complexion to the brutal account executives roll playing during hell week, Ma, Jason, Soraya, Clyde and the rest of the cast. The writing is exquisite. I kept feverishly turning pages. The dialog written to express conversations in black slang was sensational, it puts the reader there. Even though I didn’t understand all the meanings, I eventually got most of it. Discrimination and reverse discrimination, it’s all here, in your face. It’s alive and well exactly as it’s written, no one can ignore it.

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. Many reviewers have written about the books humor. Honestly, there is some funny, lighthearted dialog but I did not find this book humorous.

I won’t give away the end but I have to say it plain blew me away! This one definitely has huge WOW factor. I’d give it ten stars if I could and I’m usually pretty stingy with five. GET YOUR COPY!

An enjoyable read, though some of the satire was a little heavy-handed. Still, a great illustration of white supremacy/backlash in the workplace that feels all too believable in these times.

A timely and well written story of ambition, greed, and racism. Entertaining yet disturbing - and so well crafted I couldn’t put it down. The author somehow creates an ‘over the top’ plot that echoes with truth. I recommend this book highly.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll be posting my review on Goodreads and Amazon

***I received an ARC from netgalley***

I just finished this book and man, it was a whirlwind. It's shockingly relevant in its portrayal of the systemic racism that plagues our society. Parts of this book made me laugh, a lot of it made me angry but I think that was necessary. You should be angry when you read this. You should empathize and feel for buck as he goes through changes. I would recommend that everyone read this.

My thoughts about this book were all over the map. It’s called satire, but it’s not the traditional laugh out loud satire. Other than a running joke in which every white person thinks Buck looks like a different famous black man, there’s not much to laugh about. Instead, it’s the tale of what happens when a young black man tries to emulate a successful white man and loses his soul.
Darren is happy working at Starbucks, waiting for the right opportunity. He gets that opportunity to work as a salesman at a startup company. It’s one of those high stress sales jobs, made more so as he’s the only black in the company. Given the nickname Buck, supposedly because he worked at Starbucks, he’s initially sympathetic, but then he drinks the kool aid and incorporates the lessons a little too well. Later, he finds his purpose again, as well as his freedom.
The book is written as a pseudo memoir/self help/sales manual, filled with lessons. The style works well.
I can’t say I really enjoyed this. I think appreciate is the better word. The last part of the book got too far fetched, although maybe not as much as I’d like to think given Trump and his supporters. For every part of this book that I liked - the depiction of the saleroom and the gonzo mentality, there were other parts that just fell flat.
My thanks to netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advance copy of this book.

Love him or hate him Buck is a fantastic narrator for this story. Many twists and turns and yes shades of Sorry to Bother You as well as Jordan Peele's Get Out. If this book's message doesn't make you at least slightly uncomfortable, you may want to check that you are not a robot.

Starting off as some kind of self help memoir this book blurs the line between fiction and reality. Found myself unable to put it down and just trying to get a hit of one more page or two before passing out.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was a work of fiction, and not a riveting self-help/business book explaining the rise of a salesman. I found myself reading "just one more page" because I needed to know how the narrator got where he was. Fantastic!

This was fantastic!

Here we meet Darren, a black man living in NYC, high school valedictorian working at Starbucks. He's smart, kind, caring, and pretty happy. But everyone he cares about wants him to reach his potential, be the man they know he can be, etc. Then an opportunity presents itself, and to please said people, he takes it. And all manner of hell breaks loose.

I found this book to be a great mixture of hilarity, inspiration and confrontation with racism. It was really smart and engaging and kept me in with our main character, Buck, formerly known as Darren, even when he lost his way.

I didn't give it 5 stars because there was a period in the book when our departure from reality became a bit tedious and I almost got bored, and because the sales pitches that were touted as genius didn't blow me away as much as I felt like the author was expecting them to. But I still highly recommend it and will definitely read more of his work.

This book really captured my interest in the beginning, but at about 30% in my feelings toward Buck changed immensely, and I just couldn't push myself past the halfway mark. I'm going to put this one aside, but I hope that the right reader finds it and enjoys it immensely!

Yaaassss! Similar to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, but, IMHO, better. The sales analogy is spot on for this satire and the twists and turns are 💯