Thanks to Netgalley and Xpresso Book Tours for this Arc! All opinions are my own.

*This review might contain spoilers!

I can't for the life of me DNF a book, but with this one I sadly came close to it. I also hate leaving bad reviews. 'Buck up, Buttercup' has a cute cover which is the first thing that drew me in, the second thing that drew me in was the plot of the book with the grumpy/sunshine trope rom-com which I love.

Unfortunately this book had a lot of issues I had trouble reading from the slut shaming, to the racial slur, to the 'r' word being used, fat shaming and mental health shaming. This book had some triggers from attempted sexual assault,death of loved ones, alcohol abuse and violence.

Randi just wants to finish her last year of college and keep her grades up so she when Randi thinks she's found the perfect peaceful home to do that in. Imagine her surprise when she shows up and realizes she's been lied to and her 'peaceful' farm house is actually a party house instead. Randi is ready to leave that night but due to circumstances ends up staying there and toughing it out. One of Randi's roommates is Buck, Buck is an easygoing cowboy who just wants to keep the party girls away from him and thinks Randi is the perfect person to help him with that. Randi just wants to keep away from Buck and stay distraction free so she can finish college with her head down.

This premise right here, is why I thought I was in for a light rom-com with a Grumpy/Sunshine trope but instead we get a book that was trying to reach the mark but unfortunately fell short.

Honestly I would have liked to see things like alcohol abuse or sexual assault taken more seriously. It seemed like the author didn't want to delve to deeply into some of the tough stuff which is hard for me to understand as I feel it would have giveb more depth to the characters, specially with what Daisy went through. We really only get depth into Randi and Bucks character and even that isn't much. My favorite part of the book was the last 1/4th of the book even though it seemed a bit rushed.

I'm definitely willing to try another novel by Anna Alkire in the future though.

I randomly found this book on NetGalley and requested it because the cover was so cute!

Unfortunately, this was not for me. I didn’t find it to be much of a “romantic comedy”, but filled with drama from the first chapter. A lot of it unnecessary and confusing.

The male MC was often-times controlling and used the term “darlin’” WAY too much.

Also, I was shocked by use of the “r word”. It should not have be used in this book. Literally so many other words could’ve been used.

I love the cover! This book was okay for me- not my favorite read this year and not the worst, somewhere in the middle. The characters and story were good, the writing was the best part of the book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of Buck Up, Buttercup by Ann Alkire. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and Water's Edge Publishing for providing an ARC to review.

I can't recall the last time I disliked the characters in a book as much as I disliked these people. Every single character was toxic and horrible, and none of them should ever get together. The writing was one-dimensional, and the character development was nonexistent. A huge letdown since the cover and synopsis seemed like it could be cute. I give this book 1/5 stars.

Im going to be nice and give this book three stars. It is a trainwreck of a romance but as far as highlighting the complexity of college life the dangers that go with excess drinking, in particular the danger this can have for women when lowlife men take advantage in the worst ways possible it does a really good job.

Buck is ridiculous. He is controlling and let's his so called friend get away with give him a date rape drug, constantly verbally abusing his girlfriend and even her physically assaulting Randi isn't the final nail in the coffin. For someone who is supposedly 29 he is very immature.

I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Its 2022. There's no excuse to throw around the R word in a flippant and derogatory way. There's also no reason for the excessive girl on girl drama and slut shaming. I'm assuming this went through an editing process and was read by multiple people before ending up on NetGalley... I mean this in the most genuinely concerned way... Fire your team and get more beta readers. This book has potential from the title/cover, fun plot ideas and great start to the book, but man did it go downhill. Also stop making fmc's innocent virgins. It's annoying and always comes off pervy.

This book was really, really cute. It was a cute romantic comedy and it was witty, sweet, and romantic.

I picked this book because the cover was so cute. I just wish the story lived up to the cute cover. There was a little too much language/slurs for my liking. It started out great, but then just fell flat for me. Thanks to Netgally and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Didn't care for this book. The writing was off to me and I didn't like the story. I wouldn't recommend this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Randi is a serious student and just wants to finish college. When she moves into her new place, she finds her roommates less than desirable. Buck, the most sought after guy on campus, ends up moving his RV to the backyard. He is persistent in befriending Randi. Eventually, Buck wants more and needs to convince Randi she wants it too.
Opinion
This is a long book that is littered with hilariously ridiculous situations. The roommate situation is probably the most hilarious and terrifying of them all. The slow build romance is quite one sided throughout until Randi just can't ignore her feelings anymore.
This is the first book of the Montgomery Brothers series. While the book and series show potential, there were some slow parts that could be cut or shortened. Overall, the book was an interesting and heart warming story.
Many thanks to Net Galley and to Water's Edge Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Randi wants to spend her last year at college putting her head down and getting decent grades, so when she realises her new housemates are going to be throwing huge parties all the time she knows it isn’t going to work for her. But circumstances force her to stay in the arrangement and throw her in increasingly close contact with Buck, an easygoing cowboy. Buck is determined to win Randi over, but she’s equally determined not to be distracted.

This book is just very odd. When I first started to read it, I thought it had a quirky but interesting writing style, albeit one that jumped around a lot, that I was going to enjoy, and the concept was quite entertaining. But the further I got into the book, the less and less I enjoyed it. I don’t quite know how to describe my feelings about it, but I think it would be best to say this novel made me feel very uncomfortable. There were some obvious issues - there’s slut-shaming, misogynistic/sexist language, use of the r-word - that were wholly unnecessary and uncomfortable read.

But apart from that, the book as a whole had so much questionable content. There’s a lot of grim stuff going on here that’s treated almost as if it’s funny - or if it’s not actually that big a deal. The main, glaring issue that I had whilst reading this was how the drinking habits of Randi’s female roommates and Buck himself is treated. For much of the book, every character except for Randi drinks and parties incredibly heavily in a manner that is definitely unhealthy. There’s alcohol poisoning, a lot of vomiting, passing out in unsafe places, but none of this is actually treated that seriously. It’s either treated as being funny or being just not that big a deal. It’s all very casual in how the book treats this kind of behaviour. It’s not that I have an issue with drinking or parties - it’s more that the way this comes across is like every character actually has serious issues with alcohol consumption.

This plays into a wider issue with 2 of Randi’s housemates who are very antagonistic towards Randi. The obvious is Angie, who is just one of the most horrid characters I’ve ever come across - some of her scenes are just awful, particularly the one in the library - and then Sarah, who is also very unpleasant towards Randi but for very unclear reasons. It’s never really explained why they don’t like her beyond her being uptight and nerdy.

That said, Randi isn’t the most likeable character - she’s not the worst in the book by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s bland a lot of the time and when she isn’t being bland there’s this sense of not-like-other-girls that is very grating. But Buck is a worse character. A bit like Randi, he’s just a bit bland for much of the book - but there’s something very weird about his character. The idea of this 29 year old living with young girls in their early twenties, helping them throw huge parties with heavy drinking, just felt sad after a certain point. I didn’t really get what he was doing there - what was the appeal of living with these girls? Because they were all awful.

But also, I just didn’t feel like I trusted him; there was an insincerity to him that was very unappealing, and it was presented in the narrative as if Randi didn’t particularly trust him either. I was left with a sense of feeling like this was a hero that definitely would cheat on the heroine at some point if the opportunity came up. I’m aware of how this sounds: he’s a fictional character, but I didn’t like his character at all.

I feel like somewhere in this book there is a decent story, but the execution of it just felt deeply weird to me. I think parts of it are trying too hard to be funny, but it actually contains a lot of grim, unpleasant content and doesn’t really deal with them in a sensitive fashion. I would urge anyone thinking of picking this up to check the content warnings, because there’s some upsetting scenes and content. I’m finding it hard to describe this book properly, really; most of the characters are horrible and the relationship between Buck and Randi isn’t very interesting. It feels like one of those books that’s meant to be light and funny but the more I think about it the grimmer a lot of the content becomes. I just didn’t get it. I felt confused and uncomfortable reading a lot of this book, to be quite honest, and I wouldn’t really recommend reading it. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy of this book.

Content Notes: Sexual harassment, vomiting, death of a grandparent (in past), traffic collision (in past), alcohol poisoning, implied alcoholism, hospital scenes, drug use, use of date rape drugs, attempted rape, violence, serious mental health issues, involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation (in past), misogynistic / sexist language, slut shaming, use of the r-word, on-page sex, infidelity / cheating (in past).

𝙱𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚄𝚙, 𝙱𝚞𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚞𝚙 by Anna Alkire
Swipe ➡️ to read the synopsis
2/5⭐️

First, I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
Oh, my. I really really wanted to like this one. The first chapter started out really strong too. It just kind of went downhill from there. 😔
I usually do not like third-person romance, but that wasn’t the problem here. I actually enjoyed the writing and think it was an overall strength of this book.
There just seemed to be quite a few inconsistencies with the storyline and the characters. The side characters all kind of blended together for me. There wasn’t a ton of things that distinguished each character from one another. And the entire plot of renting to the MC, Randi, because they needed money but at least one of the side characters had a lot of money? I feel like this sounds confusing because it is confusing.
The MC also felt very stuck up. It was so exhausting to read paragraph after paragraph of the MC dissing all the other characters for various reasons. Most of all, the women in this story all talked so bad about one another. 😤 The MC even talked crap about her best friend a lot. While there was resolution between the MC and her friend, there was no resolution between the MC and the other girls in the house.
With everything going on, it was really hard to feel invested in Randi and Buck’s relationship.
I think this author has a great career of romance writing ahead of her. However, I think this book would have deeply benefit from refining the plot and characters.

If you’re interested in reading Buck Up, Buttercup, it it releases tomorrow, June 30th!

The cover grabbed me and I was excited for the book. Oh, my. I really really wanted to like this one. The first chapter started out really strong too. It just kind of went downhill from there. There was a lack of connection between the characters and the racial slurs were WAY too much for me.
This book had lots of potential but there was many times when I found myself wishing it was over and finally I just DNF'ed it.

This book is so problematic it hurt me to read. Fat shaming, mental illness shaming, the use of slurs... I was sucked in by the cute cover. Definitely won't make that mistake again.

i loved this book . i loved all the chemistry between the characters. the popular guy goes for the unpopular girl that he cant stop thinking about. some of the characters have underlying issues that make them really relatable and bring about issues that show not everyone has an easy life. i love the banter between the two lead characters and am always waiting to see what happened next. the book has a wonderful happily ever after that ends with a bang. i highly recommend.

I really, really wanted to like this book. I gave up a couple times but I'm no quitter. I don't like giving bad reviews but I thought the story line was flat. I had hope it would pick up! 3 stars from me.

YIKES. 1 star. ***potential spoilers ahead***

My fatal flaw as a reader is that I hate leaving things unfinished. I very rarely, if ever, DNF books. I should have stopped at about 20%.

"Buck Up, Buttercup" feels like it was written decades ago when authors didn't know any better. The writing style is so bad that I struggled to keep track of who was speaking from sentence to sentence. It's frequently unclear who is talking in each scene despite me paying full attention to the book. It's written in a dual-POV style, but somehow, the author constantly muddles who speaks when!

Look, I am not an easily offended person, but it feels like author Anna Alkire really wanted to be controversial for.....why, I could not say. It's certainly going to get her a limited number of positive reviews. At some point, I started keeping track of all the quotes and plot points that bothered me or were derogatory in some way. I logged at least 27 separate instances that gave me a major "ick" factor, including moments of fat-shaming, jokes about mental illness, sexism, slut-shaming, an attempted rape, casual jokes about girls being dragged out of a bar while roofied, racist slurs, and the most egregious instance of all, the use of the R-word. You read that right! In 2022, the author of this book thought it would be a wise decision to drop the R-word. How?! Why?!

Just in case you can forgive or forget all of the aforementioned things listed above, the characters are also messy, messy, messy, and I don't just mean where the drama is concerned. Randi, the protagonist of the book, is entering her senior year of college and is taking a massive 21 credit workload. She uses any opportunity she is given to remind literally ANYONE around her that she's taking 21 credits, so she can't possibly do things like go out for a beer or see her friends because she barely has time to eat or sleep! SuPeR healthy! She is such an unlikable, mean-spirited protagonist that I found myself not caring what happened to her. Like, not even a little bit. Randi describes herself as a "crazy person" despite having gone through some very real, very major traumas in her life, but frankly, that's no excuse for her to treat everyone like dirt just because she has personality flaws and trust issues. Her roommates were sort of right not to like her, not that they are a walk in the park, either. Come to think of it, I don't think "Buck Up, Buttercup" has a single redeemable character. They are all the absolute worst. They are each deeply unlikeable people, and if you know someone in your life who reminds you of any of these characters, you should immediately run for the hills. Her roommate Sarah is a raging alcoholic who nearly drowns herself at the bottom of a bottle on multiple occasions, but still manages to treat Randi like crap, even when she's trying to be (her version of) nice. Angie is a straight-up psychopath with profound anger issues and a massive drinking problem. At one point, she literally drugs someone and faces no repercussions. And Buck, oooooh Buck. Don't even get me started on Buck. I get that some women want to be chased by a big-strong-broodling-wall-of-a-man, but Buck strikes me as a creeper in sheep's clothing. One of those total pricks masquerading as a down-to-earth nice guy. Can we excuse excessive stalking and not taking no for an answer, people? Is that where we're at? I mean, he enables location tracking between his and Randi's phone without her consent, after only knowing her for a short time!! Uhhhhhh, ok, no??? What the heck?! Randi's best friend Daisy has also recently been through something horrific, but she is desperate for someone to love her that she comes off as clingy. Aunt Linda is a sad sack who age-shames herself constantly. All of the other men Randi encounters throughout the duration of the book either call her a bitch, or give her dirty looks unprovoked, or are so skeezy that they wouldn't miss an opportunity to jump into her pants the second she smiled at them politely. Gross, gross, gross.

"Buck Up, Buttercup" reminded me of a more offensive, less successful, second-rate version of something like "The Deal," with absolutely no redeemable characters. As much as it pains me to write such a negative review, I have to be honest as I cannot recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, and the author, for providing me with an ARC copy of this book! All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated in any way for my review.

I really wanted to enjoy this book...but it was extremely melodramatic and just annoying. I hate leaving poor reviews, but I sign up for these to be honest.

DNF - I really struggled getting into this book. I couldn't relate to the characters and felt that you couldn't really get to know the characters. I found the story to be too busy.

**Thank you to Water's Edge Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

TW: binge drinking, alcohol poisoning, abuse/violence, r word used, attempt of SA

Randi is a 24 year old in her last year of college. She finds herself in an unusual situation having to move to a house filled with other students who are not what she expected. To say that she is in a world of turbulence would not even cover it. When she first gets to the house she is confronted with a party of a lot of partying and drinking — which is the complete opposite of her who is a but anti-social. However, on her first day of arrival she meets one of her roommates’’ friend who catches her eye, Buck.

Buck is described as this cowboy who needs a spice to park his trailer. He ends up being Randi’s protector during her stay in the house. During their stay in the house, there is a friendship that starts between the two.

So, why did this book not work for me? Well, I was really excited to read a cowboy book which had one of my favourite tropes: grumpy/sunshine! I hate when there is drama from the get go but I felt like that drama never got a resolution and so it felt that it was just an unnecessary plot after half of the book and it just dragged on. There was a lot of slut-shaming, drink shaming, and also shaming Randi for being focused on her studies.

It was a bit messy.

Another plot that drove me insane is that Buck could get away with murder! He not only was possessive (and not in a cute way) but he enabled his friends behaviour, even after one of them had to be dragged to the hospital due to alcohol poison.

But the cherry on top was when Randi ended up being a virgin and then at one point also the r word was thrown in, which was unnecessary. Not to mention that in the first chapters there was derogatory language used against an indigenous character Also was it just me or did her relationship with Daisy and her Aunt seem more of a therapist and not really as a niece or friend?

Overall, I just did not like the mean girl energy from her roommates, the destructive energy that was portrayed and I feel like there were a few plot holes that were not given closure by the end of the book.