I ran through this book-- such an amazing read, balancing satire and heart really well. My favorite part was Buck's redemption arc, followed closely by Trey's betrayal which I never saw coming.

The author is good at twisting words just right to really illustrate a scene, without going too overboard making it difficult to read. I can't believe this is his debut, he's on my watch list for his eventual second book.

Black Buck

This is one of my most anticipated January releases. Written by Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck is a satirical novel/self help about a young Black man making his way in the world. From a shift supervisor at Starbucks to the only Black member of an elite sales team at a tech startup, he is given an opportunity to make use of his potential. Nicknamed Buck from his barista beginnings, he is out to prove himself.

Askaripour is an epic storyteller, and is so damn likable. You will root for him from page one. Askaripour writes an inspiring hero in Buck. He starts out a man in love, satisfied with his work at Starbucks, and happily living with his mom in a three story brownstone. Askaripour writes about the corporate monster, exposing the widespread systemic racism. The characters were over the top, but were amazing examples of how Black people are oppressed, tokenized, and used in corporate America.

My only complaint was that it was a little longer than it needed to be. It dragged a little in the middle but finished strong. I was pretty blown away by the end of it.

Thank you to the author and @houghtonmifflinharcourt for my advance digital copy through @netgalley, and @librofm for the audiobook.

I enjoyed my time listening to this book. Satire is usually a tough sell for me because when I’m reading from a page I can miss the jokes. Listening to the audiobook of BLACK BUCK freed me from my self seriousness and let me enjoy the humor of the story.
The book is full of references, which I always love. It’s also a full takedown of white entitlement and the mediocrity that is endemic in startup culture, and America as a whole. The use of satire really heightens the kind of racism so many people take for granted or brush off. It’s also a cautionary tale of Black folks who become fixated on white approval and measures of success. This book is packed with cultural critique.
My biggest issue with the book is that it’s too long. There were a few times I felt like plot points and scenes were getting redundant or predictable. The book could have easily been 50 pages shorter without sacrificing on story. Overall it’s a strong debut full of energy and critique and humor. Yes, I even laughed out loud a few times.

What a weird, but original, wild ride. At times the situations felt a tad too much for me and I didn’t know if I was even rooting for the character - but maybe that’s the whole point? Read it in two days.

I feel bad writing a negative review but uhhh I did not enjoy this book. The writing felt amateurish and I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. Buck's thoughts and actions didn't make sense to me. Everything happens so quickly and feels unrealistic -- he goes from knowing nothing about sales to being super successful and wealthy within a few months? Almost every BIPOC character in the book not only wants to be a high-powered salesperson but is immediately a genius at it? The "satire" was so over-the-top that it was laughable and ineffective. I thought this book would be criticizing start-up culture and late-stage capitalism, but really all it had to say about that was that it should be more racially diverse. Cool.

“Buck”-le up for Black Buck! This story is like nothing I’ve ever read before, but WHAT. 👏 A. 👏 RIDE. 👏 (Yes, you’ll be literally clapping your hands in the first few pages.) I went into it pretty blindly, and while it did take awhile for the story to really draw me in, once it did, it didn’t stop.

Darren is 22 and content with the four years he's worked at Starbucks and his life at home in his mom’s Bed-Stuy brownstone. His mom is begging Darren to live up to his potential as the former valedictorian of Bronx Science. During a chance Starbucks encounter, a tech startup CEO sees a spark in Darren. He reluctantly seizes that opportunity to pursue a sales career.

It’s not long before Darren, who starts going by “Buck” among colleagues, is fulfilling that potential his mom, girlfriend, and others saw in him--but at what cost?

At times I just wanted to scream and plead for Buck to make different choices.
“Don’t go down that path!”
“No, Buck, just stop!”
“Buck, please, listen to them.”
“Buck, please DON’T listen to them!”

However, the tale takes the exact path it needs to carry us on a JOURNEY. This story had better twists than a lot of thrillers I’ve read. There are heroes and villains. It’s outlandish yet totally plausible. It’s heavy yet easy to digest. I laughed (so much). I cringed. I cheered. I shed a few tears. I made a lot of faces that looked like this----> 😳😖😤🥴😲 but overall, I can say that I truly loved this story. The whole experience was so worth it.

Black Buck is a timely, satirical book about race relations, diversity in workplaces, a little bit of gentrification, and the bonds of friendship and family. It’s one you won’t want to miss in 2021.

Going into reading Black Buck, I knew it wasn't written for me. I am a college-educated South Asian woman who empathizes greatly with the Black community's plight, but I will never truly understand it. I also know that I'm not the biggest fan of an entirely satirical book - I love sarcasm, but a book shrouded in satire?

So, I'm actually surprised at how quickly I read Black Buck. I'm somewhat shocked at how much I really enjoyed it and how much I'm thinking about it the day after I read it. Darren, a Starbucks employee who lives in Bed-Stuy with his mom, morphs into Buck, a startup salesman, when he meets Rhett Daniels, CEO of Sumwun. We watch Darren, a guy with a good head on his shoulders, become the worst version of himself, as he falls into the startup trap. He slowly loses all the people he loves around him in the first half of the book. The second half of the book is his redemption arc, where he uses his skills for good for his community.

There is a bit of the final third that was too unrealistic for my taste. However, overall, this book was good! I enjoyed the pseudo-memoir style of the book. As someone who lives not-that-far from the Silicon Valley, I think Askaripour really got the startup culture just right. It was a bold choice to set this in NYC, which I feel is more shielded from criticism than the Silicon Valley when it comes to startup culture, but I enjoyed the setting nonetheless.

Overall, this was 3.5/5 stars for me. Thank you to NetGalley, Mateo Askaripour and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. I'm thrilled that Black Buck is published and available for all readers now.

I received a free electronic ARC of this debut novel from Netgalley, Mateo Askaripour, and Houston Mifflin Harcourt. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Black Buck of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Askaripour writes with a fluidity and rhythm that catches your mind and won't let go. He is an author I will follow.

Black Buck is a novel about a young man living in NYC. Twenty-two-year-old Darren lives with his Mom, has a great girlfriend, and when given the opportunity to reach the top of the retail worker's chain, he is hesitant to make any changes in his life. Written in the first-person perspective of a black youth, Darren Vendor, who is the supervising barista of the Starbucks located on the ground floor of the building housing a fairly new company, Sumwun, specializing in a program that employers may sign into, with connections to an associate who will council disenchanted or disgruntled employees, bringing them back to fully supporting and productive employees.

When Darren talked the head of Sumwun, Rhett Daniels, into trying a new coffee basically against his will, Rhett is very impressed. Within days he offers Darren a position upstairs, which he is encouraged by his mother, girlfriend, and various friends and neighbors to grab with both hands. He does, but his disenchantment, though slow-growing, is always there, and only the knowledge that his mother, showing signs of aging and ailing, would be terribly disappointed keeps Darren with his nose to the grindstone.

I was impressed with the accuracy of the emotions experienced by Darren - called by his boss and coworkers 'Buck' - and how true to life I found them to be. And in every instance, you can change the speaker to that of any woman or most especially a black woman, and it will be spot on to the experiences most of us have faced in our working lives. Definitely, a coming of age tale told very well.

Interspersed throughout the tale you will find bold hints to the Reader, to improve your participation in retail selling, all very important, accurate, and well-intended. This was an interesting, enlightening experience. Again, thanks for sharing your hard work.
pub date Jan 12, 2021

The first half of this racial satire had me hooked. Debut author Mateo Askaripour’s protagonist, Darren, is a 22-year-old Black male living in NYC and working at Starbucks. The reader is taken along as he enters the high-pressure world of a tech startup company, where he is the only Black employee. He is met with too many cringe-worthy situations and words. (The language in this book is crude and not for sensitive eyes and ears.) While reading the first half of the book, I could not look away. The second half was less engaging, in my opinion, and it lost the powerful satirical tone. The novel is reminiscent of When No One is Watching in that gentrification is critiqued in the novel (among many other social issues) and different parts read very differently in pace and tone.

Black Buck left me wondering how much of the satirical hyperbole of start up sales culture and the treatment of minoritized people in predominantly white companies rings true for those who have experienced those situations.

I finished this book a couple of days, and I still don't know how I feel about it.

Black Buck has been marketed as a satirist take on being a lone BIPOC in a startup. I have been the lone POC a couple of times at the tech startups I have worked in, so I appreciated the take that Askaripour had on the whole thing. But maybe, it was just too satirist for my personal taste.

The progression of the story is very patchy, where there are a lot of unexplained or under-explained things that happen which should have been spelled out since this is a 400 page book. Also, the main point on which this book is marketed, where Buck helps other POCs to get into the different jobs, took too long to reach. I understand that the initial story of Buck landing the job had to be explained, but it still felt underdeveloped. Buck also goes from likable to unlikable pretty fast and without any concrete reasons and the other characters feel like caricatures being put in to fill the void.

Written in the form of a 'success manual', the story does compel you to keep reading it. There are obvious extremes introduced to evoke reactions from the readers, but some times they went too extreme. The ending was a bit abrupt, and like the entire novel leaves you feeling that something was missing.

I just realised that even after writing this long winded review, I don't if I liked this book or not. 😅

To every Black and Brown person, this book is for YOU. You need to start 2021 with this energy!!

Why would I tell you the story, Mr.Askaripour did that so wonderfully that my little pathetic summary would be a disgrace. But okay, since you asked nicely. This novel is about Darren, an intelligent 23 year-old that works in Starbucks waiting for "something else to come up." He is surrounded by loved ones and seemed satisfied with his life until he met Rhett, the head honcho of a tech startup company. Darren must then choose between the life he knew to this new reality that's handed to him. It's hilarious but gut wrenching, frustrating yet hopeful, a quick but very deep read. I fiinished this book in 2 days. It's that good!! You will be invested in every character, hate some and the plot... you are not ready! Ride this rollercoaster of a book that focuses on the other Americans: Black and Brown folks. We are also far from perfect but this novel drives to a point that we sure are smart, innovative, driven, loyal and fearless.

Thanks for reading my feelings journal. Mateo Askaripour we see you and we're listening.

Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for giving Vulgar Geniuses an advanced reader's copy of the book.

Darren, a 22-year old black kid living in Bed-Stuy, is content with his life, working as a manager at Starbucks. He lives with his mom, has a long-time girlfriend who he loves, and is pretty happy, generally. His life changes overnight when he convinces one of his customers, a rich CEO of an already popular and profitable startup who works in the same building, to order a different coffee drink. Impressed, the CEO offers Darren a job, and the rest is history. Kind of. Things quickly get a little...complicated.

I enjoyed Black Buck. Reading about these crazy Wall Street-types is always fun. And I like that it's coming from the perspective of someone who isn't white--though Darren definitely gives me Charlie Sheen vibes. The racist work environment is enraging. At times it feels over-the-top, but, unfortunately, I'm guessing it's not.

Darren's relationships with other characters were hit and miss for me, but it didn't matter. He's definitely the main focus, first and foremost, but the spectacle of his work environment is a close second. I was horrified and enthralled by the outrageousness of it all, so I found the whole story entertaining. I loved how the book progressed, and I really loved where it ended up. Feels like a fresh take on an enduring predicament.

When I first heard the title Black Buck I immediately thought about how this term was used historically to identify Black men that were strong athletic and healthy. These "bucks" would be sold at the highest price during slave auction; the promise of their seed furthering the slave master's financial profit.

So how does this fit our main character Darren? He's a very intelligent resourceful young man. He attains the job after he closes the sale with the company's CEO who supposedly nicknames him "Buck" for all of the money he thinks he will make for him.

For Darren SumWun represents an opportunity for him to make his mother proud. To finally live up to his potential and fulfill everyone's hopes and dreams for him. Walking in on his first day he has no idea what SumWun sells, but he quickly finds out that he will have to fight harder and suffer great humiliations in order to move up in the company. His two white colleagues have he upper hand. The familial and professional network of connections will secure their path. Somehow he must make himself indispensable to the company and its CEO. The problem is that Darren becomes this persona, this "Buck" and allows himself to be defined by his job and how much money he can bring in.

Askaripour uses Darren's journey to teach the reader about life. Included throughout are Darren's bits of wisdom written in the vein of a motivational self improvement book and "The Facts of Life" as told by the neighborhood griot, Wally Cat. I think Wally Cat was my favorite character. I enjoyed his storytelling and advice. Even though "Buck" often ignored him, he just spoke his truth.

Innovative. Intriguing. Heartfelt. Sharp. Fast paced. Intriguing. Eye opening. Entertaining. Fast paced.

The book starts out by reading like a memoir which had me switching back to goodreads to see what genre it was in. Right from there I knew this was going to be a book that was nothing like anything I’ve read before. And wow was I right!

Black Buck is a social satire based literary fiction novel. It is is made up of the themes surrounding life, family, career, the drive to be successful, society, hostile work environments and how they all effect each other.

This novel truly had so many twists and turns! Just when I thought I figured out the trajectory of Buck in the story, things changed!

While I did find Buck’s success in the sales role a bit too quick, I found it such a moving and compelling story. I liked how the story room place over a vance expanse of time through the few “six month laters” made it more believable.

What an excellent and powerful read!

I featured Black Buck as Book of the Day on all my social media platforms, included it in a weekly roundup and will include it in a monthly roundup of new releases.

This book was amazing. I loved absolutely everything about it. The writing, the satire, the commentary on race, family, work...all of it.

Mateo Askaripour's Black Buck is an amazing debut novel. This book will certainly be on many top of 2020 book lists.

Narrator Buck is picked out of his life as a manager at Starbucks to work at tech startup Sumwun. As the only black salesman, he learns quickly what is a commodity in America - people and things.

It's a dark comedy, but it also packs an emotional punch. I cannot wait to see what else we will see from Askaripour.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

I tried so many times to get into this book but I just couldn’t. It felt inauthentic and like the author was just trying to rip off the plot of the movie Sorry to Bother You (which did the whole satire idea way better). The main character was I likable and I just have to give up trying to read this one. Definitely not for me

I did not finish reading this book. It seemed as though the author was trying to write two types of books and couldn’t make up his mind what direction he wanted to take. Sections would suddenly take on a very crass, sexually explosive tone that I felt had little connection to the storyline. #blackbuck #goodreads

While Mateo Askaripour's novel Black Buck is crazy like Wolf of Wall Street, it also presents an interesting picture of race in America. What happens when an African-American becomes successful in an all-white industry? How does that success affect him? How does he choose to use his success? And what happens when he starts to help other minorities break into traditionally all-white fields?

So Darren works at Starbucks, and he's pretty okay with his lot in life, despite the fact that he's crazy smart and his friends and family keep telling him he can do better. And then he does do better. In a fit of insanity, he gives a sales pitch to a Starbucks customer to get the guy to try a new beverage, and the guy likes it so much, he hires Darren to work at his online therapy start-up.

Darren notices that he's the only black person there, and he gets treated differently (in a not-good way) from the other white recruits during their first week. But he doesn't want to let the white man get to him. He wants to prove to his mom and his girlfriend that he can do it.

And he does. With consequences. Consequences that come back to bite him even after he's decided to use his newfound sales superpowers for good.

The whole book is written as though it's a sales guide for the reader, with little asides every now and then pointing out a key idea to remember. And then you get to the end.

Wow. Just wow.

This book is going to make you think.

Black Buck is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and is on bookstore shelves today! I received a free e-ARC in exchange for a review.