Darren has been working in Starbucks for several years, until a client, Rhett, head hunts him to join the sales team of his new company. Being the only black member of the startup results in Darren enduring many racial taunts until he decides that the only way to succeed is to become one of them. Quickly he changes into somebody unrecognisable to his friends and family.

I found Black Buck hard work. Darren isn’t a particularly likeable character at the start of the book, and his behaviour and attitude as success changes him does nothing to improve things. I appreciate that Askaripour is trying to satirise the corporate world of the US and the stereotypes therein, and in many respects he achieves this, however for me it just didn’t work. Overlong and tedious.

Sadly this reader couldn’t get into the satire of this novel at all.

Black Buck is quite unlike any novel I have read before and that can only be meant as praise. It is certainly a novel that will stay with me for a long time and it seems hard to imagine it not being on my top reads come the end of the year. Whilst Darren Bucks adventure is insane and comically loopy, I completely bought into everything he said and described within the novel. He is a character who picks you up from page one and have you hooked from then on.

It is hilarious, creating this kind of humour and sustaining it throughout is a tough ask but it remained until the very end. The writings astute observations never felt particularly relatable to anything I had experienced and yet it was a world I bought into, feared and was completely absorbed in.

Part of it did feel out of this world but it never stopped the momentum the novel gained and Bucks trajectory. This is such an outrageous novel but its writing, bravado and excellent writing style meant it’s a stand out read of the year and one I will be recommending all summer long.

Satirical and witty debut charting the meteoric success of salesman Darren or “Buck” in a cult-like New York tech start-up of dubious means. Despite his better judgment and the overt casualness of workplace racism, Darren is still determined stick it out and to prove he’s better than the rest. The frat house-like conviviality of Sumwun Inc. starts off like Wolf of Wall Street but soon descends into a Fight Club vibe, as a personal tragedy galvanises Buck to create his own army of anarchic black-only Salespeople to disrupt the hegemony of his former Sumwun colleagues.

enjoyable and refreshing prose style - kind of inveigling us to listen in and be persuaded by narrator's voice ... making your way in a ruthless start-up environment (it all felt a bit dated I guess since start-ups are the usual thing these days) - but finding yourself the only person of colour in such environ and the lead up to the hit-in-the-head ending was really effectively done - maybe the voice eventually got a bit wearing (and not entirely credible!) - but this is an energising read and pacy of course - well accomplished. good snapshot of this kind of break neck rise told satirically which is perfect send up of the corporate world too ...

Thanks to John Murray Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book. It's compelling, wryly funny at times, and well written.

In a nutshell, the book tells the story of Darren (Buck), a Black twenty-something New Yorker, who goes from working in retail to a sales role at a cut-throat start up company, and the repercussions that has for him and those around him. It covers a lot of themes, including work, race, microaggressions, loss, relationships, and friendship.

It's staggering just how much Darren's character changes as the book went on, and how people treat each other so ruthlessly is pretty shocking at points.

I think the book reflects well on some of the different challenges, paths and decisions we can face in life. It shines a light on how power, greed and success can consume and overwhelm people and dramatically change them - whether that be for good or evil. Could definitely see this being turned into a film or TV show - it's brilliant and I was engrossed throughout!

What an extraordinary tale. I loved it. Set in a vibrant start up, Buck is the only person of colour in the office and is simultaneously glorified and vilified. He has a natural talent for selling and quickly becomes one of the best on the team, but make enemies along the way, both in the office and in his home life. His friends think he's treating them with disdain now that he is a hotshot.

It's a fabulous story that gives you cause to think about racism and opportunity. Very well written.

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour is dark, funny and twisty.

Darren is working in Starbucks as a supervisor, his life is going nowhere and he is happy with that. Then he gets spotted and recruited into a fast growth tech business to go through their sales intern scheme. As he learns how to sell, he also has to learn how to survive in a high pressure competitive environment. Just as he thinks he has made it, things start to fall apart both corporately and personally.

Black Buck is a hilarious send up of the driven sales culture of modern tech businesses, layered with race and a broader lack of social responsibility. Not every tech company will be like this but most who have worked in the tech sector will recognise something in this novel.

This is a page turner, you will want to finish it in one or two sittings and it closes with a powerful ending. Whilst you are laughing your way through Black Buck you might learn a few sales tips as well.

I had heard a lot about this book so was excited to read this and it didn't disappoint. Its a book that takes you on quite a ride and makes you think, and is a book that will certainly stay with me. It's very different from anything I have read before - it is a satire and that's important to bear in mind as at times it seems over the top and ridiculous. Its style is also very unusual - written in the first person as a pseudo-memoir, it also has elements of a sales manual with selling tips dotted throughout the book.

It's the story of Darren, fairly content with his life as a manager at Starbucks, who is persuaded to join the sales team at a tech start-up. The racism and bigotry he encounters in what is a toxic work environment is shocking - in his desire to succeed and fit in Darren, aka Buck after his previous employer, begins to lose himself with some shocking consequences and twists I didn't see coming.

It is a book with a very powerful message and it is so original - it will surprise you, make you laugh at times and at others make you incredibly angry. It is a book that is always going to divide opinion but I for one as so glad I read it.

A fast-paced book on business, sales, race and young ambition.
It was enjoyable read with twists and turns and unexpected ending. Darren is given an opportunity to work in incredibly competitive sales startup. The environment intense and incredibly tough for Darren (that will be called Buck). Askaripour creates a story, which balances darkness and lightness excellently. I would have liked a bit more character development and more depiction how Darren grew through the experience. Still an incredible debut and dwelled in my mind for a while.

Thank you John Murray Press and Netgalley for the e-arc.

This book is included in my May reading wrap up on my YouTube channel https://youtu.be/X9hEqeBW-ys

I have not been this excited about getting approved for reading a book in a long time. A friend of mine had been reading it on my live reading sprints and I was dieing to get my hands on it. Needless to say - my expectations were high. Very high.

The premise I was expecting was a young black guy making his way through corporate America. I was ready for a good story where we might see the good and the bad of corporate - but maybe also what makes people like it and want to work in this environment. Sadly the company that the whole book mainly plays at has very little to do with the corporate America that I know - it feels a lot more like a Wolf of Wallstreet / Startup with a motivational speaker type of environment. Which is unnecessarily harsh and demanding and cruel. Especially cruel for the only black person. It wasn't really what I came for, but I did not mind.
I also really enjoyed most of the writing, I enjoyed the overall character development and how your job and the change in environment / people around you can change you too. I loved a lot of the ideas and what Buck tried to do.
The only thing that took away a star from the rating for me were the time jumps. We are following Buck through various stages in his career over a relatively short span. But - potentially to keep the book at a certain length - we had several time jumps where a lot of the important character development was happening without us following it. So we would jump ahead a month or three and the author would tell us how Buck has changed. This is a pet peeve of mine - I want the author to show me, not tell me. And with these cuts it felt unnatural and confusing as you did not follow that development. This would have been one of the core things the book needed to nail to get 5 stars - make me follow and understand 100% why he changes how he does.

Overall still a truly enjoyable and well written book with some great ideas.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the author, publisher and NetGalley for sending me this advanced reader’s copy in return for a fair, frank, and honest review.

This book was boring. Darren as a character was so annoying and full of his own self-importance. Maybe satirical books are not my thing.

This book started out great, but then got difficult to stick with. I completely get that it's a satire but it started becoming more outlandish and hard to believe about halfway through the book. I really liked the characters of Darren and Soraya and the other supporting cast, and I think there's a really strong concept here - I just found it difficult to connect with as it went on. Darren's investment in Sumwun and telling Rhett "I love you too" just three months in seemed really forced, there wasn't enough build up to that or showing us ways the company wooed him and so on.
I did, however, really like the portrayal of how Darren was treated as a Black man in a very white workspace, and i think there's some fantastic material here - I just wish it had done more showing of the build up to where he got to instead of quick, jerky fast forwards and a breakneck speed timeline and so on.

Phewf - what a stressful read! I had to keep powering through and so finished this in next to no time. I'm in the middle of a stressful period at work and all the tension of Buck's fall from grace seeped out into my own work and I read and read late into the night to work through to reach the personal growth and ending I could see coming. The environment of sales for growth's sake made me so mad as did society's white supremacy and fragility and blindness to racism, which I'd guess was the point so job well done Mateo.

This book started out strong - a little bit of mystery, a little bit of satire, a lot of gentrification-inspired social commentary. But I also feel it could have had a strong finish at the halfway point. We know about the under-representation of Black people in the workforce, we know about the racism hiding in plain sight, we know about the micro-aggressions that build up over time. But somehow I wanted more. I did appreciate Darren's own develop;ment though and think his early struggles at Sumwun to fit in by often denying his own instincts are very recognisable and will resonate with A LOT of readers.

Meet Buck. But before Buck was the Muhammad Ali of sales, floating like a butterfly and selling like a demon, he was Darren: an unambitious twenty-two-year-old living with his mother and working at Starbucks. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of NYC's hottest tech startup, results in Darren joining Rhett's elite sales team. On his first day Darren realizes he is the only Black person in the company, and when things start to get strange, he reimagines himself as 'Buck', a ruthless salesman, unrecognizable to his friends and family.

The book is written like a pseudo memoir/self-help/sales manual, filled with lessons and the style works really well. It covers a range of important issues in a satire style. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

Some books are pleasant to read. Some are thrilling. And some make you think and question and stay with you long after the last page has been turned. Black Buck is one of those. A very interesting style of writing was one thing. The reader is addressed directly and this is uncommon. It reads at times like a how-to succeed in sales. But it is so much more than that. With scathing wit, it addresses extremely vital issues of diversity and the increasing polarisation we are witnessing in the world, focusing on America in particular.

This novel is smart, it's sexy, it's poignant, it's provocative. It's a book to cogitate on, and recommend to others. It's a book to discuss and devour.

If you don’t like satire then this won’t be the book for you but if you do then dive right in !
I’m a fan of satirical novels and right from the onset I knew what to expect . It’s written from the POV of Darren ( aka Buck) who is given the opportunity to become a salesman in a new startup cult like company . Buck becomes a ruthless salesman who is unrecognisable to his family and friends but when tragedy hits home he uses his ambition to help young coloured people get into the US salesforce.
The issues of ambition and race are the focus here and if you can distinguish between fact and fiction then you’ll find it’s a very energetic ( sometimes unbelievable ) novel but one that I feel will divide opinions:

Darren has been working at Starbucks for the last 4 years, slowly ascending through the ranks in one of their shops. One day, one of his clients, Rhett, CEO of Sumwun, sees something in him (it's never really clear what it is, other than some sort of shark instinct that in real life would have made me turn around and leave) and invites him to his office for an interview. What follows is the story of Darren becoming "Buck" in the corporate environment, a person that those around him don't recognise anymore.

There's bits of satire about the corporate world, and the book deals with racism in Sumwun and beyond. The storytelling did remind me of Wolf of Wall Street, with the author breaking the "4th wall" to talk to the reader and highlight bits of the story as a course on sales. I think that type of storytelling works for a movie, but I didn't really enjoy it in a book. I didn't like Darren/Buck, Rhett was useless throughout, Darren's mum also felt useless and disengaged from her son. Overall, the relationships between some of the characters weren't well defined. I would have liked more of a back story for some of them.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

My initial reaction, certainly for the first half of the book, was 'this book should be taught in schools!'. There are some mighty fine tips and advice for life, never mind just sales, in this novel, and it's written in a very easy, conversational style so you can believe it's a real self-help book. The narrator is charming and wise and frank, as he looks back over the turn of events which led him to tell his tale. And there is a fair bit of humour mixed in with the fast-paced narrative.
It made me think, laugh and get frustrated; at many points the reader is reminded that you only really learn from making your own mistakes and Darren, the protagonist, makes more than his fair share.
There are a couple of truly surprising twists thrown in as well, which made me nod in admiration. They say write about what you know, and the acknowledgements seem to bear out that Mateo Askaripour has taken this to heart and run with it. And he's done a really good job.
I look forward to his next book which he maintains will be completely different.

This novel is brilliant! It’s not my usual type of read as I’m not a big fan of satire but I am so glad I read this book, it’s so good! Darren is a young black man who lives with his mom and he works in Starbucks. He hates coffee but he’s good at his job. Then one day he’s offered a position at a big start up company and he can’t resist finding out more. The novel explores the issues around race in America and it was uncomfortable to read at times. Some of the things done to Buck, as he gets nicknamed because of his previous job, are truly awful but he keeps on sucking it up and showing it up determined to be the best and to make some serious money. The novel is set out like a manual for black people that white people are encouraged to also read, this is Buck telling you his story. There are moments that seemed unreal, and moments of real darkness balanced with some very funny scenes – it’s such a compelling novel and I found it really hard to put down. It’s a book that I’d like to re-read in the future, it’s one that’s really staying fresh in my mind. I highly recommend this one!