Black Buck is a novel set in the high octane atmosphere of NewYork start-ups and high pressure sales. From a slow carefully staged start the story quickly takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride where the central character experiences the best and worst of this lifestyle. It reminded me in parts of both the Wolf of Wall Street and Trading Places!
On the whole a very enjoyable read.

Black Buck follows Darren, a twenty-two year old unmotivated starbucks worker who lives in NYC with his single mother. After being offered a unique sales opportunity to work for one of NYC's hottest tech start-ups, Darren abandons the comfort of his regular job and life and embarks on an opportunity which is set to change the course of his life.

Unfortunately this book fell a little flat for me. I understand it was intended to be 'satire' however, I did not find it as amusing as I expected. At times i became frustrated with how stereotypical some of the characters came across, and a number of the storylines felt quite far fetched which meant that I struggled to connect with the book as a whole.

However, the style of the writing worked extremely well and at times i felt as though i was reading a memoir/self help manual, as opposed to fiction. I thought the author did a great job of portraying the visceral frustration of being the only black person in a heavily white-dominated environment, being met with repeated racist remarks and behaviour in such a casual way but not feeling as though you can retaliate for fear of being labelled as 'the angry black person.'

Although i did not enjoy this book as much as i had hoped, it will not put me off reading more of Mateo's work. I will definitely recommend this to friends who i know will enjoy the subject matter more than I did, i just think this particular novel was not for me sadly.

The episodic, scene-centred nature of this book seems to indicate the author was writing with Hollywood in mind - and, indeed, there are many superficial similarities with Wolf of Wall Street. That said, the standard of writing is high, and a fair bit of thought has gone into the characterisation of the protagonist and principal figures.

Arguably, the first section of Black Buck is the weakest - it reads rather TOO much as a motivational guide to salesmanship with an added, all-too-graphic delineation of the tokenism behind the protagonist's employment as clearly delineated in the ritual humiliations he's made to suffer. Is this kind of thing hardwired into the American psyche? The cruelty of frat boy hazings, public "roastings", & initiation rituals are things we'd only associate on this side of the Atlantic with the goings on of the Eton/Harrow "Hooray Henry" crowd, who are hardly the mainstream public. The lead character's tolerance, verging on embracing, of this just seems incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, but, to a culture that accepts, and often encourages, this type of casual cruelty, maybe it seems more acceptable. I don't know.

Once that section of the book is over, the writing really starts to flow, so stick with it! Buck's slide into corporate mercilessness is arrested by his growing awareness of the need to provide others with an escape, and the recognition that corporate life doesn't necessarily entail the loss of his humanity. However, the institutional and personal racism that surrounds him is an ever-present challenge, and it was heartening to see him to at least rise morally above it, and to provide the means for others to overcome it through increasing their knowledge, status, and financial worth.

This is a promising beginning for Mateo Askaripour, it's not perfect, but there was enough in it to hold my attention all the way through, and I read it in one sitting.

I like tales of New York excess - big deals and limos and clubs and Central Park apartments. I've read plenty of Wolfe and McInerney. Seen through the eyes of a young black kid from an African American - but rapidly hipsterising - borough of Brooklyn, it seems both new and slightly unsettling. Darren gets a break and runs with it, triumphing in that most whitebread American of disciplines, sales. The rise is rapid and the fall is brutal, as he pays a high price for beating the Ivy Leaguers at their own, rigged game. The lynch mob starts online but things quickly move from virtual to actual violence. .

The story seemed hyper-real, cramming in a lot - from the power of minority self-reliance to the disingenuous right-wing white wailing as they fight to hold on to every scrap of their (our) privilege. While I wasn't convinced about every plot point, I also couldn't put it down and finished it within two days.

I really enjoyed Black Buck, the story of ‘Buck’ - a young black man pulled from the humdrum of Starbucks and propelled into a career in sales at a start up by its visionary CEO.

It charts his rise and the many obstacles he faces in that, particularly racism and expectations. It also tells of how he loses his old friends and his family in the process, and how he wins them back.

The book is part story, part fable, part selling guide and part discussion on the obstacles black people face in society.

Black Buck is a satirical take on ambition, race, and the world of sales, as a Black Starbucks employee sudden finds himself offered a job at a tech startup. Darren lives in Brooklyn with his mother, who hopes he can find something to do beyond making coffee for a living (and he doesn't even like coffee). When the CEO of a new tech startup offers Darren a chance to work there instead of at Starbucks, he warily agrees, and even makes it through the 'hell week' of training. To be a salesman, though, he becomes 'Buck', someone his family and girlfriend no longer recognise, and soon everything becomes larger than just Buck, expanding to help more people of colour become part of the sales workforce.

Written as if it is a self-help memoir from Buck, with tips about sales breaking out of the main narrative, this is a distinctive novel that takes a biting look not only at working in sales, but at how people change due to ambition and also how white people react to organisations excluding them to support people of colour. The combined absurdity and energy of the novel sweeps you along, with time jumps every so often to move the narrative forward, and it is a gripping look at somebody who forgets to think about the consequences of their actions whilst also dealing with the racism and microaggressions of white coworkers. The narrative often veers into ridiculous directions and the characters can be extreme, but you expect that from the genre and satirical tone: you're meant to wince at the dark comedy and the fact bad things happen to characters, all part of the whirlwind plot.

People looking for realism or gritty novels perhaps won't like this one, but anyone who enjoys sharp exposés of particular professions and worlds will enjoy Black Buck, a book which challenges ideas about race and success (there's a great moment about 'race' being something people don't want to hear about, but then 'diversity' being something they do).

Darren lives with his mother and works at Starbucks. on the ground floor of a New York office building. His mum thinks he's lacking ambition.

But when he's offered an opportunity by Rhett, the CEO of a tech startup in the same building, Darren has to be pushed into following it up by his nearest & dearest.

And so he enters the bizarre, cult-like world of Sumwun. As the only black salesman.

It can't end well....

This would have been more enjoyable if the characters were just that, and not overblown cartoon stereotypes

I don’t know how I feel about this book. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters and as a white person I was uncomfortable for a lot of the book (which I should be). As someone who’s temped for a sales agency before, the culture and the characters in the book was depicted accurately. This book was unpredictable which is a great thing in my opinion.