Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

9 reviews

alexstartsthings's review against another edition

challenging tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Classism, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Bullying, Cultural appropriation, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Terminal illness, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Slavery, Violence, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, and Torture

Minor: Vomit and Outing

narbine's review

challenging emotional funny informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Didn’t care much for the beginning but it redeemed itself last half

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Alcohol, Bullying, Death of parent, Racism, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Grief

jillaay_h's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Death, Racial slurs, Cancer, Classism, Alcohol, Racism, Drug use, Suicide, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Medical content, Mental illness, and Violence

cheye13's review

challenging funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Wayyy too boot-licky for me.

This is excellently written and maintains a strong voice throughout. The depiction of race relations did not pull punches. The story surprisingly sustained a sense of broad hope.

I wanted more of everything. I wanted it to push further in every way. I wanted a deconstruction of capitalism, I wanted a deconstruction/exploration of masculinity (esp in white vs black spaces), I wanted a deconstruction of ambition. I disagree with reviews that say the back end went off the rails - it didn't go far enough off the rails.

Ultimately, it felt like a middle class cishet black man's white collar day dream - he gets to be a jetsetter, he gets to earn big bucks, he gets a nickname, a driver, a girl - he gets to Save The World. Which is a very good and important story to tell - there's plenty of those white stories out there, and this is miles better than any of those. But pitching it as a Sorry to Bother You comp does it a disservice.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, and Racism

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, Classism, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Medical content, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Cancer, Slavery, Alcohol, Drug abuse, and Toxic friendship

also: minor mention/depiction of lynching (in a photograph), moderate discussion of incarceration, discussion of drug dealing in addition to drug abuse. A brief discussion of outing somone, not followed through. The hate crime I tagged is a scene of white coworkers "pranking" the only black employee by dumping white paint over him; not sure if it qualifies as a hate crime, but it definitely felt like one in context.

peachani's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Hate crime, Bullying, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Racism, and Cursing

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cultural appropriation, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Grief

Minor: Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Confinement, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Ableism, Addiction, Classism, Death of parent, and Terminal illness

sarahsthoughtsonbooks's review against another edition

This review is for the audio version, fairly certain if I had the print, I would have skipped to the end and put the book down a lot sooner. I might pick it up again the future.

Likely a reader-book mismatch, because I don't do well with satire (which is why I opted for audio over print, figured I'd get the nuances that I would miss in my own reading). What ended up happening is me cringing through a good portion of what I listened to. The microagressions, the horrible sales techniques. The about face in the character, from someone caring to someone that was a giant douche canoe (but not the biggest douche canoe, cause Clyde is a racist douche canoe)

I wanted to keep going to find out how it ends up, but I kept getting frustrated by Darren's behaviors. Luckily found a very detailed review and decided I didn't need to waste more time.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racism, Sexual violence, and Alcoholism

Minor: Addiction, Cancer, Car accident, and Pedophilia

thebakerbookworm's review against another edition

dark funny informative inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is written as a part memoir, part sales manual, and the format really worked for the story. Don’t let it fool you—Darren’s story is fictional, but his voice is so clear and convincing right off the bat, he’ll have you believing he’s a real person. I loved the sales tips interspersed throughout the story, as Darren shares what he’s learned and how sales tactics apply to everyday life. My experience with sales is working at a Barnes and Noble trying to sell books…so nonexistent 😂 Not only was this book a captivating story, but I learned from it too!

Seeing Darren’s transformation from the beginning to middle to end was very compelling. He’s a fully fleshed-out character who makes questionable decisions but you still root for him. There were also some great side characters and though they all didn’t get as much attention as I would’ve liked, they are complex.

I honestly had no idea where the plot was going to go most of the time but it kept me invested. The narration in the audio was literal 🔥🔥🔥

Thank you so much to Libro.fm, the publisher, and the author for my ALC.

Read if you like: talking to strangers, coffee, diversity in the corporate world.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Cancer, Drug use, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, and Police brutality

julieuh's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

all I can say is that I hope this book blows up, because it's what it deserves and because it's way too interesting to be under-read

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Violence, and Ableism

Moderate: Blood, Cancer, Grief, Medical content, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Torture

Minor: Drug use

agradstudentreadsforfun's review against another edition

challenging emotional medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Racial slurs, Racism, and Torture