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A review by icedlavenderlatte
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Black Buck follows a Black salesman named Darren who climbs the ranks of a white led start up company in NYC. I'm not even going to attempt to further summarize because there's soooooo much that happens here, so if you plan to read this be prepared for a wild ride. After hearing the author talk about this book, I was really excited for a satirical novel that tackles topics of racism, start up culture, climbing the ladder, etc. and I'd heard from several that the audiobook was the way to go because it was so well done. So I'm just going to jump right into my issues:
- There's a loooooot of yelling in the audiobook. Yes, the narrator does a great job, but I grew tired of this quickly. This was the first issue I had with the book and I was able to look past it initially.
- Using a character with coprolalia Tourette syndrome,who later is magically cured of this by meditation , as comedic relief, and then later a character with a stutter for the same purpose. I'm just not sure what the intention was here.
- Excessive use of the word "retarded" in the first 25% of the book made me cringe. Again, not sure the purpose of this.
- Very lazy metaphorical language throughout the entire book that by the end of it I was just constantly rolling my eyes. There's an AIDS in Africa joke and just so many other played out phrases I couldn't even keep track
- Dialogue was so extremely juvenile and I think this was exemplified by how trope-y and stereotypical the characters were made to be.
- The plot is such a mess that by the end I forgot thathe had a whole ass mom that died and I couldn't even wrap my head around how Darren got to his position besides two acts of luck .
I loved the idea of the Happy Campers. A network of BIPOC business professionals that infiltrate these white start ups from the inside out. I feel like there was so much potential here if this would have been the main focus. Instead I think the author's idea of satire was just to make the plot as absolutely ridiculous as possible.
- There's a loooooot of yelling in the audiobook. Yes, the narrator does a great job, but I grew tired of this quickly. This was the first issue I had with the book and I was able to look past it initially.
- Using a character with coprolalia Tourette syndrome,
- Excessive use of the word "retarded" in the first 25% of the book made me cringe. Again, not sure the purpose of this.
- Very lazy metaphorical language throughout the entire book that by the end of it I was just constantly rolling my eyes. There's an AIDS in Africa joke and just so many other played out phrases I couldn't even keep track
- Dialogue was so extremely juvenile and I think this was exemplified by how trope-y and stereotypical the characters were made to be.
- The plot is such a mess that by the end I forgot that
I loved the idea of the Happy Campers. A network of BIPOC business professionals that infiltrate these white start ups from the inside out. I feel like there was so much potential here if this would have been the main focus. Instead I think the author's idea of satire was just to make the plot as absolutely ridiculous as possible.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Ableism, and Violence
Moderate: Drug use and Death of parent