Black Buck

De: Mateo Askaripour

Narrado por: Zeno Robinson

For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street—a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.

There's nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.

An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.

After enduring a "hell week" of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as "Buck," a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he's hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.

Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America's workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.

©2021 Mateo Askaripour (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Great

I really enjoy ed d this book. Matoe keeps you wondering what's going to happen next. The narrator was excellent. Looking for his next book.

Black Buck's Lessons

A great read. The narrator brought life to each character. All the human emotions explored and expressed vividly.

worth a listen

was not sure at first then as story developed the characters, the premise, the way the author presented his story was not just an enjoyable listen but life lesson(s).

Unbelievable, yet True

This story will keep your interest, yet you might not love the main character. It has a fast pace, that keeps you riveted with its moving situations. It is relatable to the business atmosphere in today’s “dog eat dog” attitude. It definitely will give you much to discuss and talk about.

Good story, but narration was annoying

This is a really good book - very interesting content and pretty clever satire. However, the narrator screams a lot. This doesn’t add to the book, and it was very abrasive and annoying.

Kept My Attention

Loved the relevance and ideological comparisons throughout the book! The narration was really impressive and kept me engaged.

Amazing!

The book came alive with this narrator! Zeno did a great job portraying these characters!

I like it.

Overall, I liked the book. His bad behavior escalated very quickly. That part seemed a bit rushed, but other than that, I enjoyed the book. I also enjoyed the audio performance by the reader. I would recommend this book to others.

Halfway through and I’m annoyed

Performance - great!
Story - good!

But the way the main character’s family and friends are annoying. I didn’t see Buck as forgetting who he was or where he came from like his family did. Yes he was highly involved with his job but it’s typical when your trying to work your way up through the ranks in any career, it’s takes a lot of time and energy. However Buck’s family pushed him into a “real job” then discouraged him every step of the way after he started working, mind you he was content working as a barista but started in sales because of his family’s influence. We have a bad habit in the black community of wanting more for our ppl but when we get more instead of encouragement we offer half a** sentiments. You’ve changed, you think your better etc. his mom even told him to take a break from his job??? Is that even possible? That’s called quitting or being fired in the real world. Everyone was upset at him for beating up his “best friend” when from the beginning he never seemed happy for him even when he was a shift manager at Starbucks and was rude to him on several account and even struck him a couple of times but only Buck was made to apologize. I know the writer is trying to make a point to suggest that W ppl don’t have our back, and we need to creat our own lane so we can help our ppl become successful and I agree with that but at the beginning all I could see was black ppl being jealous and unsupportive of another black man and making him feel bad for wanting more for himself after spending so much time of not wanting anything at all.

Waiting for the movie

Wow!!! This is easily one of my new favorite books. It invoked every emotion you’d want from a book - sadness, anger, fear, happiness. And the narration was ON POINT. Black Buck now has a special place in my heart.