This book, Black Buck, is WAAAAAAY outside my wheelhouse. I pushed myself to read it BECAUSE it was so different from my “typical” books. Basically, it is a satire dramady (??) about a man (Darren) recruited into sales by an overzealous Mark Zuckerburg type. Considering Darren (nicknamed Buck by the company) was the only African American/POC in this company, all type of politically incorrectness ensues. Although it is not all laughs…
Darren (aka Buck) turns his back on family, friends and relationships, all to pursue a career at Sumwun, a NY City startup specializing in matching companies and individuals with tele-therapists. The therapy never takes place in person, but by tele conference, text or e-mail. Darren starts the story as the manager of the Starbucks, in the ground floor of Sumwun’s building, where he unwittingly serves the head honcho of the company, Rhett. He “sells” Rhett on a new Starbucks drink, and Rhett sees the raw sales talent that Darren has and recruits him. Darren immediately drops his job and takes a chance on Sumwun. From there, the story meanders, and almost is like two-three stories in one.
And that is one of the complaints that I had. The scope of this story was way too much. There was a beginning, middle and end to this story, but one didn’t have much to do with the other. About halfway through I thought that the story should have been over awhile ago, and maybe this was just a different story. The flow of everything was different than what I was used to, and I can’t say I loved that.
This was written by a black author, so I felt like the offensive, racist things that were written for characters to say shouldn’t be offensive (but they were.) I don’t work in corporate America, and I am not a person of color. I realize that the opportunities for POC are not as frequent than for their white counterparts. It just seemed like this book blew everything up, and made things very “in your face”. Maybe that is what the “satire” aspect of the book is… As I said, I’m not drawn to books like this so this book is really the first that I have read that could be considered “satire”.
As for the “race” part of it, I was a little disappointed in how the white people in the book were portrayed (again, maybe this was because of the “satire” style) but they were either completely naïve to the topic of race or they were racist. I know that does describe many white people, but there were no allies described at all. It was very black and white (no pun intended!!) As a result, it turned into black versus white, and I just don’t see that playing out in all companies in corporate America. Again… I don’t work in corporate America, but I would hope race relations are better in reality than they were portrayed in this book.
Overall, Black Buck was an interesting read. At times, it read quickly, and I was eager to see what would happen next… at other times, I slogged through it, wishing it would end. I would have to give another satire a try to determine that maybe it is just not my style…? Only time will tell… right now, I will be putting the satires on hold, and get back to something that I enjoy!
I gave Black Buck 3 stars (2 &1/2 rounded up).
Darren (aka Buck) turns his back on family, friends and relationships, all to pursue a career at Sumwun, a NY City startup specializing in matching companies and individuals with tele-therapists. The therapy never takes place in person, but by tele conference, text or e-mail. Darren starts the story as the manager of the Starbucks, in the ground floor of Sumwun’s building, where he unwittingly serves the head honcho of the company, Rhett. He “sells” Rhett on a new Starbucks drink, and Rhett sees the raw sales talent that Darren has and recruits him. Darren immediately drops his job and takes a chance on Sumwun. From there, the story meanders, and almost is like two-three stories in one.
And that is one of the complaints that I had. The scope of this story was way too much. There was a beginning, middle and end to this story, but one didn’t have much to do with the other. About halfway through I thought that the story should have been over awhile ago, and maybe this was just a different story. The flow of everything was different than what I was used to, and I can’t say I loved that.
This was written by a black author, so I felt like the offensive, racist things that were written for characters to say shouldn’t be offensive (but they were.) I don’t work in corporate America, and I am not a person of color. I realize that the opportunities for POC are not as frequent than for their white counterparts. It just seemed like this book blew everything up, and made things very “in your face”. Maybe that is what the “satire” aspect of the book is… As I said, I’m not drawn to books like this so this book is really the first that I have read that could be considered “satire”.
As for the “race” part of it, I was a little disappointed in how the white people in the book were portrayed (again, maybe this was because of the “satire” style) but they were either completely naïve to the topic of race or they were racist. I know that does describe many white people, but there were no allies described at all. It was very black and white (no pun intended!!) As a result, it turned into black versus white, and I just don’t see that playing out in all companies in corporate America. Again… I don’t work in corporate America, but I would hope race relations are better in reality than they were portrayed in this book.
Overall, Black Buck was an interesting read. At times, it read quickly, and I was eager to see what would happen next… at other times, I slogged through it, wishing it would end. I would have to give another satire a try to determine that maybe it is just not my style…? Only time will tell… right now, I will be putting the satires on hold, and get back to something that I enjoy!
I gave Black Buck 3 stars (2 &1/2 rounded up).