Buck Up, Buttercup ARC Review

Thanks to Netgalley and Xpresso Book Tours for this Arc! All opinions are my own.

*This review might contain spoilers!

I can't for the life of me DNF a book, but with this one I sadly came close to it. I also hate leaving bad reviews. 'Buck up, Buttercup' has a cute cover which is the first thing that drew me in, the second thing that drew me in was the plot of the book with the grumpy/sunshine trope rom-com which I love.

Unfortunately this book had a lot of issues I had trouble reading from the slut shaming, to the racial slur, to the 'r' word being used, fat shaming and mental health shaming. This book had some triggers from attempted sexual assault,death of loved ones, alcohol abuse and violence.

Randi just wants to finish her last year of college and keep her grades up so she when Randi thinks she's found the perfect peaceful home to do that in. Imagine her surprise when she shows up and realizes she's been lied to and her 'peaceful' farm house is actually a party house instead. Randi is ready to leave that night but due to circumstances ends up staying there and toughing it out. One of Randi's roommates is Buck, Buck is an easygoing cowboy who just wants to keep the party girls away from him and thinks Randi is the perfect person to help him with that. Randi just wants to keep away from Buck and stay distraction free so she can finish college with her head down.

This premise right here, is why I thought I was in for a light rom-com with a Grumpy/Sunshine trope but instead we get a book that was trying to reach the mark but unfortunately fell short.

Honestly I would have liked to see things like alcohol abuse or sexual assault taken more seriously. It seemed like the author didn't want to delve to deeply into some of the tough stuff which is hard for me to understand as I feel it would have giveb more depth to the characters, specially with what Daisy went through. We really only get depth into Randi and Bucks character and even that isn't much. My favorite part of the book was the last 1/4th of the book even though it seemed a bit rushed.

I'm definitely willing to try another novel by Anna Alkire in the future though.