Buck up Buttercup by Anna Alkire

Published: 30 June 2022

Publisher:Water’s Edge Publishing

Length: 345 pages

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Blurb:With Randi and Buck, it’s hard to tell the two apart…

An uptight, self-contained college girl, Randi Becker just needed one thing: a room. Somewhere she could study, and keep away from the things that most confuse and frighten her: people.

Unfortunately, the “nice quiet place” she reserved turns out to be a room in the campus’ most raucous house. A place seemingly designed to make studying impossible, made even worse by the other girls’ non-stop drama.

But then Buck, a fun-loving cowboy whom all the ladies love, shows up…and everything gets much worse.

Buck seems to have it all: friends, fun, and a never-ending line of admirers. But what he most desires is a break. So when Buck spots Randi, he figures she’s a perfect decoy: he can play up a “crush” on her that will take him off the market; buy him some breathing room. And if he can tease her a bit, and get under the skin of the uptight busybody? Well, that’s just gravy.

But Buck is about to find more than he bargained for. Randi’s strong-willed, opinionated, difficult—and maybe just what he needs. And Buck isn’t alone. Soon Randi wonders as well…if the world she wanted is really the world she needs. If her future is nothing more than a diploma on the wall. And if the most important thing in her world isn’t a grade, but the cowboy who’s planted his boots firmly in her heart.

My Review:

Im going to be nice and give this book three stars. It is a trainwreck of a romance but as far as highlighting the complexity of college life the dangers that go with excess drinking, in particular the danger this can have for women when lowlife men take advantage in the worst ways possible it does a really good job.

Buck is ridiculous. He is controlling and let’s his so called friend get away with give him a date rape drug, constantly verbally abusing his girlfriend and even her physically assaulting Randi isn’t the final nail in the coffin. For someone who is supposedly 29 he is very immature.

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.