A review by kyumgi
Ending Checkbox Diversity: Rewriting the Story of Performative Allyship in Corporate America by Dannie Lynn Fountain

2.5

it's not so much what the book is saying, but how the book is saying it. fountain spends too much time saying "here's what this book will accomplish" and only backs it up in say, 100 pages. the rhetoric and format of this book is too reminiscent of books like white tears/brown scars, and there's such a lack of originality behind fountain's words, i can't tell if she genuinely believes what she's saying or is just repeating what people around her are. the main events of each chapter were interesting and conversation-inducing, but as harsh as this is, i really don't think her take on corporate america was that necessary, which is disappointing given her position at google. a better effort would have been supporting someone who could put these things into much better words than she can. i get what the title means, but it's also ironic. i won a digital copy of this book from the storygraph giveaways, so i assume the breaks in between paragraphs are intentional and in the physical copy as well. they were such a big giveaway that fountain is not a writer, and this would have been a much better article or listicle instead. given fountain's position's and the lack of reviews by people who didn't receive an ARC or are not obviously fountain's acquaintances, i just really think this book was for the sake of saying fountain wrote a book on diversity and inclusion.