Member Reviews
This is the book that everyone can benefit from reading. At the beginning of the book the author talks about the risks involved in being candid as she was with the reader. I am so grateful for the risk she took. I think that anyone mentoring women of color in the workplace need to give this book as a gift to their mentees who want to read it. There were anecdotes about success, but not in the highly individualistic sense that the genre of leadership and business is accustomed to or known for. After reading I sent snippets to a WOC coworker, and had a new appreciation for the depth of obstacles this person needs to navigate not only in the workplace but then in any advice given about it (particularly by white folks like myself). The book gave me pause for the intensity of the journey of the author, and an immensity of gratitude for the way her sincerity and vulnerability show up in her writing. There was also a way that Daniel's struggles in movement illuminate the business acumen and mountain-moving coalition building required to make real change, running counter to what much of the cancel-culture rhetoric (and/or destructiveness) therein might demonstrate.
The lessons in this book are time and movement tested but that does not underpin its value for me. It isn't just a leadership book or memoir. It offers the something more that the genre tends to leave behind. I've been left wanting for something like this book that meets me in the imprints oppressive systems have left behind in my experiences of trans masculinity. A book about transness, it is not, but I felt profoundly seen where many of the challenges WOC face, trans people do (albeit in adjacent ways), and especially trans women as part of that. Daniel's raw honesty left me with one epiphany after another and her book instantiates the truth that when women of colour win, we all win. It is a book that I plan to sit with for a long time to come.
If there's one book you get from NetGalley and add to your end of 2024 or 2025 reading list and make sure is in your library collection, I highly recommend it be Unrig The Game.
Honestly when reading this have an open mind and really think about how you are truly treated in the workplace but, not just a woman but a woman of color. It really opened my eyes to some things as far as being at a stand still in the career that I am in and how I should really be thankful to be in the position that I am in because someone could be looking at me as inspiration wondering how are they going to get out they're situation. I like this because it has you really thinking to think not just about yourself but to show the generosity to others that are looking for that come up to and needs that motivation just as much as you do. The black woman has to go through a lot as it is but, having read this book, you know what points that you need to work on and where to go from there. I did take a lot of notes from this book and I do plan on working on them in my own and hopefully be able to help someone else along the way.
Overall, I loved the book, it may have been a few points I disagreed with but, a solid 4.25 stars