Becoming

Book 5 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read from January 3 - 11

Becoming

by Michelle Obama

Summary (via the book jacket)
published 2018

When she was a little girl, Michelle Robinson's world was the South Side of Chicago, where she and her brother, Craig, shared a bedroom in their family's upstairs apartment and played catch in the park, and where her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, raised her to be outspoken and unafraid. But life soon took her much further afield, from the halls of Princeton, where she learned for the first time what it felt like to be the only black woman in a room, to the glassy office tower where she worked as a high-powered corporate lawyer - and where, one summer morning, a law student named Barack Obama appeared in her office and upended all her carefully made plans.

Here, for the first time, Michelle Obama described the early years of her marriage as she struggles to balance her work and family with her husband's fast-moving political career. She takes us inside their private debate over whether he should make a run for the presidency and her subsequent role as a popular but oft-criticized figure during his campaign. Narrating with grace, good humor, and uncommon candor, she provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of her family's history-making launch into the global limelight as well as their life inside the White House over eight momentous years - as she comes to know her country and her country comes to know her.

Becoming takes us through modest Iowa kitchens and ballrooms at Buckingham Palace, through moments of heart-stopping grief and profound resilience, bringing us deep into the soul of a singular, groundbreaking figure in history as she strives to live authentically, marshaling her personal strength and voice in service of a set of higher ideals. In telling her story with honesty and boldness, she issues a challenge to the rest of us: Who are we and who do we want to become?

My Opinion

5 stars

If you chose to read this book you will not be disappointed because she is just as personable, warm, funny, and real as you'd expect.  There is also a level of vulnerability and honesty that I wasn't expecting but made her even more relatable.  I knew I liked her but I didn't expect to have so much in common with her.

If you chose to pass by this book based on who she is, I understand but it's your loss because this isn't really a "political" book.  There is talk of politics because that was her world but it's really about her and her thoughts on balancing her own goals and career aspirations not only as a mom but also in a marriage where her husband is also powerful and motivated with big aspirations of his own.

On a personal note, I didn't know her dad had MS (my mom does too).  The nerd in me was also amazed at all the things in the president's motorcade, including a container of his blood type just in case he needed a transfusion (to be provided by the physician that always travels with him as well).

The pictures were great and the only downside of this book is it made me miss the Obamas even more; I would've been sad at the end of their presidency no matter what but especially in the stark contrast of the current administration, it was nice to revisit different times.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"...I think it's one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child - What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that's the end."

"For better or worse, I'd fallen in love with a man with a vision who was optimistic without being naive, undaunted by conflict, and intrigued by how complicated the world was."

"I was humbled and excited to be First Lady, but not for one second did I think I'd be sliding into some glamorous, easy role. Nobody who has the words "first" and "black" attached to them ever would."

"Women endure entire lifetimes of these indignities - in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, oppression. These things injure us. They sap our strength. Some of the cuts are so small they're barely visible. Others are huge and gaping, leaving scars that never heal. Either way, they accumulate. We carry them everywhere, to and from school and work, at home while raising our children, at our places of worship, anytime we try to advance."