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Becoming

Michelle Obama

Start date: February 1, 2019

Finish date: February 27, 2019

Discussion: Monthly Bonus Reads

Why we're reading this: February Bonus Read- Black History Month

Becoming by Michelle Obama
[close] February Bonus Read- Black History Month

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Dec 29, 2018 daemyra, the realm's delight rated it it was amazing

Michelle Obama is America's most admired woman of 2018, according to Gallup, and reading her best-selling memoir, Becoming, is a comforting reminder of the moral inspiration she gives to women and people all over the world to do better, to be patient but never stop striving. Michelle's voice is authentic in a page-turner of a memoir that shares the stories that shaped her as she was becoming in her many different roles ;)

Michelle is a bonafide storyteller and her stories about her upbringing on Michelle Obama is America's most admired woman of 2018, according to Gallup, and reading her best-selling memoir, Becoming, is a comforting reminder of the moral inspiration she gives to women and people all over the world to do better, to be patient but never stop striving. Michelle's voice is authentic in a page-turner of a memoir that shares the stories that shaped her as she was becoming in her many different roles ;)

Michelle is a bonafide storyteller and her stories about her upbringing on Chicago’s South Side, and her family sacrifices and struggles, particularly Dandy’s life story and his tendency to shout about the boo-boo’s on TV were both history lessons about America and intimate, bittersweet family recollections.

One pivotal step to Michelle’s journey in becoming was in her relationship with politics. Despite a natural aversion to politics, Michelle has always been close to the public sphere from her father taking her on his precinct trips as a child, to her close friendship with Santita Jackson, the daughter of Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, in high school:

“There was something about it, and about politics, in general, that made me queasy. For one thing, I was someone who liked things to be neat and planned in advance, and from what I could tell, there seemed to be nothing especially neat about a life in politics.

In her many swerves to life, Michelle shares how she began to question how right was her chosen career path for her, a painful decision for a self-made woman on an upwardly mobile trajectory and with student debt. It is a defining life moment, and a dilemma that mirrors her reservations about life with Barack, even as she fell in love and committed to him, she wondered about the unknown, about taking steps to the unknown, and how okay she would be with that. She shares snippets from her diary where she writes down her opinion that one person’s life should not take precedence over another’s life in a relationship. I particularly love this realization she has about progress, as she thinks about her dilemma: “It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.” This along with her insights about her eight-year residence at the White House are absolutely fascinating. Michelle remains incredibly relatable throughout it all, even as she mentions friends like Queen Elizabeth the II!

A role model is a bit of a corny term, but I find Michelle a role model. What I was inspired again and again was her tenacity to be the best version of herself, to work harder because she took her job seriously, and she was aware that as the first African-American First Lady, they could not afford to be cavalier. They were aware of the responsibility.

One story she recounts early on about her public appearances was that although they were popular, she could be seen as too serious and that could be used against her by their political opponents. While Michelle does listen to how she can amp up the performative aspect of her political talks, I love that when she first sees her taped appearance, on mute, she says:

What did I see? I saw myself speaking with intensity and conviction and never letting up... My face reflected the seriousness of what I believed was at stake, how important the choice that lay before our nation really was.

Reading Becoming at the end of 2018 is a great way to end the year, book-wise. ...more

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