Book Review: Becoming by Michelle Obama
Becoming reads like you’re sitting down with a close mentor for a cup of coffee. A lawyer, businesswoman, educator, wife and mother, the former first lady walks the reader through her life in an intimate portrait of an unsuspecting woman thrown into the political spotlight by her husband’s career. But don’t be confused about the subject: this book is about Michelle with a little bit of Barack sprinkled in. Michelle Obama has clearly found her voice and the power in her own story separate from Barack’s.
From the beginning of the book, Obama paints a portrait of beautiful, simple family life on the south side of Chicago. She traces her history carefully, pointing out tiny, but important, moments in her education like being pulled out of a miserable second-grade classroom. You can clearly see her personality start to develop in her early years and the impact that it has on her throughout the rest of the book. She explains her mentality well, especially the experience of being a young black woman in a sea of white faces at Princeton or in her job as a lawyer. Obama also talks about the losses that have shaped her, including her father and her college roommate. Her statement’s on grief are powerful. “It hurts to live after someone has died,” she writes. “It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open a fridge.” But most importantly, Obama allows her losses to shape her…
