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Loading... Becoming (edition 2018)by Michelle Obama (Author)
Work InformationBecoming by Michelle OBAMA (Author)
  
Books Read in 2019 (29) » 18 more Black Authors (20) SHOULD Read Books! (125) Female Author (1,030) Favorite Memoirs (37) Litsy Awards 2018 (111) Books Read in 2021 (2,088) Read Next (3) No current Talk conversations about this book. I have often come to the conclusion that no fiction can live up to non-fiction. Michelle's story is extraordinary, but also at the same time it is so ordinary. I think the mix of both makes it unique. Truly amazing and inspiring people. (  ) dacejav | May 16, 2022 |  What a woman!! Michelle Obama you're WONDERFUL! ( ) protoplasm | Apr 25, 2022 | 3.75 stars This is Michelle Obama’s autobiography, so it does start with growing up with her family. Her father had MS and didn’t want to buy a house, so they (2 parents, 2 siblings) lived upstairs from an aunt and uncle in Chicago. Although they didn’t have a lot of money, Michelle got an Ivy league education and a law degree. Which is around when she met Barack. Of course, the second half(ish?) of the book was her marriage, their two daughters, and politics, including Barack’s rise to the presidency with Michelle, not only along for the ride, but having to give up her life and career for that presidency. I liked this. She is an amazing woman and an amazing speaker (I also listened to the audio book, read by Michelle, herself). There are still some things that I don’t understand about American politics (I’m Canadian), but I also learned a few things, too. And it really was an interesting look behind the scenes of the Obamas lives, as well as behind the scenes in the White House. I like that she really seems down-to-earth and was all about (as much as she could be) keeping her daughter’s lives as normal as possible. (  ) LibraryCin | Apr 20, 2022 | What's it like to figure out how to be a first lady? Michelle's voice comes through wonderfully on the highs and the lows. ( ) Kate.Koeze | Apr 15, 2022 | Not the most exciting memoir but it wasn't bad. I'm not sure what I expected but she led a pretty boring life. That's not a bad thing. I mean, I like her and all, but there wasn't a whole lot of drama or excitement or trials and tribulations for her to get through to get her where she is today. That's ok. She seems to come from a good family and has become a fine lady and a great First Lady. Only the last quarter of the book is really about the Presidency. She doesn't like Trump that is for sure. Interesting tidbits about life in the White House and the lack of privacy and independence she and the kids had. (  ) WellReadSoutherner | Apr 6, 2022 |
The summary of Obama’s White House initiatives relies on promotional language and well-worn anecdotes, and the book’s final pages are just a shade away from an overt advertisement for the Obama Foundation. The memoir’s “bombshell” revelations, which the media has projected as revelations of the female condition writ large—a discussion of Obama’s use of fertility treatment to conceive her daughters, and of a period of her marriage in which “frustrations began to rear up often and intensely”—belie how much the rest of the text withholds. I suspect that some of Becoming’s power lies in the ways it employs the techniques of a novel more than those of a typical political memoir—in its honesty about human nature and ambivalence, yes, but also in its colorful and idiosyncratic details ... in its willingness to let anecdotes speak for themselves rather than pedantically spelling out their lessons. Becoming is frequently funny, sometimes indignant or enraged, and when Michelle describes her father’s early death from multiple sclerosis it turns rawly emotional. But despite how close we get to her voice here, it’s never quite close enough. She lets us into all kinds of memories, including tender recollections, romantic dates, and triumphant moments on the campaign trail. But for all her candidness, there is still a veil of privacy around the inner workings of this reluctant public figure. She draws the reader in, but pauses at arm’s length. Maybe this is all we can expect, in text, from this woman with so much presence. As she says herself, she’s more of a hugger. Even if Becoming is not always interesting, it is much more interesting than it needed to be to qualify as a successful first lady memoir. And as an example of how to walk the tightrope — how to seem charming but not like an intellectual lightweight; how to get things done without seeming threatening; how to do all of the impossible things we demand of women in general, of first ladies in particular, and of the first black first lady as an absolute — Becoming is a straight-up master class.
"An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. 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 if 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 describes 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. [This book] 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?"--Jacket. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)973.932092 — History and Geography North America United States 1901- Bush Administration And Beyond Barack Obama BiographiesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.44)
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