Obama, Michelle "Becoming"

Obama, Michelle "Becoming" - 2018

This book was everything I expected it to be. It was smart, witty, funny, warm. It was like the picture I have from the author, her husband, her family, what a loving family they are. A couple I have admired from the first time I saw them, who never disappointed, who were the hope for the whole world, the hope that everything can get better if we are only willing. What a shame so many didn't understand that.

It was so lovely to hear about her growing up in an ever increasing racist world with nothing to begin with and how her parents, herself and her brother worked toward a better future for themselves and their loved ones. It was lovely to hear about her first steps in a busy professional world and how she met her husband. It was lovely to hear how they decided things together, how they raised their girls to become confident citizens of this world.

It was lovely to hear how they cared for others, no matter what their skin colour, their religion, anything. How they really live the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. How they are great examples on how we should lead our lives. What a wonderful couple. What a strong woman, what a caring husband.

I did not know everything that she introduced during their time in the white house. I knew the Obamas were very much in favour of health care, I knew they supported the military, especially the families who often get forgotten when it comes to honouring soldiers. But the way she cared for children and their health, her idea of mentoring young women to grow in society, just wonderful.

I know they will still do a lot for their country and thereby for the rest of the world, no matter where they are.

I am happy to have read this book. Michelle Obama will always have a special place in my heart.

From the back cover:

"In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private. A deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations.

'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.

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?'"

I have also read her husband's books and can only recommend them from the bottom of my heart.
"Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" - 1995
"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" - 2006
"Of Thee I Sing" - 2010
"A Promised Land" - 2020