Becoming by Michelle Obama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Don’t miss this book! Michelle Obama is a great role-model!
First out, I want to laud the title of the book! It’s such a thoughtful title to indicate the different stages in life as outlined in the book - becoming me, becoming us, becoming more. Always transient!
More than wife of the first Black President of the United States or the first Black First Lady, this book simply shows how there’s so much more to Michelle Obama than these titles.
BECOMING ME
The book begins outlining her journey from growing up in a small apartment with her parents and brother Craig in a loving environment with great emphasis on values like hard-work, integrity, respectful among others. Her persistent piano lessons and her mother advocating to move Michelle and other high-performing kids into the advanced class in elementary school instilled the confidence in young Michelle to be detail-oriented, work relentlessly, fight for herself and do everything one can to achieve her goals. This attitude also helped her navigate through high school Whitney Young and prove her counselor who’d announced that ‘she’s not Princeton material’ wrong. From her first time being away from home in a majorly white college like Princeton to her time in Harvard Law School, at every step she proved that with hard-work, grit and determination you can still earn a place at the table despite being from a minority. She ended up working for a white-collar job at the firm Sidley & Austin in Chicago and thinking she’d done it all.
BECOMING US
During her time at Sidley, she was assigned to advise a young intern Barack Obama who’d already created a stir even with his knowledge and achievements way before his arrival at the firm. Her life swerved drastically at every step from this point on. Her desire to not be a just another lawyer coupled with Barack Obama’s passion to work to serve and bring about positive changes in the community helped her take the leap of leaving the law firm, working at the City Hall in Chicago, meeting mentors and life-long friends like Valerie Jarret to working on social issues with non-profit groups and then taking a job to handle community affairs at University of Chicago.
At this point, I’d like to highlight that she suffered miscarriage before conceiving Malia and Sasha through IVF. She talks about how it helps to know that one’s not to be blamed for this, nor to be considered broken or a failure. She mentions that talking with friends and knowing that she was not going through it alone helped her get through the hard time. This was during the time of Barack Obama working as a Senator out of Springfield and her living her life with family in Chicago. It’s simply heart-warming to know about how she struggled to let her husband get into politics when she personally despised the idea and was greatly cynical about it.
It’s so inspiring to watch her transition from an accomplished professional to a non-profit worker to accommodating her husband’s ambitions, suffering a deep loss of her unborn baby and also her father, taking care of two young daughters and also working as a tremendous campaigner for her husband’s countless rallies across the country. She gives hope to women around the world that one can truly do it all in varying capacities and be happy. Of course she had struggles, but one needs to keep giving their best everyday and leave the rest.
BECOMING MORE
With her life changing tremendously since arriving in White House, she faced diverse set of challenges from raising young children in a highly-protected environment to letting them have a normal childhood, to working as a First Lady to bring changes in causes like child-health, care for veterans and families serving the military, growing vegetables to promote good health, etc. Couple this with endless receptions, galas, visits across the globe, meeting the Queen of England, Pope, young women at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school in London among many others.
The book inches the end when we realize how much she’s achieved as a First Lady backed up by all her experiences before assuming this role. It’s very heartening to watch her journey as she grew from a shy kid to a confident woman who’s inspiring millions of people around the world. Her charm, dedication, warmth, hard-work and are all illustrious of the all that has made her the influential person she is. Her story is one that we now know. Similarly, we all own our stories and it’s in our hands to make it celebrated and help our communities grow into a better version of themselves.
PS - It’s also worth commending the unwavering support provided by Barack Obama through all the years of them being together. Their love, support, respect and sacrifices for one another are evident in every picture, video or interview you watch or read of them. They are a true testimony of a successful partnership through times that only a few have lived through.
In the end, I can not recommend this book enough to anyone and everyone. There are life-lessons that you can come and visit over and over again. It’s a timeless, inspirational story which is still becoming. I’d like to thank Michelle Obama to write her story. I consider myself immensely fortunate to have been living in same time as her and keep learning from her life.
View all my reviews