Becoming by Michelle Obama

Becoming by Michelle Obama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The memoir started out slowly and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to my hopes and expectations. Turned out, it far exceeded my expectations. At one point, having burst into tears so many times during reading it, I started keeping count: I cried 6 times. Her parents are so amazing. Her love for her husband is the real kind of love that is based on mutual respect and sacrifice. Her love for her home neighborhood, and especially the kids there, and really, children throughout America, it's a lot to get through without some serious tears.

Also, Michelle Obama is definitely not running for office. I believe her. This is practically an essay on "I'm sorry, I love you too, and I know you want me to run, but I did my time and I'm never going back to the political world. Here is why."

One of her big points is how much we can do, and should do, to move our society forward and to help the most disadvantaged outside of politics. We should vote, yes, but we should also do things to actually help. But she doesn't make this point by lecturing us, she makes this point just by showing her own struggles and hopes so that we see our struggles and hopes are normal too. And here's a thing that I actually got from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, but is illustrated very clearly in this book: we don't need huge groups of people to change the world (though we certainly have millions of Americans on our side) we just need a few very determined hard-working people to make big important positive changes.

View all my reviews