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A review by danireneewood
Becoming by Michelle Obama
5.0
Though I still have about two weeks of reading left, it's safe to say that Becoming is my favorite title of the year. I read through a good number of memoirs and biographies this year, as it was a goal of mine to expand my reading to genres that I hadn't spent much time visiting before. Becoming was highly anticipated for me, not just because of the media hype surrounding it, but because of the amount of respect I already had for Michelle Obama.
This title reaffirmed what I already felt and believed.
Though her life experience has been anything but ordinary, she wrote in such a way that she could be related to. Her experience in dealing with the grief of losing her father particularly stuck with me, having lost my own father earlier in life than I'd ever dreamed of.
"It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you'd otherwise find beautiful--a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids-and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way."
It was the small moments like this while reading, and moments like this in every book that I read, that contribute to that shared human experience, done in only the way that writing can.
I felt my chest clench up at her struggle in balancing the trials of working to become a mother, be a mother, and balance her professional life, a life she had worked so hard to create, even though I am not a mother myself. The difficult choices faced by women every day around the world presented powerfully, and in a method that hopefully many are able to read and understand.
It's clear to me that the life of a First Lady is sacrifices: sacrifices of your day-to-day privacy, your normal habits, time with your family, and husband. It's also clear to me that she experienced trials beyond that, dealing with racist thoughts and comments from a public who have long claimed that such thoughts no longer pervade our shared consciousness.
"When you aren't being listened to, why wouldn't you get louder? If you're written off as angry or emotional, doesn't that just cause more of the same?
Michelle Obama as FLOTUS was loud in her elegance, composure, intelligence, and more. This read has only made me more certain of that.
In a time where divisiveness rules, where it's easy to spew rude comments and hate over digital media, where loving others seems fewer and farther between, it's passages like the one below that we as Americans and individuals the world over could hear more often:
"Let's invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become."
This title reaffirmed what I already felt and believed.
Though her life experience has been anything but ordinary, she wrote in such a way that she could be related to. Her experience in dealing with the grief of losing her father particularly stuck with me, having lost my own father earlier in life than I'd ever dreamed of.
"It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you'd otherwise find beautiful--a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids-and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way."
It was the small moments like this while reading, and moments like this in every book that I read, that contribute to that shared human experience, done in only the way that writing can.
I felt my chest clench up at her struggle in balancing the trials of working to become a mother, be a mother, and balance her professional life, a life she had worked so hard to create, even though I am not a mother myself. The difficult choices faced by women every day around the world presented powerfully, and in a method that hopefully many are able to read and understand.
It's clear to me that the life of a First Lady is sacrifices: sacrifices of your day-to-day privacy, your normal habits, time with your family, and husband. It's also clear to me that she experienced trials beyond that, dealing with racist thoughts and comments from a public who have long claimed that such thoughts no longer pervade our shared consciousness.
"When you aren't being listened to, why wouldn't you get louder? If you're written off as angry or emotional, doesn't that just cause more of the same?
Michelle Obama as FLOTUS was loud in her elegance, composure, intelligence, and more. This read has only made me more certain of that.
In a time where divisiveness rules, where it's easy to spew rude comments and hate over digital media, where loving others seems fewer and farther between, it's passages like the one below that we as Americans and individuals the world over could hear more often:
"Let's invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become."