Michelle Obama's memoir traces her path from a working-class childhood on Chicago's South Side, through Princeton and Harvard Law School, to a career as a lawyer and hospital executive, and ultimately to the White House. She writes candidly about marriage, motherhood, and the strain of public scrutiny as a Black woman thrust into an institution never built with her in mind, alongside the causes she championed as First Lady. It is both a personal history and a meditation on finding one's own voice inside other people's expectations.
Books mentioned in Becoming (6)
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama: “Barack was writing what would become The Audacity of Hope—thinking through his beliefs and his vision for the country, threshing them into words on his legal pads late at night.”
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: “Barack flew to Bali and spent about five weeks living alone with his thoughts while working on a draft of his book Dreams from My Father, filling yellow legal pads with his fastidious handwriting, distilling his ideas during languid daily walks amid the coconut palms and lapping tide.”
Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling: “playing on the floor with the girls, reading Harry Potter out loud with Malia at night, laughing at my jokes and hugging me, reminding us of his love and steadiness before vanishing again for another half a week or more.”
What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff: “She was there, always, while I was driving to work, or chopping vegetables for a salad, or lying in bed at night, poring over the pages of What to Expect When You're Expecting for the nine hundredth time.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica: “They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopaedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold.”
Jack and the Beanstalk: “He was like the little boy from "Jack and the Beanstalk," I teased, who trades his family's livelihood for a handful of magic beans, believing with his whole heart that they will yield something, even if no one else does.”