My Thoughts on Becoming by Michelle Obama

“I spent most of my childhood listening to the sound of striving.” –Michelle Obama

This is the way that Becoming opens. This opening sentence and thought shapes what you are about to read in the book. In a no-holds barred work of brilliance, this memoir had me at the very first sentence. I always loved me some Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, but this book made me feel like I was a sister-friend of hers, chatting over tea with Aretha Franklin playing in the background and knowing glances being shared over bonding moments.

Becoming is a book for every woman to read. No matter your political affiliation, color, religious background, or profession—it is a book that shares the story of a woman who evolved into a powerhouse who would also becoming the First Lady of the United States.

We are not worthy of this woman.

“Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result.”

With wise quotes like this, you are compelled to look within to water those parts of you that have been wilted away.

While reading this book, you experience joy, pain, redemption, love, but most of all—growth.

If you don’t read anything else this year, you must read Becoming.

Broken up into four parts, Becoming is a fantastic memoir, and it has been worth the wait. The Former First Lady (but she is Forever Flotus to me, given today’s unfortunate political climate) takes us through her humble childhood and upbringing in Chicago’s South Side. We learn about her family, her relationships with her mother and older brother, her father who had an ailing disease, and an array of relatives. Michelle shares her teen years, college, career life, and of course, the moment when she met Barack Obama, who would go on to become the 44th president of the United States.

We’ve known about her through the public fodder of her role as the wife of a community activist, turned Senator, turned candidate, turned President, but in Becoming, we get to really know who this woman is.

I encourage you to read this book and share it with everyone that you know. Read it with your daughters and sons and mentees and people who you care about.

We are evolving and becoming the women we are meant to be. Told in Michelle O’s poignant, yet down-to-earth tone, this book will propel you to go to new heights while giving you a newfound appreciation of an amazing wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and attorney turned public health advocate, turned one of the most admired women in the world.

I get to see Michelle Obama in person during her Becoming book tour stop in Detroit Michigan in a few weeks. I cannot wait!

Have you read Becoming by Michelle Obama? What are your thoughts?