Skip to main content
Becoming, by Michelle Obama
My rating: 10/10

Former First Lady Michelle Obama tells the story of her previously unknown personal life in stunning prose. Covering everything from childhood, law school, and romance to work-life balance, the campaign trail, and her children, she lays out her life, decisions, and identity with impressive clarity.

This book had a lot of insight about Michelle Obama finding her identity- which includes her struggle with race and gender. She talked about bringing more racial diversity to the table where she worked, and about the push back she received for the color of her skin. Becoming also contained a lot of ideas that seem really important right now about gender equality- including her sharing her experience as First Lady, having to deal with sexism from all across the board. I enjoyed that she was able to bring these issues into the light and talk about how these factors influenced both her and other women in politics.

One pleasant aspect about this book was the writing; I wasn't expecting great writing, since it's an autobiography and since I've never read anything by Michelle Obama before, but it was surprisingly very well done.

This book will bring you into the life of the former First Lady of the United States, and I would highly recommend it.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett Discworld Series, book 31 My rating: 8/10 When Polly Perks' brother goes missing, presumably captured in the war between Zlobenia and Borogravia, Polly must cut her hair and leave her work as a barmaid to find him. Pretending to be a man, she joins the army and is added to a small regiment called "the Ins-and-Outs", in which she soon discovers there are more secrets than hers alone. The main reason this story has such a high rating is the strong female leads. Although he has some strong female characters, like Tiffany Aching, Susan Death, and the witches, he is not famed for all the women he writes. The writing in this book is also done very well, incorporating his trademark humour into the writing without letting it overly influence the plot.  That said, there are things that still need work.  I did not give this book a 10/10. He still includes some stereotypes about women, and though I would include an example, it would ...
Snuff,  by Terry Pratchett Discworld Series, book 39 My rating: 3/10 Finally, after pressure from his wife, child, the tyrant of the city, and half the City Watch, Sam Vimes takes a vacation to the Ramkin Hall, now belonging to him. The City Watch Commander and a policeman to the bone, he loathes the peace and quiet of the small country community- but that may not be an issue. He soon discovers the game of crocket, the local pub, and- murder? The premise of this book was fairly original, but still not my favorite. I normally love the Watch books, and as this is the 39th book and the last Watch book, I was looking forwards to it.   I have several main qualms with this book. A lot of the humour in this book comes from Sam Vimes Jr’s favorite book, “The World of Poop”, and his increasing interest in scatology. This is not my kind of joke; I really don’t enjoy it at all, and in a way it felt like degrading the serious character of Sam Vimes, who has fought everything fro...
Flash Fiction Forward,  by James Thomas and Robert Shapard My rating: 6/10 This collection of vivid, minimalistic stories tells many creative ideas and theories. From a date with a neanderthal to a phone scamming operation to a mesmerist, these flash fiction pieces will have you hooked. While it's true that flash fiction can sometimes be hard to engage with, and it's certainly not for everyone, I did enjoy this book. If you're not looking to read the whole book straight through, some of the best stories are Sashimi Cashmere, Traditional Indian Style Garage, Fruit Series, Travelling Alone, Quill, and Three Soldiers. My all time favorite from  Flash Fiction Forward  is a tie between The Orange and The Death of the Short Story. They were both very creative and well written, as well as poignant and balanced. However, not all the stories were as good as those ones, and I have to say that most of them seemed to end the same way: with depression about life, or death. ...