"Becoming" by Michelle Obama

My friends Gordon and Bob told me about a show I had not heard of before called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” with David Letterman on Netflix. Jeff and I watched our first episode, an interview with Barak Obama. During the interview, the fact that first ladies do not get a salary came up. My jaw dropped. For all the work Michelle Obama did in the White House, she didn’t get paid?! What a crime. But the wonderful interview with the President reminded me how much I loved Michelle’s memoir “Becoming.” There is a realness that comes through during her television interviews that permeates nearly every page of this book. She grew up on the South side of Chicago with her older brother Craig, mother Marian, and dad Frank, who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis. Frank worked hard to support his family, despite his disability. She went to Princeton and later Harvard Law School, and then got a job as a lawyer in Chicago.  It was at her law firm that she met a new associate named Barak Obama. She describes how they fell in love, got married and then started to raiser their two daughters as working parents. We get to see during their early married life how different they are. Michelle is always on time and organized, while Barak is disorganized with his things, and often unapologetically late. There are so many great moments in this book including this one: When she was working she tried to cram all of her mom errands into her lunch break, while eating a Chipotle burrito bowl, in her car, in between stops. “I excelled at the lunchtime blitz – the replacing of lost socks, the purchasing of gifts for whatever five-year-old was having a birthday party on Saturday, the stocking and restocking of juice boxes and single serving apple sauce cups.” The honesty and richness of her story, before and after their time in the White House, are fascinating. The only problem with this book is that it had to end. I hope she will write more. In the meantime, after you read the book, follow it up with “Becoming” on Netflix, which chronicled her history-making book tour. She is riveting to read, and even more so to watch.  To purchase this book on Amazon click here.