I believe you can tell a lot from a person by the company they choose to keep; especially their life partner. Now that I've learned more about this amazing woman, I respect Michelle and Barack even more than I did before. How we went from two intelligent, well-educated, wonderful people to an orange buffoon and his fashion model wife, I'll probably never understand.
Becoming describes the journey from Michelle's childhood to White House and all the struggles and joy in between. This is a well-written memoir and a well-read audiobook by the author herself that held by attention until the epilogue.
Michelle is very well-spoken - clear and articulate down to the last letter of every word. It was interesting to hear about her grade-school struggle to pronounce the word, 'white' in elementary school and being told by her high school advisor that she wasn't Princeton material. She's come a long way since then! Not only did she get into Princeton, she graduated at the top of her class.
She kept her nose down and did what she wanted and proceeded to Harvard law school. She kept on the straight and narrow and landed a six-figure job at a fancy law firm where she met Barack - where her life started to 'swerve' as she like to refer to it. She was not fulfilled at this job, so she switched gears and took a pay cut of about half of her previous salary. She reiterated this fact several times in the book, so it's clear she was sore about it, but happier.
Barack is a fascinating character. He is apparently a little bit unpredictable and likes to 'swerve' as Michelle likes to put it. I was a bit shocked to find out right getting married to Michelle, he left her for over a month to write a book, "Dreams from My Father". He was heavily into reading books and figured writing one could make them some money - and it did! He also had his story to tell. It's a little unclear if even Barack knew he would eventually get into politics. Michelle certainly didn't know until much later on in their relationship, after they got married. Unfortunately Barack had to spend a lot of time away from both Michelle and eventually their children as he got sucked further into his legislative career.
It is pretty clear that Michelle was never a huge fan of politics - she even states this at the very end of this book. She also never plans on running for office. In the end, she did agree to go on this rollercoaster ride with Barack, and I don't think she regrets it, but it wasn't quite the life she initially saw for them. She is well aware of the dangers of being in the public spotlight. She was very honest about how she feels about Donald Trump and the hateful and dangerous things that come out of his horrid mouth. From the birther conspiracy that Trump peddled, among other things, put her family at risk and she clearly says she'll never forgive him. It's incredible what people will believe as face-value. When someone in the public eye makes any kind of statement, large amounts of people are likely to believe it without proof. I was surprised to learn about that the white house was fired upon while Obama was in office. Luckily they were in Hawaii at the time.
In any case, when you are literally helping to lead the country and consequently changing the world, there are many sacrifices you'll have to make. Michelle took full advantage of this responsibility, in a positive way. Unlike the current first lady - who is trying to stop cyber bullying (which is an absolute joke since her husband is the biggest bully of them all - especially on Twitter, Hello!), and wearing jackets in public that says in large letters, "I really don't care do you?", Michelle used her intelligence, class, common sense, and charisma to drive positive change.
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