Follow our live review of Michelle Obamas memoir, Becoming
Featured Authors
Yotam Ottolenghi
Articles, Games and more...
About Penguin Random House UK
We asked author and Michelle Obama super fan, Candice Carty Williams, to share her experience of reading the most anticipated book of 2018,áBecoming. Read along with us and follow our live blog below.
Read along with Candice Carty Williams
Like you, I know very little about the much anticipatedáBecoming. What we do know is that its in three parts; Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Become More; detailing her upbringing, meeting Barack and starting a family, and how she and they have gone beyond being public figures. Michelle Obama is so unbelievably inspirational that the journeyáBecomingáwill take us on will undoubtedly allow, or even encourage, us to take something away from it, be these learnings big or small, and thats where I come in. Through my reading of the book, Ill be pulling out the best quotes, life lessons, tools for survival and strength, and reminders of howáweácan become our best selves.
You and I may never marry the most loved President of the United States of America, but we can all be certain that the words withináBecomingáwill assist us to flourish within our own worlds and stories. To say that Im excited about using Michelles life, teachings, and the determination that has propelled her consistently upwards as jumping off points to becoming my best self, is an understatement.
Read on for Candices live review
ę Callie Shell/Aurora Photos
As motivating as this book is, as it comes to a close, we go through the process of the Obamas leaving the White House and the election that preceded their departure. There are painful tragedies, too. Michelle speaks about the failure of Congress to pass a single gun control measure. She laments the shooting at Sandy Hook, as well as countless murders of young black men at the hands of American police, also the racially motivated shooting at an African Methodist church known as Mother Emanuel. áAnd while being told by so much of the American press that they, the Obamas, should feel responsible, We lived with it as a family, and we lived with it as a nation. And we carried on, as gracefully as we could. Michelle says, and you can almost hear her sigh.
And so from Michelle, through Becoming, we have learnt many lessons; we have understood how dignity, grace and knowing our self worth are some of the best tools in our arsenal. We have learnt to listen, to be open, to be real, and to be humble. Im an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey. she tells us.Ill leave the final teachings of the book for you to enjoy for yourselves, but as Michelle says in the last few pages: Its all a process, steps along a path. Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. And as I finish this live review, its Michelles conversation with her piano teaching aunt Robbie thats playing back in my mind.
How can you be mad at me for wanting to learn a new song?
Youre not ready for it. Thats not how you play piano.
But I am ready. I just played it.
Thats not how its done.
Thank you for reading
Join in the conversation withááand áand follow with IAmBecoming
Updated at 4:00 pm GMT
Its in the first half of Becoming Us, the third and final section of Becoming, that the main learnings from the struggles of Michelles life help her to deal with this new found fame, if it can be called that. She writes about being the only African American First Lady to set foot in the White House, understanding that she was other almost by default. Although aware of her difference, she was still humbled and excited, but not for one second did I think Id be sliding into some glamorous, easy role. Nobody who has the words first and black attached to them ever would. But, despite what we saw, the names she was called, the way the press attacked her, questioning her right to be there, Michelle managed to find a way to remind herself of who she was, and a way to keep telling herself that she was enough. Confidence, Id learned then, she writes, sometimes needs to be called within.
Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton
Updated at 3:00 pm GMT
asterisk taps mic asterisk áThank you all for coming to my TED talk. I would like to talk to you all today about the strong black woman. I would like to ask you why she is seen as angry. What lens has allowed for this tarnishing of a whole race of woman? I would like to remind you that women, all women, should be able to express whatever emotion theyre feeling; sometimes this emotion will be anger, and every time, this emotion will be justifiable. I would like to ask you why black women have been dubbed angry, even when theyre not, and I would like you to consider what it does to a person when they express a valid emotion and have it used so negatively and pejoratively against them?
As Michelle says, Its remarkable how a stereotype functions as an actual trap. How many angry black women have been caught in the circular logic of that phrase? When you arent being listened to, why wouldnt you get louder? If youre written off as angry or emotional, doesnt that cause more of the same?
Whats the lesson here? Black women get angry, and were allowed to. Weve been carrying pain for long enough. Thats the lesson here.
Updated at 2:20 pm GMT
It turns out that even two committed go getters with a deep love and a robust work ethic cant will themselves into getting pregnant. Michelle tells us, matter of factly. And then, she goes on to tell us that A miscarriage is a lonely, painful and demoralizing almost on a cellular level. ůWhat nobody tells you is that miscarriage happens all the time to more women than youd ever guess.... Talking seems to be the thing we need to take from this. While we shout about, Tweet and choose the best Instagram filter to broadcast our achievements, we dont tend to signpost our failures, though obviously thats not necessarily the best way to express when things dont work out. But, we know that we do need to talk, to someone, when we dont have a handle on things that wed like to be in our control.
Courtesy of the Obama Robinson family archive
Updated 12:30 pm GMT
Photo courtesy of the Obama Robinson Family Archives
Theres a lesson here: whatever field you may be in, if you see that a change needs to be made and Im guessing whatever field you might be in, it does , having conversations around how even the smallest changes can be put into place can ensure that the generation coming up below you are important, and might mean that the status quo is challenged. Im not recommending that you walk into your bosss office and demand that your company should only recruit people who are anti establishment, but you get the point.
Another reminder that Michelle is, like us, human, comes in the form of failure when shes trying to advance her career. This failure serves to remind us that sometimes, thats just what happens, and that youre forced to become your best self when you know what its like not to win. As much as these chapters are about Barack, and about their growing love that sees him propose in a very artful way, we learn about how Michelle is forced to navigate loss and grief; losing two people close to her in quick, brutal succession. She puts it best when she says The lesson there was simple: Life is short and not to be wasted. If thats not a word to the wise, I dont know what is.
Updated at 10:30 am GMT
Attending Princeton is as challenging a section of Becoming as you would expect. Princeton was extremely white and male. Men on campus outnumbered women almost two to one. Black students made up less than 9 percent of my freshman class. What follows is a big lesson in how to find your people in an institution and a space that doesnt really have you in mind. And even when you find your people, when youre different, youre still acutely aware that this system isnt set up for you. As she moves through her Princeton years, Michelle touches back on her early childhood, remarking that learning that your new white, male, privileged peers didnt have the same obstacles as you, and had various legs up in this world, is akin to standing on a stage, ready to play a piano recital, realising that the instrument youd learnt on had broken keys and looked nothing like the one in front of you. Your world shifts, but youre asked to adjust and overcome, to play your music the same as everyone else.
Photo courtesy of the Obama Robinson Family Archives
These are hard chapters to read in that theyre reminders that yes, minority and underprivileged and underrepresented people rise to these challenges all the time, but it takes energy to be the only black person in the lecture hall or one of a few non white people trying out for a play. But, as Michelle learns to navigate this, through hard work and surrounding herself with people she can relate to, its sharing a dorm room with her messy friend Suzanne, whose chaotic ways werent going to change, that I realise how I need to think about becoming my best self through acceptance. I see now that she provoked me in a good way, introducing me to the idea that not everyone needs to have their file folders labeled and alphabetized, or even to have files at all.
You wouldnt think it if you saw my desk, but I am a neat freak; my flat is pristine, I like order else Ill start having palpitations, and if you walk into my flat wearing your shoes I will call 999. I start to hyperventilate at the idea of sharing my home with someone else, and get low key agitated when I go away for the weekend with friends and they dont want to stick to my agenda. But, as Michelle says, There are simply other ways of being.
As we move out of Becoming me and into Becoming us, the only thing Ill give away is that Michelle was not impressed with Barack when they first met; she was annoyed that he was late to his first day in her office, and thought very little of the secretaries in her building saying that on top of his supposed brilliance, he was cute. I was skeptical of all of it. Michelle says. In my experience, you put a suit on any half intelligent black men and white people tended to go bonkers. How will I become my best self, as Michelle softens to let this odd named man in? Ill have to follow Michelles similarly not easily impressed leadů
Updated 9:30 am GMT
Photo courtesy of the Obama Robinson Family Archives
The thing that Ill take away from this section of the book is why its both important and not ľ to become stuck only on the negative of what someone in a position of authority you respect tells you, about you. When Michelle goes to meet her assigned school college counselor in her senior year, she is told, quite simply: Im not sure ..that youre Princeton material. A throwaway judgement based on nothing but prejudice that can, and will, have an impact within the recipient. Failure is a feeling long before its an actual result Michelle reminds us. áMost of us have been told we arent enough, or words like this, in some form, and while these judgements swamp our minds, and undoubtedly bog us down, they can also be the drive that pushes us to succeed. This reminds me of wanting to study English literature at degree level, but my tutor telling me that Id be better off doing Media studies, and that theyd only sign off my UCAS application if this was the degree Id apply for. I bit my tongue and did as they said, knowing that one day Id become bigger than what my tutors told me Id be.
Michelle writes that by now, shes met many extraordinary and accomplished people on her journey; from world leaders to professors, by way of artists and writers. What Ive learned is this: she tells us, All of them have had doubters. And what we will all learn, as we go on in whatever our careers and life choices are; is that by becoming the best version of ourselves, by having faith in the uniqueness that we have to offer, and having confidence in what life has taught us, by having faith in our own story, we can prevail. Its a hard thing to remember when we feel rejected, or like were not good enough, but its often the dragging ourselves up when we face this self doubt that reminds us that we are enough.
Updated 7:00 am GMT
The sound of people tryingů became the soundtrack to our life. are among the opening words ofáBecoming. It is thisátryingáthat acts as a motif to the first two chapters of the book that, instead of starting at the very beginning ľ the birth of this brilliant woman that is just as much of an icon as her husband ľ sees Michelle as she begins to navigate what life is, and her and her familys space within it. We already know that Michelle Obama, nee Robinson, came from humble beginnings, growing up in a small apartment in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, but what were shown as the book begins is the real texture of this living, and how it shapes a young, black child understanding what the world is, against the backdrop of the death of the Kennedys and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
courtesy of the Obama Robinson Family Archive
We see that while the politics of America are shifting in inexplicable ways, family is what matters. Michelle and her parents, Fraser and Marian and her brother Craig, all live in a small apartment in a larger house owned by her Aunt Robbie, a piano teacher, and her husband Terry. Her parents live in the bedroom, and the room that Michelle shares with her brother is technically a living room, divided by cheap wooden panelling constructed into a makeshift partition.áIts through Michelles determination to learn piano that we can take our first lesson in becoming our best selves; the keys on Robbies piano had a subtle unevenness of color and shape, places where bits of the ivory had broken off over time, leaving them looking like a bad set of teeth. The setting might not necessarily be perfect, but if were determined to do something, we must adapt ourselves to make it work. As we go on to learn about these epic and trying piano lessons, an argument Michelle has with her Aunt Robbie is a lesson in patience, and in taking our time:
How can you be mad at me for wanting to learn a new song?
Youre not ready for it. Thats not how you play piano.
But Iáamáready. I just played it.
Thats not how its done.
This is how Im going to become my most patient self when I feel that inevitable frustration at wanting to move things forward even when I might think Im ready.
Its in chapter two that I realise were in for a wildly emotional ride, and that even though I think Im a patient person, Ive got nothing on Michelles dad. Michelle and her family take what should be a pleasant enough trip to the suburbs, but its one that leaves a mark both physically, and deep in her memory. Through this we can see, fully formed, where her quiet, composed understanding of adversity comes from. A trip to visit family friends, the lightest skinned black people wed ever met, in the mainly white suburbs ends horribly. Theyd driven there in her fathers Buick, a car that was essentially an extension of him, and when they go to leave, ůsomeone had scratched a line across the side of his beloved Buick. It had been done with a key or a rock and was in no way accidental. But, instead of kicking up a fuss, with quiet dignity, they all get in the car and drive home. They dont try to find out who did it; instead, they dont visit the suburbs again, and her dad simply gets the car fixed. I doubt that this will be the last time we see they go low, we go high at play...
Michelle Robinson Obama served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Mrs. Obama started her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband, Barack Obama. She later worked in the Chicago mayors office, at the University of Chicago, and at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Mrs. Obama also founded the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an organization that prepares young people for careers in public service. The Obamas currently live in Washington, DC, and have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
For the latest books, recommendations, offers and more
Please enter an email.
Please enter a valid email address
By signing up, I confirm that Im over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit ourá
Subscription failed, please try again
Follow Penguin Random House UK
1995 2019
Penguin Books Ltd.
Registered number: 861590 England.
Registered office: 80 Strand, London,
Penguin Books Limited
For more infomation >> 【伊泉】探索糕估古蹟 | Follow Me！伊泉帶你夜探古蹟！【Minecraft】（CC字幕） - Duration: 9:47. 
For more infomation >> I'd Follow You - Chicago PD (Episode Highlight) - Duration: 1:28. 
For more infomation >> £86m Chelsea star N'Golo Kante could follow Eden Hazard out as CL giants make approach over transfer - Duration: 2:37. 
For more infomation >> farm fire follow - Duration: 1:14. 
For more infomation >> FARMNGTON FIRE FOLLOW UP - Duration: 2:10. 
For more infomation >> Girard Church Follow-Up - Duration: 1:55. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét