Becoming
4.8 | 205,352 ratings
Price: 19.69
Last update: 02-07-2026
Product details
- Listening Length : 19 hours and 3 minutes
- Author : Michelle Obama
- Narrator : Michelle Obama
- Publication date : November 13, 2018
- Language : English
- Publisher : Random House Audio
- ASIN : B07B3JQZCL
- Version : Unabridged
- Program Type : Audiobook
- Best Sellers Rank:#304 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
- Biographies of Politicians
- Women's Biographies
- Biographies of Women
- Customer Reviews:4.84.8 out of 5 stars(205,313)
Top reviews from the United States
- Judi Easley for a thoughtful revealA wonderful read no matter your politics!Becoming
Michelle Obama
Random House, Nov 2018
429 pages, Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback, Audio book, Audio CD
Memoirs/Bios, Women’s Lit, History, Ethnic/Cultural
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Purchased
The cover is perfect with its large, captivating close-up of the former First Lady, Michelle Obama, who is the author and subject of this book. It shows her smiling, as I always think of her, but with her hand on her cheek and her arm across the front of her body as if in protection. Perhaps after all the nation put her through, she learned to protect herself and her family, but she still maintains her sense of fun and humor through it all.
The story is of her life from the time she was a young girl growing up on the Southside of Chicago as part of a poor black family. She knew they were poor, but it didn’t seem to be the defining sense in her young life. A sense of family, love, and the ability to be and do whatever she wanted was more the rule. And Michelle liked rules and guidelines. They gave her a path to follow, and follow she did. All the way through school and into college and law school, Princeton and Harvard Law School. She strived to follow the rules, and the rules said to succeed, so she did. All the way to a top law firm where she was successful, too.
Then along came a different sort of success story. A young black lawyer who didn’t seem to follow the rules, but who seemed to be seen as super desirable by all the law firms, including hers. She was his mentor for awhile as he tried out the firm. Then he shocked her when he suggested that they go out together as a couple. The rest, as they say, is history. Barack and Michelle became.
Michelle Obama shares the story of her relationship with Barack, her parents and friends and then their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, as if we were sitting in her living room drinking lemonade with her on a hot summer day. She shares painful memories and happy memories. She shares the highs and the lows of the journey from successful lawyer to former First Lady. From first date to last looks at the White House and saying goodbye to the staff. She shares it all in a very open way. There is no finger pointing here, just memories of things that took place and the feelings that went with them. A husband in the oval office and the sense of isolation that went with living in the White House…not being able to open windows or got out on the lawn for fear of security breaches. Trying to raise two daughters as normally as possible and still satisfy the security services people without scaring the people around the girls at school. Slipping out with Bo and going to Petsmart to buy him a dog toy without security. The many trials and tribulations, successes and satisfactions that came with the efforts and events planned and carried out during the Obama years. The many friends she made that remained close, life-long friends.
No matter your political position, this woman’s story is fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys reading about people, especially women, strong women and how they make their way in life. Tears, smiles, and high fives, this is a great book for anyone! - Manny OlawaleGreat Read“Becoming” by former First Lady, Michelle Obama is my book for the month of February. It tells the story of a young black girl born and raised on the south side of Chicago, by struggling but hard working parents who gave her and her brother, Craig the gift of love, security and education. The parents spared no expense when it came to education so as to give Michelle and Craig leverages in life and open them to opportunities the parents never had.
Obama chronicled her experience growing up in a poor neighborhood, attending public schools where students were not expected to be Ivy-league bound, yet she persevered, worked hard and disregarded the negative remark of a guidance counselor who told her that she was not suited for Princeton University.
She ended up attending Princeton University for her undergraduate degree, then to Harvard Law School for her law degree. “Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work,” she writes.
While she was a junior associate at a prestigious law firm in Chicago, she was assigned to mentor a second year law student, who was interning at the firm that year. That intern was Barack Obama. Their professional relationship, blossomed into friendship, then they fell in love and eventually got married, creating a formidable union of Ivy League educated intellectuals with shared values of hard work, altruism, self-respect, respect for others and the vision to make the world a better place.
“Becoming” reveals both the strength and vulnerabilities of Obama’s marriage, she recounts their inability to initially conceive and miscarriages they experienced , and their resort to in vitro fertilization (IVF) to create their two daughters. It tells of the couple’s marital issues brought on by the changing dynamics of parenting, professional life and politics and the solution they found through marriage counseling.
“Becoming” gives insight into the marriage of the former first couple, the political rise of Barack Obama, the eight years of the historical presidency, the challenges and accomplishments.
“Becoming” is inspirational, it engenders faith to strive for more in spite of the negative factors. In the writer’s own words, “becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end...Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.”
This best seller is a must read with fluid writing style that arrests the reader from the first page to the last.