My husband was surprised Becoming would be chosen, that thought had not cross my mind. Reason for his surprise? We are not conservative, but we live in a conservative area. Educated liberal minded people, here, tread carefully. All people, locally, mostly avoid sensitive topics. It is a bit odd the librarian would select this book.
I remembered, the month before, at our previous meeting, two women were hesitating over picking up a copy of Becoming, because they were worried it might be political. That thought had not crossed my mind either. But I agreed - absolutely do not want to read a political book, these days, from any perspective.
So is it a political book? To me no, not really.
It is mostly the story of black families. It is mostly the story of black women. It is the story of trying to find enough time in the day to do everything.
Yes, it is politics/government related. Yes, the history is included. The political voice is stronger at the very end, but not in a preachy way, in my opinion.
I considered a similar story could likely be told by a corporate executive or other famous people in the public eye, scrutinized by the press/public opinion, whose safety is at risk.
I liked Becoming by Michelle Obama, it was well written, but it was not compelling to me. It never drew me in, I had to keep pushing myself to listen. It took me nearly a week to finish Becoming by Michelle Obama, instead of my normal 2 days.
Ms Obama reads her own audio book, she is an excellent reader.
I used the audio pace of 1.30 which sounded very normal to me, no chipmunks. (My normal pace is 1.20.) This 1.30 pace reduced the length from 19 hours to 14.6 hours. I tried to listen 3-4 hours a day each of the 5 days before my meeting, but somehow found myself having to finish 3+ hours the morning of my meeting. This is very unusual.
Here’s a very nice bio for Ms Obama -
https://www.obamalibrary.gov/obamas/first-lady-michelle-obama
I maintain accounts on GoodReads and StoryGraph, thanks to youngest getting me organized.
StoryGraph -
In each book post, I utilize https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/
This is a wonderful website that helps clarify the publication order of books and verifies book series. I use this website because there are no spoilers. But if I need a description, I can click over using the links, easily. There are also author bios.
