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A review by frenchtoast_n_books
マイ・ストーリー / by Michelle Obama
4.0
I'll admit, I knew next to nothing about Michelle Obama other than the obvious: former First Lady and advocate for healthy eating and exercise with her child initiatives as First Lady. That is quite shallow, so I'm glad I read this and learned about her inspiring life going from a child brought up in a working class home to a laywer graduating from Ivy League schools to a wife and mother to the First Lady and beyond.
She explains how her life begins each new stage and that life is a continuous phase of becoming, and I loved that. I cried so much when her dad passed away because the way she explains her feelings, even though years had past between then and writing her book, hit home. I have felt everything she described in her book since the passing on my own father 10 months ago.
My only constructive critique is that the writing was slow or blocky in sections that made the reading process slow. This is common for me with memoirs and (auto)biographies because it is a life telling, not a fictional arc.
Another thing that stands out is a passage near the end where Michelle Obama talks about a dream she had. Though I enjoyed the dream itself, I disliked its introduction. It didn't fit with the flow of the story and made that chapter feel disjointed from the rest of the story. I think, I would have liked the story of the dream better if given context before its telling rather than it starting the chapter.
Those critiques aside, I did enjoy each moment as I took them in. It took me months to read this so I could process everything and I think that is the best way for me to have read this book.
She explains how her life begins each new stage and that life is a continuous phase of becoming, and I loved that. I cried so much when her dad passed away because the way she explains her feelings, even though years had past between then and writing her book, hit home. I have felt everything she described in her book since the passing on my own father 10 months ago.
My only constructive critique is that the writing was slow or blocky in sections that made the reading process slow. This is common for me with memoirs and (auto)biographies because it is a life telling, not a fictional arc.
Another thing that stands out is a passage near the end where Michelle Obama talks about a dream she had. Though I enjoyed the dream itself, I disliked its introduction. It didn't fit with the flow of the story and made that chapter feel disjointed from the rest of the story. I think, I would have liked the story of the dream better if given context before its telling rather than it starting the chapter.
Those critiques aside, I did enjoy each moment as I took them in. It took me months to read this so I could process everything and I think that is the best way for me to have read this book.