Book: Becoming, Michelle Obama

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I didn’t know too much about Michelle Obama, except that I found her incredibly graceful and have a huge amount of respect for Barack Obama. This book gives a wonderful insight into her life and her relationship with Barack Obama, American politics and life at the White House. Years ago I had started to read The Bridge ~ The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, but found it incredibly cumbersome; I appreciated that it helped me to understand the complexity of American politics, but really didn’t enjoy it.

Michelle Obama comes across as very down to earth, really love and resonate with all her values and the way that she thinks and does things. I did have a giggle that she is super neat and tidy and Barack not so much (made me feel considerably better seeing that I lean more towards being more on the untidy side!).

What I found incredibly fascinating was, the security around the American president. It is obvious, but just never thought of it:

'Exactly on cue, something massive came around the corner: a snaking, vehicular army that included a phalanx of police cars and motorcycles, a number of black SUV’s, two armoured limousines with American flags mounted on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation truck, a counterassault team riding with machine guns visible, an ambulance, a signals truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles, several passenger vans, and another group of police escorts. The presidential motorcade. It was at least twenty vehicles long, moving in orchestrated formation, car after car after car, before finally the whole fleet rolled to a quiet halt, and the limos stopped directly in front of Barack’s parked plane.

I turned to Cornelius. “Is there a clown car?” I said, “Seriously, this is what he’s going to travel with now?”

He smiled. “Every day for his entire presidency, yes” he said. “It’s going to look like this all the time.”

I took in the spectacle: thousands and thousands of pounds of metal, a squad of commandos, bulletproof everything. I had yet to grasp that Barack’s protection was still only half-visible. I didn’t know that he’d also, at times, have a nearby helicopter ready to evacuate him, that sharpshooters would position themselves on rooftops along the routes he travelled, that a personal physician would always be with him in case of a medical problem, or that the vehicle he rode in contained a store of blood of the appropriate type in case he ever needed a transfusion.

What she and Barack did during their time as First Lady of the United States [FLOTUS] and President of the United States [POTUS] is just incredible.  

Highly inspiring and recommendable read.