It took me much longer to finish reading this book than I care to admit, but not because it's a difficult read—on the contrary, I find Michelle Obama’s writing super accessible and digestible. Rather, for me, this was in some ways a (not the) right book at a (not the) right time. For the season of life that I currently find myself in, this book gave me a lot to think about, mainly in the first half which I found much more personally compelling than the second half (when she recounts Barack’s political career, candidacy, and presidency, maybe because we are all much more familiar with that story). 

It was just so unexpectedly relatable for me. To be clear, on paper, Michelle Obama and I are quite different. I’m 17 years younger than she, white, and grew up far from Chicago both geographically and culturally (although I feel compelled to mention both my parents grew up on Chicago’s South Side). But as she tells the story of her childhood/adolescence/college years/working motherhood years, there was a lot that resonated with me and that I felt was so relatable to my own life experiences, mainly around academic achievement, career development, and imposter syndrome. And those super relatable bits kept stopping me in my tracks while reading to think deeply about my own life and experiences, and what direction my life is headed next. 

I admit, I did expect the relatability moments to slow down significantly during the White House years (because there’s only a minuscule fraction of the population who have ever experienced living in the White House). But even as she describes living with 24 hour security detail and constant judgement from literally the entire world, she was able to tap into that relatability by describing how really kinda bonkers that lifestyle truly is, especially for a previously very middle class family who’d enjoyed much more freedom of movement prior to entering into the very hermetic life that is living in the White House.

(And for those living in hope or expectation that Michelle Obama will one day run for president, forget about it—she’s unequivocal in her messaging that she wants no part of that ever again. And honestly, who could blame her?)

Finishing the last 30 pages or so of the book at the time that I did was actually painful (during the first month of the second Trump administration). She spends those pages talking about all that she and Barack achieved during his presidency. It was a lot that very clearly benefited so many Americans, especially amongst the more marginalized groups of our society. Reading that from 8 years after the fact, and watching it all be pretty much single handedly dismantled by Trump and Musk made me heart sick.

Overall though, an excellent read that I found accessible and would strongly recommend to just about anybody.